Self proclaimed hockey icon Don Cherry is eating his words after another outburst of dialogue that left him looking more like a clown than he visually appears to be on a nightly basis. Cherry decided to call out a few former NHL fighters in the wake of the sad and unfortunate deaths of three recent NHL tough-guys. Stu Grimson, Chris Nilan and Jim Thomson were singled out by Cherry in the slamming.
Rick Rypien, Wade Belak, and Derek Boogaard tragically passed away over the off-season, adding to the hockey world’s saddest and most somber summer that we have ever known.
Last Thursday Don Cherry had some unfortunate, unreasonable, and un-factual things to say about a few former players in the National Hockey league regarding the incidents. Cherry would single out three individuals who made a career as tough guys in the NHL, and somehow arrogantly try to link them in some way shape or form to the deaths suffered over the off-season.
"You people that are against fighting, you should be ashamed of yourselves," The flamboyant, washed up character stated – arms waiving about. "You took advantage of that to make your point on fighting. You should be ashamed of yourself for doing something like that."
His intentions were derived from what he thought to be a factor in the depression issue involving the players’ deaths due to three former players’ personal push to eliminate fighting from the game – therefore rendering current tough guy’s jobs invalid in the NHL. His assertion of what the outside life of a tough-guy must be also came in the form of assuming it must involve drugs and alcohol due to one’s position in the game.
What he didn’t process through his narrow mind is the fact that pure fighters have already been eliminated in the National Hockey League through changes made in the game, and the great youth movement since the lockout. Tough guys these days also have skill sets.
"The ones that I am really disgusted with ... are the bunch of pukes that fought before: Stu Grimson, Chris Nilan and Jim Thomson. (They say) 'Oh, the reason that they're drinking, (taking) drugs and alcoholics is because they're fighting.' You turncoats. You hypocrites," Cherry said.
"If there's one thing I'm not it's a hypocrite. You guys were fighters, and now you don't want guys to make the same living you did."
For anyone to correlate or blame one’s death on somebody else weather they had an effect on that person’s life or not is just moronic. Cherry had no right to direct those thoughts or emotions on people that have in fact struggled with depression of their own.
The sad fact is that anyone even heard Cherry’s meaningless blab. Don Cherry gets attention because the hockey media, NHL, and Canadian franchises (namely CBC) give it to him. Don Cherry was once a hockey mind full of insight and enthusiasm, but for many years repeatedly he has been nothing but a waste of space. Don Cherry is a clown, and he dresses like one.
There are legitimate and intelligent hockey minds out there. Look at Bob McKenzie, James Duthie, Kevin Weekes, Craig Button, Brian Engblom .. the list truly goes on and on, and instead, this mindless nonsense is plastered on my television set between periods of Canadian games that I want to watch.
All three players that Cherry singled out appeared on Canada’s ‘Off The Record’ to dispute Cherry’s accusations.
"I don't think you should get rid of fighting," said Nilan.
"Although I do think there's a contradiction there with what the NHL is doing," he said commenting on the league's recent crackdown on headshots.
"Is it because fighters are less important to the NHL that it's okay to get punched in the head but when it comes down to hitting someone with the shoulder in the head or an elbow it's no good?" he asked.
Nilan also went for the throat on Cherry.
"I'm offended myself and I've never, ever attributed my problem, drugs and alcohol, with the fact that I played the role of enforcer for all those years," explained Nilan. "I've never said that it was in any way intertwined with the deaths of those three guys, which is three very separate incidents."
Former tough-guy Stu Grimson also stood up for himself, denying ever having said fighting should be eliminated, and challenged Cherry to prove he did so. Grimson was of hockey's golden era of fighters as he had epic, bloody battles with Bob Probert, Rob Ray, Peter Worrell, Krzysztof Oliwa, Rocky Thompson, and many others. "The role of the enforcer in the NHL that's a hard role to play, that's a hard job to do," said Grimson. "It might be the toughest in all of pro sports, but simply because it's a hard job doesn't mean we do away with it."
