From the Sports pages of the Calgary Herald

Love him or hate him, Don Cherry's got class.  (I love him and think he's hilarious)
Quit complaining about Don Cherry

The Stanley Cup playoffs are just around the corner — and you know what that means.



It’s time for that annual rite of spring: The self-righteous indignation and collective hand-wringing over Don Cherry and his mangling of the Queen’s English, among his other crimes against humanity and the easily offended.



It’s a funny thing — to borrow one of Grapes’ favoured and oft-used expressions. All this Cherry picking is not only misguided, it’s tiresome, lame, predictable and — sacre bleu! — so very Toronto.



If one were to go solely by what the sweethearts say about Hockey Night in Canada’s most — only? — colourful character, one could be forgiven for thinking Grapes is a drooling, knuckle-dragging troll who somehow clawed his way out of a cave somewhere on the Canadian Shield, leaving a trail of slobber and spittle as he dragged his way into that most holy of CBC shrines, the hockey broadcast centre. Installed in his corner, he sounds off with loud and reliable furor on the issues of the day, opposite that most earnest and righteous of hockey deans, Ron MacLean, even as CBC engineers tremble nervously over the kill switch.



Cherry’s crimes against humanity — including, but not limited to, his assertion late last year that newly elected Toronto Mayor Rob Ford would be the “greatest mayor this city has ever seen,” — take in a wide range of offences, his critics say, from his vocal support of “enforcement” on the ice, to his unwavering belief that Canadian hockey jobs should go to Canadians first, and non-Canadians second. That doesn’t make one un-Canadian, his argument goes.



“Protectionism” is not a word in Cherry’s vocabulary — “thinkin’ straight” is more like it — but neither is “philosophy.” He simply says what he feels, and tells it like it is, to his eyes. A pandering sap, he is not.



Grapes likes to keep it real, even when he knows it will get him into trouble. And it gets him into trouble a lot. The truth can hurt — unless, of course, one can’t or won’t hear the truth between the one-liners.



Grapes’ argument for keeping fighting in the game is, like most of his arguments, simple and basic: High-stick artists will take liberties with the game’s star players, unless there’s somebody on the ice with the burliness and brawn to show them the error of their ways. Wayne Gretzky was great, Grapes’ argument goes, but even Gretzky might not have become the Great One without Dave Semenko out there to keep “the other guys in line.”



Common sense is easily lost in the translation, whenever Cherry starts sounding off on such no-brainers as the need for no-touch icing; the real reason behind the game’s recent spate of concussions (players’ growing lack of respect for other players); the wonky safety glass in some hockey arenas (‘I tell you, one day, somebody’s gonna get killed”); stanchions that jut out onto the playing surface in some arenas (“I’m startin’ to sound like a broken record here, but somebody’s gonna get killed one of these days”); over-priced hockey equipment for middle-class families struggling to get by (“Now, you kids out there, you don’t really need that $3,000 pair of skates, just because your friend has them; give your mom and dad a break, OK?”); how only weenies, pinkos and the International Skating Federation call it “ice hockey”: and, perhaps, his most criminal offence of all, taking the time at the end of each Coach’s Corner to remember — and mention by name — those who’ve fallen in the service of their country in unknown, faraway fields.



Cherry’s penchant for loud suits and even louder ties makes him easy to ridicule, though even here he has a simple explanation: When he was younger, he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen, he attended a function for a friend and was badly underdressed for the occasion. He still remembers the hurt and embarrassment in his friend’s eye, and he vowed to overdress rather than underdress in future. It’s a rule he’s stuck to, ever since.


He may not always be right but he always, without fail, says what he believes, and says it with heart and conviction. It’s a rare trait, both on TV and in real life — especially during a federal election campaign that’s long on hot air and short on character.


Say what you will about Grapes, and many have said plenty, but it’s difficult not to like a guy who once riffed at MacLean: “A million comedians are starving to death and you’re trying to be one.” A guy who, following one particularly lousy game, remarked that the game’s three stars were, “No. 1, the Zamboni driver, No. 2, the usher and, No. 3, the guy selling popcorn.”


Or this more recent kernel of wisdom — this, remember, from a supposedly knuckle-dragging troll who glorifies hockey violence: “You can call it a cheap shot, blind shot, a late hit. You can call it what you want, but it should have been a suspension as far as I’m concerned. It’s unbelievable that that’s not a suspension. What it did was it gave meat to everybody that’s against the National Hockey League.”


As Grapes once said — and it had nothing to with his ratings, though it could have been: “I think the people, the working-man people, made a statement here, that you don’t have to be a college graduate to be a good Canadian.”


Oh, dear. That wouldn’t have gone down well with the liberals and sweethearts in a certain town near Lake Ontario.





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