CBC investigates Don Cherry

[Beep99]

Diane Adams......CBC honcho investigates remarks by Hockey NIght in Canada's Don Cherry over a remark he made this past weekend on Coach's Corner over the fact that the "only ones who wear visor's are european's and french guys".

THIS is something that should be investigated?...are you kidding me?

Not only is it dead on true but about 4,000,000,000 miles away from being racist as is the basis for this investigation stated by Adams.It was started over a complaint to the federal ombudsman by a group from British Columbia that calls itself "friends" of the french language.

Pretty sad when tax paying dollars are wasted to define 2 words...common sense.Hockey has slowly deterioted in the last decade to the point that it's not even fun to watch anymore.And this latest joke by a pathetic broadcasting network to even make this an issue is the antithesis of what has become laughable.Politically correct should stay exactly where it belongs...in politics....keep it out of sport...it doesnt need it and never has needed it.As far as this BC group is concerned....get a life.....you need one.LOng live Don Cherry and long live anyone that has the guts to stand up to people like these and stop wasting the taxpayers time and money with garbage like this.

[nugg3t]

i hate don cherry, i really do. it was taken a bit to serious, but i hope hes off the show. cuz i hate him.

but thats just me.

[Death By Sexy]

well put. i doubt that don cherry is a racist. he's just has the balls to say whats on his mind on national tv. more power to him. i think he's said worse things anyway. lol

[bayrider]

Beep: u got youre quote wrong man. Don Cherry said "they (visors) are for Europeans and French Canadians"... he didnt say that they wear them. And his comments were in regard to them as being wusses.

heres a good article on it from the Gazette... and IMO Don Cherry is the biggest peice of trash walking the face of the earth and he should be hung by barb wire from the CN Tower.

and it's not only "europeans and frenchmen" that wear visors (oddly enough look at the top scorers in the NHL, theyre either european/french or wear visors) but ALL MINOR LEAGE PLAYERS must wear a visor/helmet. So are they wusses too? If i am correct in understanding what Don Cherry is saying, and if i can make an assinine comment such as his then i guess it would be safe to assume that the reason these Europeans and Fr. Canadians are wearing visors are because american and english canadian players are swinging their sticks like barbarians and are only seeking the best protection for themselves?

JACK TODD

The Gazette

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

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The comment was pure Don Cherry and it was pure poison. "Visors," he said on our national network a week ago Saturday, "are for Europeans and Frenchmen."

I first heard of it a few days later when a Radio-Canada crew working the pressbox at the Bell Centre asked what I thought. Speaking in rather awkward fashion in our nation's other official language and without time to reflect, I said the comment was "almost racist."

I would now like to withdraw that statement: What Cherry said was not almost racist. It was racist, pure and simple. A slap in the face to one of Canada's two founding peoples, an insult to half the players in the league and, for good measure, a punishingly stupid argument in favour of more eye injuries in the National Hockey League.

If all bigotry stems from ignorance, then Cherry is as ignorant as they come, because what he was saying, in effect, was that players who wear visors are cowards and that only the cowardly Frenchmen and Europeans would wear one.

For a man who loves to glorify the military, Cherry betrayed an almost stunning ignorance of every battle from Austerlitz to Verdun to Dieppe - and here we are speaking only of the courage of French soldiers from both France and Quebec. Beyond that, he clearly has never heard of the Scandinavian berserkers who were once the scourge of Europe, the Battle of Poltava or the courage of the Finns in their fight against the Soviets at the beginning of the Second World War.

By now, of course, we have come to expect such ignorance from Cherry. But this time, he might finally come home to roost.

Some of the most intelligent and serious criticism of Cherry's comment has come from former Canadiens coach Jacques Demers. Demers normally sidesteps controversy, but this time he has waded right into a potentially explosive national debate.

In French in his column in Le Journal, in English on The Habs This Week and across the spectrum of his many media jobs in both official languages, Demers has called for Cherry to make a full public apology. Failing that, says Demers, the CBC should act at last and fire Cherry for bigotry.

As Demers points out, prominent public figures in the U.S. such as Al Campanis and Rush Limbaugh have been fired for less - but for reasons that are hard for the French-speaking minority in this country to understand, Cherry goes on and on.

Cherry is a strange animal. His first and most obvious motive is to make money and at that he has been highly successful. He doesn't care what you or I or the prime minister has to say about him, because he's laughing all the way to the bank.