"I challenge Don to point to the news article - or any other kind of journalism - where that comment is attributed to me," continued Grimson. "Nothing could be further from the truth. If you're going to say things like that on national television, show me the article where Chris (Nilan) or I said something like that. And if you can't prove that, let's hear an apology from Don...because that's pretty strong language, pretty offensive language. I'm awfully offended"
Opposite from Grimson and Nilan, Thompson believes that there is no place for fighting in hockey.
"I've been saying it for three years," he said. "That's how I got into this lifestyle of living the wrong way with drugs and alcohol."
"What I'm saying to Don Cherry is that if we're going to protect the kids from themselves, let's take the violence out."
Thompson may want fighting out, but took great exception to Cherry’s accusations of hypocrisy and blame.
“He's the hypocrite," said Thomson. "You have no idea the dark nights I stayed there being addicted to drugs and alcohol. I will tell you personally for me that the role of an enforcer brought me to that."
Thompson’s opinions are his own, everyone has them. What Thompson speaks of is his own experiences with substance abuse, and what his scapegoat for his problems was; the enforcer role. While I don’t agree that being an enforcer generally drives one to substance abuse in the least, it is Thompson’s opinion, and Thompson’s experience exclusively.
Nilan, while speaking on TSN Radio 1050's Bryan Hayes, spoke out against Cherry’s allegations, someone that he had considered a friend.
"The National Hockey League has made it very difficult for fighters to fight these days. There's a temperance movement. I believe the NHL wants fighting out of the game...I said, if they really want fighting out of the game, they should take it out of the game."
"I don't believe that ... I have no problem whatsoever with two guys dropping their gloves, responding to a challenge from one of the guys, or a teammate responding to something that happened to one of his teammates ... I don't believe they should take fighting out."
Now the three are looking into further recourse against Cherry. The three issued a joint statement Tuesday that described Cherry’s comments "damaging and inflammatory" and his attempts to qualify them "entirely ineffectual."
"We're considering all alternatives including legal recourse, of course, given the nature of Don's comments," Grimson, who currently practices law in the United States told The Canadian Press on Tuesday.
"We are curious to know what remedies we have, if any, under the law probably in Canada simply because that's where most of these events took place. We're just at a preliminary stage right now investigating things like that."
"Part of the irony in all this and some of what this group finds most objectionable is, Don Cherry has made a pretty handsome living doing 'Rock'em Sock'em' videos featuring like guys like Jim Thomson, Chris Nilan and Stu Grimson and then at a future moment in time, when we no longer serve his monetary purposes, he elects to toss us under the bus simply because one or two in our group happen to have a slightly different view than him on issues in this area," Grimson said.
"That's truly objectionable and you might even ask yourself 'Isn't that a little bit hypocritical?"'
Grimson seems to be leading a charge toward making Cherry swallow his words, and literally pay for them. Something I and many others would love to see Cherry and the CBC have to take.
"We wouldn't turn down an apology, but I don't know that that ends it then and there, given his comments and his befuddled attempt to qualify, clarify his comments," he explained. "I don't know that that would end it."
The simple truth is fighting doesn’t need to be eliminated from hockey; Don Cherry needs to be eliminated from hockey. These were young men that lived and breathed hockey, and they did what they did on the ice and assumed their roles because that’s what they wanted to do. The same goes for their deaths; it was a personal life-style choice or decision that they made and that is between themselves’, and themselves’ alone. They were sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers. This is something that Don Cherry will never see, his blindness to the sad reality of life is no better or worse than his inability to look in a mirror before going out in public.
You’re a puke, Cherry, you make me sick. And I cannot wait until the day that you don’t waste precious seconds of the game I love and the media stops giving you the attention you never deserved. By looking at you it is obvious you weren’t loved enough as a child, you’re certainly not loved now.
- Kendall Grubbs
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