Seated next to Don Cherry is Ron MacLean. Watch MacLean for five minutes and you just know the guy is a walking encyclopedia of hockey knowledge. Not to mention, from stories and books I've read, he's also the more approachable one of the two. Coincidentally, he's also the lesser paid.
Don Cherry is notorious for going off topic, ranting and raving about anything but hockey. He is, on a similar note, known for doing just the same about a specific athlete or team. In Sid's rookie season Cherry was never short to say with utmost sincerity that he felt Crosby was taking dives. He even went on to say how much of a baby Crosby was. Although in some instances it's hard to say Sid wasn't going for an Oscar, there were also many times when high-sticking calls went uncalled. All arguments aside, Cherry just loves to be right.
And so this brings me to a recent edition of Hockey Night in Canada. In last night's airing, Don Cherry explained how he felt Chris Simon's stomp on Jarkko Ruutu was justified because he "asked for it" and "got it."
In fact, Cherry had a meltdown on television. Even MacLean got to a point where he threw his arms in the air, rolled his eyes and said without saying, "Please get me off the air with this guy." Whenever MacLean would make a sensible hockey argument I.E. Explaining how Cherry had no knowledge to suspect the Islanders' Ted Nolan of trying to undermine his former Buffalo Sabres club. With that, Cherry wanted to end the segment two minutes sooner than planned.
Cherry was quoted as saying, "You ruined the whole thing." Too bad he feels MacLean can't impose his own views. If the show operated in a non-biased reporting sense, then Cherry wouldn't get a word out.
About a week about, Hockey Night in Canada ran a special on Boston's Andrew Ference. (You may remember him from Sid's first fight.) Regardless, the special was not on Ferrence's play on fighting abilities, but instead on his humanitarian work with children in developing countries during the off-season. Rather than condone Ference for his actions that continue to give hockey a good reputation, Cherry said, "“That was sickening last week by the way."
MacLean, clearly caught in the middle of a Cherry's bi-polar world replied with a confused “What? What is going on with you here?”
“What is this stuff?” Cherry asked. “It's Hockey Night in Canada. And we're talking about saving the world and all that stuff. Let's talk about hockey.”
Funny...take a look at this picture and ask me if the guy can talk non-biased, fact driven hockey.
Didn't think so.
Read the entire article about Don Cherry's BS antics here
And if you ever doubted how Cherry loves to turn the conversation towards him and hog all of the attention, here is a good example. In addition to how he loves to stand by his nonsensical words, this clip followed insults he made on Russian National hockey.
