Don Cherry Is Gone But His Influence Lives On At HNIC

"The criteria has to be that the players are involved in the play. "You can't have that whistle-drop thing. That’s the staged fight.”  Minnesota GM Doug Risebrough on banning staged fights n 2009

For those of you who dreamt that the purging of Don Cherry might drag Hockey Night In Canada into the 21st century, sad news. Your grandfather’s TV program is still pounding the same fighting drums it always did when Grapes was the Grand PoohBah of the sport.

Item: Calgary and Winnipeg staged a fight at puck drop for Game 5 of their play-in series in Edmonton. Noted Flames thug Milan Lucic dropped his gloves and went searching for Nathan Beaulieu of the Jets. After the requisite exchange of punches the pair were assessed major penalties. (Five minutes. That’s how the NHL diligently  fights brain injuries.)

HNIC analyst Louis DeBrusk then vomited the usual bromides about guys being keyed up and ready to go. After admitting that the fight “was the tone (Flames coach) Geoff Ward wanted to start the game with”, DeBrusk then reversed course, saying he didn’t see it coming. “This is a rough sport,” he concluded before praising Lucic for not pounding the daylights out of the smaller Beaulieu. Uh… okay.

Despite iso shots of coaches Ward (Calgary) and Paul Maurice (Winnipeg) behind the benches there wasn’t a peep about the issue of staged fights. The notion from Ward, who likes his truculence, that starting Lucic wasn’t a prelude to a fight is preposterous. Particularly in a series where a hit from Flames’ Matthew Tkachuk had put Jets star Mark Schieffele out for the season.

Wasn’t it a while ago that the NHL moved to eliminate staged fights? But crickets from the boys in the booth. Surely someone at intermission would address the Slap Shot stunt and the GMs’ attempts to end it in 2009?

Sorry. “Analysts” Cassie Campbell and Kevin Bieksa saw nobility in the nonsense, congratulating Lucic for not taking another punch at the vulnerable Beaulieu. Campbell, whose own sport of women’s hockey forbids fights,  was A-OK with the coaching tactic of letting a fight motivate players. Somewhere Don must’ve been saying, “Atta’ girl, Cassie”. 

Maybe the journalist on the panel, Elliotte Friedman, would inject a note of sanity? Sorry, Pappy Yokum was not asked for comment. 

HNIC could ask why the league that claims to be concerned about injuries still allows fighting, 20-foot charges at players trapped along the boards, hacking star players (translation: Elias Petterson) away from the action, etc. You can’t get blood from a stone, but you can get blood from a skilled player. 

We’ll accept that Rogers, which produces this pap, is under pressure from the NHL in these extraordinary times to see no evil/ speak no evil. Protecting the product etc. But returning the coverage of the game to the 1980s? Really? Brian Burke is the way forward?

Then there’s the other Rogers elephant dining out in the studio. While almost every Western democracy has decided to distance itself from Chinese communications giant Huawei, Rogers is still clinging tightly to the pariah corporation. Huawei ads continue to dot the broadcast, even as other nations have decided to deep-six the controversial firm, which is alleged to be using its footprint in Canada to gather data on Canadians.

Everyone knows that Rogers is in dire straits trying to pay off the NHL for its exclusive $5.2 billion Canadian TV rights deal signed in 2013. The market for new advertisers was drying up before the Covid-19 crisis. So Huawei was a lifesaver when it became the branded sponsor of HNIC’s studio shows. Losing the Chinese money would be disastrous for Canada’s communications giant.

Luckily for HNIC, Canada is the biggest panderer to China among First World nations. Outside of the Meng Wanjou extradition case (which the courts are handling) the Liberal Party’s response to “Jump!” from CCP boss Xi Jinping is usually “How high?” So it’s unlikely there will be political pressure on Rogers from the PMO to divest itself of this questionable partner. 

How much the public wants of playing client to Beijing to see its NHL heroes remains to be seen.

One bright spot for the NHL has been the play-in format created for summer hockey. With the subplots, added teams and increased revenue streams (when fans return), it’s hard to see how the NHL won’t try to incorporate some or all of this structure in the future. As we suggested in June , this may be the most positive outcome for the sport from a bleak time. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca this fall.