Steyn On Cherry

[Via Autonomous Source]

Mark Steyn has done an great article on the latest abuses Don Cherry is taking from the CBC. A couple of quotes:

And, of course, the dozy media are happy to support her sense of priorities. If “hurtfulness” is the issue, what about, say, the Americans? Rick Mercer has his own CBC show dedicated to the mockery of Americans. Hath not an American unvisored eyes? If you prick him, does he not bleed? Apparently not. A year ago, the robust pro-US “rant” that got Don Cherry into his last round of trouble was provoked by a Montreal crowd booing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the start of the game. Many Americans were “hurt” by that, but they don’t count. Nor would it be “hurtful” if one were to make generalizations about the English. Yanks and Brits are expected to grin and bear it. It’s the more sensitive identity groups than are in need of the metaphorical protective visors of government regulation and media disapproval. Which sort of proves Cherry's point, if not for hockey then for the wider world.

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At the risk of earning a second much-coveted "Zero Of The Week" award, I have to say I found his remarks about my silly meandering transcendental stupidity deeply "unnecessary" and “hurtful”. Arguably, my career has never recovered from them, at least to judge from the fact that Mr Todd now has a national newspaper forum and I do not. But, even if you’re unsympathetic to me and Messrs Ecclestone and Lasorda, isn’t the very idea of a “Zero Of The Week” award “hurtful”? One day Mr Todd might forget himself and make disparaging remarks about someone who falls into a more fashionable identity group than right-wing Canucks or millionaire Brits or pasta-slurping Americans and he could find himself in a whole big mess.

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As for the merits of the case, the question Cherry was addressing was a very interesting one: does an obsession with “safety” actually make you safer? A few weeks ago, I happened to be sitting at the Canadiens/Oilers game absent-mindedly staring at the huge banner of Jean Beliveau dangling down from the roof over the ice. What a beautiful portrait – the epitome of sporting grace. One reason it’s so graceful is that the picture has a face and hair and recognizably human proportions, unlike most of the guys zipping around beneath him. Don Cherry was a coach in the era when, as Colby Cosh puts it, “helmets went from oddity to necessity. He always resisted having them made mandatory, saying they would create more injuries than they prevented by encouraging careless play and dirty stickwork.” Twenty-five years on, head injuries in the NHL are now more common than knee injuries. Don Cherry was right.

Keep your head up Don.