Breaking The Cherry

Tonight, one of Canada's hockey broadcasting icons comes South, with a fanstastic opportunity to embarrass himself in front of a national audience.

Don Cherry will be an intermission guest host for NBC's coverage of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Ottawa, and this can only end badly.

For anyone who doesn't know, Cherry is the mouth that roars, every Saturday night during hockey season, for CBC's Hockey Night in Canada coverage. He's been plying his trade on TV for 20 years, following a wildly varying coaching career in the minors and NHL. He has a penchant for wearing loud or mismatching suits, impeccable grooming, and during each intermission's "Coach's Corner" segment, a proclivity for saying some of the most ridiculous statements in the history of the game.

On the one hand, he is revered for his working-class angle on the game. He loves hard skaters, energy players, guys not afraid to take and give beatings and keep going. He talks fondly about the culture of the game which springs from the heartland of Canada, on bitter Winter days on thousands of frozen ponds and rinks. He most often takes a traditionalist view towards rules, penalties, and both the attitudes and actions of players on and off the ice.

On the other hand, though, he is a living nightmare. Knowing that television is based on ratings, Cherry often goes for the outrageous, the inciteful, the spiteful, and the hateful if it will draw attention to either himself, the broadcast, or the league. He has railed in the past about the European style of play, the greediness of players with respect to salary, agents, league GM's, Gary Bettman, the lack of respect between players with respect to penalties of the stick, the relative impotence of the officiating system, and last but not least, French Canadians.

He's considered a cultural icon, sort of the elder statesman/storyteller of the village for the hockey-mad nation. So, it's not too hard to see how Canadians can dismiss his seemingly back-water, ignorant, or bigoted opinions, as long as he keeps the fire of the old days true to his heart and to his treatment of the sport. It's a hard line to tread since Canada, for it's population of 30 million, is a far more ethnically diverse nation than the U.S. He's drawn ire across the Dominion before, with at least one comment per year drawing heated criticism and discussion. However, that's Canada. Ten percent of the population of the United States, and one-hundredth the media outlets.

When Cherry steps into the spotlight with his clown costume and his smug sense of security which comes with his fame, he may find the heat of the glow too much to bear. If he's restrained, it's because certain people have gotten to him prior to broadcast, with compelling arguments as to why he wouldn't want to come across as too brash lest he sully NBC's reputation for a floundering sport. In that case, he's just another empty suit reading from the cue cards, and his knowledge, insight, and personality will be muted and rendered ineffective. If he's as usual, it is almost guaranteed that something will pass his lips that someone will take umbrage with, because a distinguishing mark of his shtick is to play to the heart of the secretly angry and bigoted fan, invert it, and turn those words into a can't-miss-moment.

If this comes to pass, there's no doubt that America's 24-hour news machine will eat him up and spit him out, endlessly parsing the wrong word or phrase that strikes at the heart of our PC sensibilities. Then, the floodgates will be opened to just how backward and floundering the NHL is, letting this doddering, bellicose old fool loose on the airwaves. Who knows? Maybe Cherry would make the circuit with Don Imus as his fervent supporter creating a double act unrivalled in a network talk show producer's dream.

NBC has arranged a shotgun marriage by bringing Cherry down here and exposing him to a bigger audience. Let's hope he doesn't say something which allows the itchy man behind the gun to pull the trigger.