The folks at CBC Radio Noon Quebec in Montreal asked me to weigh in Wednesday on whether or not Don Cherry should be awarded the Order of Canada. Ontario premier Doug Ford and others are calling for this. Shawn Apel was the radio host; you can hear our exchange here.
I have to admit I do feel conflicted about this. I’ve interviewed Cherry, now 92, several times over the years, both at TV Guide and when I was the TV columnist at The Toronto Sun. For many years the former NHL coach was the biggest TV star in Canada. Close to two million viewers would watch him and desk mate Ron MacLean on Coach’s Corner Saturday nights during the NHL season.
Viewers tuned in to the segment — sometimes more viewers than watched the game — because he might say anything. Cherry was as loud as his suits, and would let it rip, calling it the way he saw it. For many years, most hockey fans loved it.
Off screen, the Cherry I interviewed was almost shy and never bombastic. He was a genuine and devoted supporter of Canadian soldiers. He signed an autograph to my late father Ross Brioux, a member of the Canadian Provost corps in WWII, “To a great Canadian.”
“Grapes” also studied the history of warfare and could give a lecture on famous generals and their battles. He also loved talking with me about his Lincoln Continental Mark V from the late ’70s or early ’80s. At one time he had two of them.
There’s an old saying: “When people show you who they are, belive them.” Cherry showed two sides depending whether the cameras were off or on. Either way, you believed him — which is where the Order of Canada thing becomes problematic.
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Now retired from even his podcast, the public Cherry was, as Donald Trump might say, “great television.” The Hockey Night in Canada producer who hired him, Ralph Mellanby, told him to never take any lessons when it came to broadcasting. He was born to be his outspoken self on the air.
Many of us watched and chuckled at first when he would dismiss european players as “chicken Swedes” and put down french Canadian stars as “visor wearers.” As I said on the radio with Apel, Don was probably still bitter at the Canadiens and Guy Lafleur for torpedoing his Boston Bruins at playoff time.
In any event, the name calling kept happening. CBC executives surely winced but as long as the ratings held, the dog whistle phrases continued without consequence.
A 2004 poll asking to rank the greatest Canadians extended Cherry’s TV career when he finished seventh, behind such national heroes as Tommy Douglas and Terry Fox. A year earlier, on Coach’s Corner, Cherry got political, calling out then prime minister Jean Chretien for not supporting US president George Bush’s call to arms in the US war on Iraq. Would Cherry today rail against PM Mark Carney’s decision not to support Trump’s unsanctioned war on Iran? Remember, Cherry came out in support of Trump in the 2020 US election.
Cherry never did tone down his act. In 2010, in the Toronto City counsil chambers, he placed the chain of office around Doug Ford’s neck and lashed out at the “pinkos” and “left wing kooks” in the back benches. I stand behind Cherry’s right to say what he thinks and feels any where, at any time. That is a freedom hard won by the soldiers to whom we all owe thanks. But if you were going to campaign to get thrown off HNiC — a fate Cherry always predicted would eventually happen — this was how to do it.
Same if you were going to campaign to never get the Order of Canada.
By 2019, Cherry was working for Rogers/Sportsnet. It wasn’t the bleeding heart tree huggers, as he might call them, at CBC who got him, it was the bean counters at the private network. With the NHL expanding and growing stateside and more and more european and American players in the league, he was playing to the wrong consumers. When he used the phrase “you people” who come here to enjoy our “milk and honey” to describe non-poppy buyers, the broadcast companies who play to a much more multicultural room pounced. Even the Canadian Legion said enough.
On Wednesday’s radio interview, Apel played a few clips of Cherry in full fury from past HNiC exchanges. They sounded wildly over the top today. In my opinion, had he said some of those things last Saturday on HNiC, there would be no groundswell to award him the Order of Canada. The passage of time, and Cherry’s advanced age, evidentally puts Grapes in a rose-coloured rear view mirror.
Besides, I think he’d much rather have a Stanley Cup ring than an Order of Canada pin.
One last thing: while I feel some pride seeing these pins on beloved performers such as Martin Short or Eugene Levy, should we be dishing out so many of these honours? The most recent pin-fest by the Governor General saw 80 of these beauties distributed as if they were, well, poppies. A colourful music journalist named Nardwuar the Human Serviette was among the 2025 receipients.
A few years ago, I was invited to join a panel of experts around a table on an episode of a Vision TV current affairs show. When I looked around at the five other gentlemen, I realized that me and the host were the only two who did not have Order of Canada pins — and his was taken away from him!
