It's not Canadian, Don...It's Dangerous

Don Cherry is a lot of things: a Canadian icon, commentator, pundit, charity fundraiser, spokesman, possibly the highest paid employee at the CBC, and a man of questionable taste when it comes to collars, ties, and language.

He is also a man who believes that arguments should be settled by fists and violence...something as Canadian as back bacon and a cold beer in your '57 Chrysler's glove compartment, if you want to believe Canada's high priest of hockey.

In the last month alone, Toronto has seen a half-dozen deaths by gun-toting thugs barely out of puberty who are the walking embodiment of the viral ethos of an "eye for an eye" that the NHL not only turns a blind eye to (pun intended), but encourages; both with pathetic sanctions against millionaires who have earned and banked their retirement funds years ago, and a decades-old code that has referees stand back and allow not only a second of fisticuffs, but at times, minutes of posturing and bloodletting that would have made Pontius Pilate and his Roman buddies dance in glee.

Yet, it neither starts nor ends with the NHL. Not a fight goes by which announcers, both play-by-play and colour commentator, enthusiastically call, appraise, and by their very actions, condone. Steve Moore's neck had no sooner settled into its next month of traction than Tie Domi of the Toronto Maple Leafs spent two minutes attempting to beat the snot out of Montreal's Darren Langdon while Leafs' radio man Joe Bowen achieved what can only be described as a three-quarters orgasm calling the fight, and colour commentator Jim Ralph provided an evaluation with the methodical air of Rod Serling on Valium.

Meanwhile, back in Vancouver, they were still scraping the blood off the ice at the GM arena.

And there was Don Cherry, on nation-wide, Saturday night, publicly funded CBC, all seven hundred thousand dollars a year of him, telling kids that if they want to settle their differences, they should make sure that they do it face to face; no cheap shots! If you want to kick the crap out of your grade eight schoolmate who stole your eraser, or bumped you too hard playing third-period floor hockey, then you should make sure he turns around before you feed him his braces...or stick that .357 Magnum in his mouth and teach him to spend his paper route money on his own eraser.

In a day and age when kids think nothing of "popping a few caps" in the face of anyone who so much as looks at them the wrong way, here is Canada's favourite loud mouth encouraging children to sort out their differences face to face. And while I understand that only a handful of the population can possibly muster more than "would you like fries with that, Ma'am" or "screw you" and then bang, it would be nice if our kids were actually encouraged to reason, to argue, and to express themselves in ways more considered than three rounds in a back alley after recess.

I can only hope, desperately hope, that it is not "Canadian" to punch the crap out of anyone you disagree with, as Donald S. Cherry so righteously proclaims. It is one thing to defend yourself, but quite another to sort out a difference of opinion with fists, sticks, pipes, or as is increasingly popular these days, 9mm Berettas. Yet, the powers that be in hockey, from players to coaches, from managers to has-been players turned commentator and pundit (those who know the game, in other words) continue to say that we don't understand; if we played the game we would know what they're talking about.

We would feel their pain.

Well, maybe I would. I never played the game of hockey...not so much as picked up a stick in a game of shimmy. I never learned the code, the culture, the substance or the passion of hockey like those who not only played, but played at a level to be part of the industry that is the NHL and all its affiliates. I don't know what it's like to be bashed around the ice, checked, hit, and punched. But when I hear people say that professional hockey is a source of education and guidance, and that its participants are role models for our youth, I want to vomit.

I've heard too much gunfire, and seen too much waste and too much violence in the "home of the Maple Leafs" to stomach such self-absorbed tripe.

Put a sock in it, Don. Please.