I was reluctant to enter this fray, mostly because I have come to believe that for Cherry there is no such thing as bad publicity and that all we can do by criticizing him is to make him wealthier. As I said on Radio-Canada, I have long suspected that Cherry himself does not believe half of what he says; that a man who is old enough to know better, who has traveled a bit and been exposed to other cultures could not possibly be the bigoted, narrow-minded nincompoop that Cherry plays on Coach's Corner every Saturday night.

Unfortunately, if there is a brighter and more sensitive man buried in there somewhere, Cherry keeps him well-hidden. Of late, it seems, he has gotten worse and worse. Either he feels immune to reprisal from the CBC, or his fatuous opinions have such a grip on the man that he is determined to trot them out even if they cost him his job. Sadly, the comment about Frenchmen and Europeans was not at all out of character.

Obviously, the network recognizes that it has a problem on its hands. When the B.C. and Yukon branch of the Canadian parents for French makes a formal complaint in writing to the president of the CBC, it is obvious that Cherry is well on his way to becoming a contentious national issue.

The statement from the parents group also cited the pathetic Ron MacLean joke that has been going the rounds, when MacLean chose the opening of the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame in Parry Sound, of all places, to say that Cherry has nothing against French immersion: "He just figures they don't hold them down long enough."

The network's response, as reported in yesterday's Gazette, was wholly inadequate. CBC spokesperson Ruth-Ellen Soles said: "Don and Ron are there to comment about hockey and stick to hockey. The opinions are Don's and Ron's and not CBC's, and we don't agree with them."

Soles does not go nearly far enough. It is no longer sufficient for the CBC to say that it disagrees with the buffoon whose opinions it broadcasts coast to coast every Saturday night. It is time for Canada's national network to make it clear that some of those opinions are not merely repugnant but racist and intolerable, that nothing less than a full public apology will suffice and that failing that, Cherry's contract will be terminated immediately.

If the CBC will not act, then the public will have to act in its place. The people of this province, francophone and anglophone alike, should lead the way in demanding Cherry's removal. And if pressure on the network is not enough, it's time to strike where the network will feel it most - with a national boycott of the advertisers who sponsor Coach's Corner and Hockey Night in Canada.

Enough is enough. And when it comes to Canada's national embarrassment, we have seen enough.

jtodd@thegazette.canwest.com

? Copyright 2004 Montreal Gazette

Edited February 6, 2004 by bayrider

[Beep99]

funny isnt it that that article speaks of money......if it wasnt for the loans given to the quebec govt over the years not only by the federal govt but the provinces....(god knows how many MILLIONS Alberta has given Quebec in interest-free loans that they will NEVER get a penny back I may add)the french would be living in tar-paper shacks.Dont get me started on the political ramifications and past history of Quebec.....they've caused enough damage as it is in the past 30 years.

[Malechai Veteran]

everyone is far too PC and sensitive nowadays. all these people crying over cherry's comment (or janet jackson's boob for example) make me sick. when did the majority of the population turn into a bunch of big whiney babies?

/edit how about another example of sensitive PC stupidity?

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=138648&hl=

[BMac]

First off I've grown up watch Don Cherry and HNIC all my life. As I have become older and wiser my opinion on Don Cherry has changed significantly. I know recognize that Don Cherry is very opinionated analysist that knows very little about todays game. He's still living back in the day when he was a coach. He doesn't know the players of today nor the rule changes that have occured since his day. He is very old fashioned and quite pompous to watch on TV. I don't mind listening to a rant given by a knowledgable analysist now and then but, this is all Cherry does and it's a disgrace. He brings no insight to the game and is a waste of a first intermission every Saturday. I would much rather let Ron do the entire first intermission by himself.

[nugg3t]

everyone is far too PC and sensitive nowadays.  all these people crying over cherry's comment (or janet jackson's boob for example) make me sick. when did the majority of the population turn into a bunch of big whiney babies?

/edit how about another example of sensitive PC stupidity?

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=138648&hl=

Hey i dont think youd like to see a guy wip out his c0ck around the same time kids watch tv or the whole family enjoys a great game of football. what gives her the right to show one of her boob on television. oh shes a celebrity? well why didnt justin wip out ???

its just wrong. if id see a women on the streets showing a boob, id probably think she was crazy. same goes to janet jackson.

personnaly i dont really care and i know everyone is exagerating. but it doesnt mean she has the right to show her breast.