Perhaps the most surprising part about Don Cherry’s firing from Coach’s Corner on Monday is not that happened, but that it didn’t happen sooner.
After all, the 85-year-old Kingston native built a career out of saying things that would have gotten the average person in hot water. Despite his guise as a hockey commentator, his role was to be opinionated, loud and, in more ways than one, colourful. Whether he was right or not didn’t really matter.
But it was Saturday’s segment that proved to be the final straw, his now infamous rant against ‘you people…that come here, you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey, at least you can pay a couple bucks for a poppy.’ As has been pointed out many times since the segment, Canadian soldiers teamed with several nations to help defeat the Axis, Nazi and terrorists organizations in countless military campaigns over the years. Cherry’s comment left some ambiguity as to which particular group he meant by ‘you people’. However it was abundantly clear the group included those not born in Canada. In a country that prides itself on its inclusion of all religions and ethnicities, Cherry’s comments were tone deaf. While money raised from the sale of poppies go towards a great cause, wearing one isn’t the only way to honour veterans. That residents of a particular neighbourhood weren’t wearing one when Cherry happened to be passing through doesn’t make them any less Canadian.
Those quick to defend Cherry’s right to free speech are missing the point as well. Unless he were facing threat of jail time for comments he made-which he isn’t-then Cherry’s rights have not been violated. Free speech doesn’t protect employees from being fired by employers who deem their comments to be detrimental to business or their public image. Cherry had a powerful platform, appearing on televisions coast-to-coast every week during the NHL season. Given that Canada’s Broadcast Standards Council website was reportedly ‘overwhelmed’ with complaints following Cherry’s comments, it’s not too surprising Rogers decided it was time to find a new coach for their corner. Since his firing, various clips have circulated online of the many times Cherry has been ‘offside’, whether he was poking fun at stereotypes towards the LGBQT community, female hockey fans or players who were born outside of Canada.
Despite these clips being in CBC’s broadcast library, they still nominated him for a 2004 series known as The Greatest Canadian, where he was pitted against the likes of Terry Fox, Tommy Douglas, Sir Frederick Banting and Lester B. Pearson. Times have changed over the last 30 years when those comments would have been tolerated. Cherry proved Saturday he was still stuck in the past and like any coach that refuses to adapt, it cost him his job.
-Adam Prudhomme