Don Cherry (ice hockey player)

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CanadaCanada  Don Cherry Ice hockey player
Don Cherry
Date of birth February 5, 1934
place of birth Kingston , Ontario , Canada
Nickname Grapes
size 180 cm
Weight 82 kg
position defender
Shot hand Left
Career stations
1951-1952 Windsor Spitfires
1952-1954 Barrie Flyers
1954-1957 Hershey Bears
1957-1960 Springfield Indians
1960 Trois-Rivières Lions
1960-1961 Kitchener-Waterloo Beavers
1961–1962 Sudbury Wolves
1962-1963 Spokane Comets
1963-1968 Rochester Americans
1968 Vancouver Canucks
1968-1969 Rochester Americans
1971-1972 Rochester Americans

Donald Stewart "Don" Cherry (born February 5, 1934 in Kingston, Ontario ) is a retired Canadian ice hockey player and coach . From 1986 to 2019, he moderated Coach’s Corner together with Ron MacLean , a format as part of the Hockey Night in Canada, which is very popular in Canada .

Career as a player

Don Cherry (left) with co-host Ron MacLean in 2002

1951 Don Cherry began his career in the Canadian Junior League OHA with the Windsor Spitfires , but in the same year he moved within the league to the Barrie Flyers . In 1953 he won the Memorial Cup with these . In 1954 he switched to the pros and played for the Hershey Bears in the AHL . In the playoffs of the 1954/55 season he came for the Boston Bruins for his only use in the NHL . In the following years he played for several teams in the lower leagues AHL, EPHL , CPHL and WHL . The longest he was with the Rochester Americans in the AHL, from 1963 to 1969. He temporarily ended his career, but returned in 1971 for 19 games to the Rochester Americans before he took over the coaching office there mid-season.

Achievements and Awards

Career as a coach

Under Cherry's leadership, the Americans were able to reach the playoffs again, and he received the 1974 Louis AR Pieri Memorial Award for best coach in the AHL. The Boston Bruins then signed him as head coach. Cherry made a name for himself with his eccentric demeanor and the restructuring of the team. Under his leadership, the Bruins were considered one of the toughest teams in the league, with which they also had success. In 1976 Cherry was honored with the Jack Adams Award for the NHL's best coach. In 1977 and 1978 , the team reached the Stanley Cup finals, where they failed both times against the Montreal Canadiens . In the 1979 semifinals, the Bruins met again on Montréal. In the seventh and crucial game of the series, Boston led 3-2 with two minutes remaining when a penalty was awarded to Boston for having too many players on the ice. Montréal used the power play to equalize and won the game in extra time. Cherry was then released.

In the fall of 1979 he had a new job with the Colorado Rockies . The team had only existed for five years and was known for its sporting and financial failures. Cherry was also unable to free the Rockies from the crisis, and the team finished last with just 19 wins in 80 games at the end of the 1979/80 season . The Rockies released Cherry after just a year.

While Cherry was the assistant coach of the Canadian national team at the Canada Cup in 1976 , he was the head coach of the team at the 1981 ice hockey world championship . After that, he didn't train a team for a long time.

In 2001, Cherry returned behind the gang for a year. He took over the coaching position with the Mississauga IceDogs in the Canadian Junior League OHL . Cherry was also the owner of the unsuccessful team at this point, which had only achieved 16 wins in 204 games in the previous three years. Under Cherry's leadership, the IceDogs could only improve a little and won eleven games. Cherry then gave up the coaching position.

Achievements and Awards

Career in television

After Cherry could not qualify for the playoffs with the Colorado Rockies in 1980, the Canadian television broadcaster CBC hired him as an expert for the transmission of the playoff games. In 1981 he became a co-commentator, but since he was often partial, his task did not last long. Instead, the broadcaster created Coach's Corner , a roughly 15-minute program that is broadcast during the broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada during the break after the first third of the game. Together with Ron MacLean, Cherry analyzes the current game, individual players and discusses current NHL issues, but also expresses himself on political issues. Cherry often attracts attention through controversial comments. He is mostly critical of European and Franco-Canadian players and is an advocate of the "old" ice hockey sport with a physically aggressive style of play. He also showed himself to be a supporter of the Iraq war on his show .

During the final series of the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2007 he made his debut in the American television when he was a match for NBC analyzed.

His trademarks include sayings like “All you kids out there ...” , his colorful and mostly bizarre suits, his Bull Terrier Blue and that he doesn't mince his words . Since his first appearance on CBC in the early 1980s, Don Cherry has become a cult figure among Canadian audiences.

On November 11, 2019, it was announced that the broadcaster Sportsnet had ended its cooperation with Cherry after it had expressed criticism of immigrants who, according to his observation, enjoyed life in Canada but did not pay tribute to the Canadian soldiers. For these statements he was criticized by the NHL and the broadcaster apologized for his statements. However, Cherry refused to apologize.

Others

  • Don Cherry also had a few appearances as an actor and voice actor. In the Canadian television series Power Play he took on the role of an ice hockey coach and lent his voice to a character in the animated film Wild animal .
  • In 2004, Canadian television viewers voted for the most important Canadians on the CBC program The Greatest Canadian . Cherry finished in seventh place and was even better placed than ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky , who was tenth.
  • In March 2010, his life was filmed in a two-part television film by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , "Keep Your Head Up, Kid: The Don Cherry Story", based on a screenplay by Don Cherry's son, Timothy Cherry.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 'I MEANT IT': Don Cherry fired over controversial poppy comment. Toronto Sun, November 12, 2019, accessed November 12, 2019 .
  2. ↑ 'I don't regret a thing': Don Cherry speaks out on his firing and Ron MacLean. CTV News, accessed November 12, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Cherry, Don
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cherry, Donald Stewart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian ice hockey player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Kingston, Ontario