Don Cherry is the hockey commentator well-bred CBC viewers love to hate. He's a leading apologist for old-style rock-em sock-em hockey as the game was meant to be played. Unfortunately his main soap-box is provided by the effete CBC in their weekly "Coach's Corner" segment.
CBC fans would much prefer a well-educated hockey commentator like Ken Dryden. He knows lots of big words and has a law degree and resides in the Canadian Senate. That's a CBC kind of hockey commentator.
Ken can be counted on to have a couple of major opinion pieces in the Globe or the Star every hockey season about how fighting ruins hockey etc. We all know the drill; it debilitates the skill players, it slows down the game, and blah blah blah all the way to the Kleenex box.
Oddly enough, you never see anybody leave the arena when a fight breaks out. Not even the CBC types.
But what's this? Is Don crossing over to the sensitive side? He's in all the papers today sticking up for Nazim Kadri, the first and only Islamic player in professional hockey.
And Don's criticism is aimed squarely at the management of the Toronto Maple Leafs, i.e. Brian Burke, another supposed stalwart of the old school.
What the hell is going on?
I agree with Don that Kadri hasn't gotten a fair shake from the Leafs. I'm just shocked to hear Don spell it out.
You need to go a step further, Don, and I know it's gonna be tough for you because you're an old school guy and a former coach and loyalty to the old boys fraternity means everything. But is it not painfully obvious that the problem in Toronto is Brian Burke?
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