Donald Stewart Cherry's legendary status in Canada was met with little criticism over much of his career within the sports community. From his coaching career, to his Rock'em Sock'em videos and even into the greater part of his Coaches’ Corner segment on Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC). Don Cherry was revered as a Canadian icon. Every Canadian knew of "Grapes" and his bull terrier (Blue). To this day he has a massive following who still view Don as a beloved Canadian.
Over the past two decades, however, the 86-year-old broadcaster struck a divisive crack through the foundation of the hearts of many sports fan's, athletes alike and the media who covered him. He has been making the same belligerent remarks that have been fueled with prejudice and bigotry yet masked with patriotism from the beginning. The most telling difference during this era was that his charm was sinking and the bitterness was now highlighting his words.
Cherry threw shade at Europeans and French Canadians all the time for wearing protective visors on their helmets arguing that they are more reckless with their sticks when wearing one. Europeans do not back check and they dive to draw penalties, he claims. Often poking fun of Swedish player's surnames and blaming them for taking the jobs from hard working Canadian born players. He criticized the shift the NHL was on from a slower heavy hitting "tough" style to a more skill driven, fast paced (European) game and repeatedly defended fighting's place in hockey. Time and again he has accused superstars of celebrating too hard after scoring goals, renaming their passion and excitement "hot dogging".
Using his sports platform to promote political views he lashed out on air to anyone who felt differently. He would say that he is more pro Canadian than anti Soviet/Swede. He was an unwavering supporter of the war in Iraq, and a climate change denier. In 2008 on HNIC he described environmentalist David Suzuki a "left-wing kook". In 2004 Don Cherry was voted the 7th greatest Canadian on a program that aired on CBC. It just so happens David Suzuki ranked 5th. Sorry Don, that's how the nature of things play out ;)
During the 2010 Toronto mayoral race Don Cherry endorsed the front runner Rob Ford stating, "he's going to be the greatest mayor the city has ever, ever seen as far as I'm concerned! And put that in your pipe, you left-wing kooks." I guess that is one of Don's favourite disses. Ironically, Rob Ford found himself in the thick of a global substance abuse scandal after two separate videos of Ford leaked to the press where he is seen smoking crack cocaine during his time as mayor. Perhaps the mayor mishandled Cherry's suggestion.
The mounting criticism of Cherry's on-air remarks reached a verdict when he was fired from HNIC for his disapproval of Canadian immigrants, who he noticed, were not honouring veterans and fallen soldiers. He underlined how he wasn't seeing enough immigrants wearing poppies a couple days before Remembrance Day in a distasteful rant which flooded the Canadian Broadcast Standard Council with so many complaints they had to ask to viewers to stop sending anymore as their system was overwhelmed.
Apologies on the matter surfaced from the network (Rogers Sportsnet) and co-host Ron McLean, but Don Cherry decided to double down on his words stating that he had no regrets, although after his sacking he said that he wished he said "everybody" instead of "you people". It took 2 days for Rogers Sportsnet to announce the termination which indicates they were working with Cherry on a solution to the matter, the details of that are unclear. However, what is evident is that Cherry had no real desire to walk his words back or to make an apology. There seemed to be no willingness to unstuck himself from the hateful words he cemented.
One of the biggest questions raised after Cherry was let go was why not sooner? Canada is a truly diverse country and that shines through in the hockey community on a national stage with broadcasts like Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi. It was quite surprising that Rogers brought Don along when they purchased the rights to CBC's HNIC back in 2012 which gave them full controls over content, on air talent and creative direction. Marketing strategist and president of Toronto based Rain43 John Yorke cited in an interview with BNN Bloomberg that Cherry does not resonate with young hockey players and that there's an opportunity to reinvent hockey now on how its positioned with a younger more diverse demographic.