Shacks' Take: It's time someone in Vancouver stuck up for Don Cherry

As you know, I’m likely the oldest rookie blogger in Vancouver and somewhat old school, so it should come as no surprise that I’m a big fan of Don Cherry.  Here in Vancouver though, it seems to be unpopular to agree with Don so I decided it was time someone on the left coast gave Don a little love.  

I can't be the only one in Vancouver that likes Don can I?
Maybe but I'll go on a limb for him.

It’s obvious he’s entering the twilight years, meandering at times through his Coach’s Corner. His xenophobic rants are mostly misguided and his ideas on how to run a team are usually off  but when Don sticks to the game of hockey he's usually right on the target. Why? Because he played the game at the professional level for years and coached the game at the highest level. Despite his gruff and acerbic exterior, Don is one smart cookie.

When the league brought in the hard equipment, Don said this would cause more injuries. What happened?  It caused more injuries. 

When the league went with the crack down on skates in the crease, what did Don say?  He said it was a terrible rule and what would happen if the cup winning goal was scored with a toe in the crease? Would the NHL stop the celebration to reverse the goal?  No way. And guess what happened, Brett Hull scores the cup winning goal with his toe in the crease and the league, of course, doesn’t stop the celebration.

When the league decided to implement the instigator rule, Don said it would lead to an epidemic of concussions from cheap shots and guess what? Despite what his detractors would like you to believe, he’s right again.

When Don said Daniel Sedin shouldn’t have hit Duncan Keith the way he did, that Daniel was asking for it, he wasn’t condoning Keith’s actions, he was saying star players shouldn’t try to play the game dirty, when they do they invite players to seek revenge.  Everyone on the team has a job and Daniel’s is to score goals, not send messages to Duncan Keith— and if you don’t think Daniel’s hit was dirty you're kidding yourself. 

Does it excuse Keith, no.  But what Don’s saying is, if Danny doesn’t hit Keith with a high illegal headshot, Keith doesn’t seek revenge.  He’s not condoning the action, he’s telling Daniel to not play cheap because he’s too valuable to the team and you get hurt when players take retribution too far.

Yes I'd rather see this than what Duncan Keith did.
And it's not even close.

So when Don asks what would you rather see, the Ranger’s line brawl or Keith’s elbow on Sedin, what he’s really saying is he'd rather see Keith drop his gloves right there and fight Sedin, not save it up to throw a flying elbow. And I agree, this is why fighting is important to the game.

The line brawl in New York was about two teams that hate each other blowing off steam.  Is it better to bottle it up and throw a cheap shot that injures players and leads to suspensions or is it better if players square off and get their frustrations out man to man. At least if someone gets hurt that way they saw it coming. Why is it ok for people to get hurt fighting in UFC and boxing but not in hockey?  


A recent poll by Sports Illustrated of 202 NHL players asked if fighting belonged in the game.  99% said yes, shouldn't we believe them?

For those of you that want to stop players from getting hurt by either cheap shots or fights, good luck with that— how’s that working out so far?

I’ve watched hockey for 40+ years and played it for 30+ and Don has watched and played it much longer than that.  We may not be able to prove fighting cuts down injuries and cheap shots because there is no way to collect that kind of evidence, but we can tell you what our experience tells us. 

In hockey players carry sticks and unless you’ve felt the subtle ways they can be used to inflict pain, you’ll never know just how angry several well-placed cheap shots can make you.  When someone makes you that mad, there are generally two ways it can go, an elevated cheap shot to let the opposition know he can’t do that to you or a fight.

One way settles the conflict, the other escalates it, I’ll let you decide which is the better way.

***Please note I'm going to do my longest article yet on my views on fighting in hockey sometime this week - thought it would be done already but it's hard to get out everything bottled up in this crazy, senile mind***