Don Cherry n'affecte pas Ovechkin

[ToxiK]

Même le National Post commence à trouver que Don Cherry a fait son temps:

 

 

http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/story.html?id=1345967

 

 

Cherry's act beginning to show its age

Bruce Arthur, National Post

Published: Monday, March 02, 2009

 

 

Don Cherry has now been brightening - or darkening, depending on how you feel about him - our collective Saturday nights for nearly 30 years. That means he has been railing against ghosts real and imagined since just after the advent of the National Energy Program. The transition from straight-talkin' sensation to walking caricature has been, in some eyes, slow in coming. But make no mistake: it's here.

 

Cherry's latest stab at the spotlight came on Saturday's edition of Hockey Night in Canada, during an extended demonstration of his antediluvian world view. We all know how Don Cherry feels about things, if only because he's been shouting his opinions at us for three decades. But the act is getting tired. Tired, and worse.

 

It was difficult to keep track of all of the 75-year-old's wrongheaded statements Saturday; like snowflakes in a storm, they just kept coming. Attendance woes in Detroit? Oh, that is due to the style of play by the European-dominated Red Wings, according to Cherry. If there were goons on the roster, the Joe would be full.

 

"Who wants to go? They want [Joey] Kocur, [bob] Probert!" Cherry railed. He also asserted that the University of Michigan, the Lions, Pistons and Tigers were all selling out while Joe Louis sat half-empty for the jersey retirement of Steve Yzerman, and said, "Don't give me, ‘It's the economy.' "

 

Don: It's the economy. The Red Wings sold out every game from Dec. 10, 1996 to April 12, 2007. Probert last played for the Wings in 1994; Kocur played parts of three seasons from 1996-99. Presumably, the eight years of sellouts that followed must have been propelled by the memories of fighting past.

 

In fact, Michigan is the ground zero for America's economic collapse, and for the most part has held the highest unemployment rate of any state since ... oh, about the last three years. Quite the coincidence, that. The other sports have been hurt as well: the Pistons' sellout streak was snapped at 259 earlier this season, while the Lions had several home games blacked out on local TV last season. And while unemployment hit 10.6% in December, the Wings are playing to 98.7% capacity so far this year.

 

But what of Alexander Ovechkin, the most entertaining man in hockey? Just as he hijacked the headlines by criticizing the youthful exuberance of Sidney Crosby a few years back, Cherry ripped into the Washington Capitals star, who is apparently far too entertaining for hockey. My, my.

 

"I am predicting somebody's going to get him, and somebody's going to get him good," Cherry warned. "There's somebody out there, some big defenceman is going to be sitting in the weeds as he cuts across centre ice, somebody's going to cut him in half."

 

Maybe so; Ovechkin's enthusiastic brilliance might offend some of the players he has embarrassed, or the ones he has hit. But then, the NHL has become a league where delivering a big, clean hit can force you into a fight; Ovechkin might leave his feet at times, but even if he didn't, some prideful player might decide to fight him anyway.

 

But it was the way Cherry presented his case that left the usual sour taste. Besides the usual anti-European bile - which should perhaps be toned down after Cherry's attempt to build a junior team in Mississauga without Europeans back in 1999, resulting in a team that won 16 games in three seasons - Cherry showed a montage of soccer players celebrating, and as it showed a group of four enthusiastic black players dancing close to the camera, Cherry said, "Now watch this, look at this - this is what we want our hockey players to act like?"

 

The charge of racism has been thrown at Cherry over his treatment of Europeans and Francophone Canadians, but because those aren't traditionally identifiable minorities, the charges don't seem to stick. But intentionally or not, this looked for all the world like a more familiar brand of racism.

 

Then there was the fighting thing. At one point, Cherry barked out, "Don't you Canadian kids act like [Ovechkin], act like [Edmonton defenceman] Jason Strudwick." The clip then showed two Strudwick fights, and one Strudwick goal.

 

Early last month, Maclean's magazine brilliantly exposed Cherry's distortion of the position of Michael Sanderson, father of Don Sanderson, the senior league player who died after hitting his head on the ice in a fight. After attending the funeral, Cherry made it sound like Michael Sanderson was a staunch supporter of fighting, because he was "a hockey guy." In the magazine, Sanderson said he would love to see fighting banned, and of Cherry said, "He said we sat there like we were buddies [at the funeral]. I'm like, ‘No we didn't.' "

 

Cherry has done a lot of good for hockey, and for charity, and for the CBC's bottom line. But popularity aside, Don Cherry has almost become the George W. Bush of hockey: Ignorant, ideological, dismissive of the facts, governed by his gut. The crotchety grandfather act can still be fun, but overall, the CBC looks worse every year for his presence.

 

"Don't act like this goof; this is goofy stuff," boomed Cherry, on Ovechkin. "And the same guys that think this is entertainment, last year thought [sean] Avery was entertainment. You know what? It's the same church, different pew. It's the same junk."

 

Bless Don Cherry for all his good deeds, but he could have been talking about himself. It has become a sad act, this one, in its old age. Earlier in the segment, Cherry proclaimed that "what I try to do is to teach the kids the Canadian way." What a depressing thought.

 

National Post

 

barthur@nationalpost.com