Don Cherry
Donald Stewart Cherry is a Canadian former ice hockey player, coach, and television commentator. He played one game in the National Hockey League with the Boston Bruins. After concluding a playing career in the American Hockey League, he coached the Bruins for five seasons leading the team to four division titles and two appearances in the Stanley Cup Finals.
From 1986 to 2019, Cherry co-hosted Coach's Corner—a segment aired during CBC's Saturday-night NHL broadcast Hockey Night in Canada, with Ron MacLean. Nicknamed Grapes, he is known for his outspoken manner and opinions, and his flamboyant dress. By the 2018–19 NHL season, Cherry and MacLean had hosted Coach's Corner for 33 seasons. From 1984 to 2019, Cherry hosted Grapevine, a short-form radio segment with fellow sportscaster Brian Williams. He created and starred in the direct-to-video series Don Cherry's Rock'em Sock'em Hockey from 1989 to 2018.
In 2004, Cherry was voted by viewers as the seventh-greatest Canadian of all time in the CBC miniseries The Greatest Canadian. In March 2010, his life was dramatized in a two-part CBC movie, Keep Your Head Up, Kid: The Don Cherry Story, based on a script written by his son, Timothy Cherry. In March 2012, CBC aired a sequel, The Wrath of Grapes: The Don Cherry Story II.
Cherry has expressed controversial political views for which he has faced criticism, including remarks he made regarding Canada's lack of support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and denying climate change. In November 2019, Cherry was fired by Sportsnet from Hockey Night in Canada for making controversial statements that have been variously described as anti-immigration, xenophobic, or racist, about Canadian immigrants during his show.
Early life and family
Cherry was born in Kingston, Ontario, to Delmar and Maude Cherry. His paternal grandfather, Sub/Cst. John T. Cherry, was an original member of the North-West Mounted Police, and a Great Lakes ship captain. His maternal grandfather, Richard Palamountain, was a British orphan of Cornish parentage who emigrated to Canada as one of the Home Children. The name, Palamountain, is a corruption of the Cornish language "pol-mun-tyr" meaning "pool by the mineral land". Palamountain was also a veteran of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Cherry's father Del was an amateur athlete and worked as an electrician with the Canadian Steamship Lines. On the March 15, 2008, edition of Coach's Corner, Cherry wore the green and gold colours of County Kerry, Ireland. In his segment following the game, he claimed ancestry from that region. Cherry's younger brother, Dick Cherry played hockey at various levels, including two seasons in the National Hockey League with the Philadelphia Flyers.In his first year with the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League, he met his future wife Rosemarie Cherry née Madelyn Martini. Rose was hugely influential in Don's life—because of Don's minor-league hockey lifestyle, they moved 53 times; they rarely had decent housing or furnishings, and Don was often away playing during major events, such as the birth of their daughter and first child, Cindy Cherry. Six years after Cindy's birth, Rose gave birth to son Tim Cherry. When Tim needed a kidney transplant at age 13, Cindy donated one of hers. As of 2006, the two lived across the street from each other, around the corner from their father, in Mississauga.
Rose died of liver cancer on June 1, 1997, and in honour of her perseverance, Don created Rose Cherry's Home for Kids. Her name has motivated Cherry to always wear a rose on his lapel. Cherry contributed to developing Rose Cherry's Home for Kids which has since been renamed to The Darling Home for Kids, in Milton, Ontario. The Paramount Fine Foods Centre in Mississauga, is located on Rose Cherry Place, a street named for his late wife.
In 1999, Don married his second wife, Luba.
Playing career
Cherry played junior hockey with the Barrie Flyers and the Windsor Spitfires in the Ontario Hockey Association. Cherry won the Memorial Cup while playing defence in Barrie in 1953. He dropped out of high school, and in 1954 he signed with the American Hockey League's Hershey Bears.Cherry had a long playing career in professional minor hockey, and in 1955 played his only NHL game when the Boston Bruins called him up during the playoffs. According to Cherry, a baseball injury suffered in the off-season kept him from making the NHL, despite his almost 20 years playing in the minor leagues. He retired as a player in 1970, but came out of retirement two years later to play 19 final games with the Rochester Americans. Cherry won the Calder Cup championship four times—1960 with the Springfield Indians, and 1965, 1966, 1968 with Rochester. He also won the Lester Patrick Cup, the Western Hockey League Championship, with the Vancouver Canucks in 1969.
Career statistics
Regular season and playoffs
Coaching career
After the end of the 1968–69 season, his playing career was essentially over. Cherry struggled for a time as a Cadillac salesman and a construction worker. He worked as a house painter earning $2 per hour.In the middle of the 1971–72 season, Cherry became the coach of the American Hockey League's Rochester Americans. The following year, the title of General Manager was added. In his third season behind the bench, Cherry was voted the league's Coach of the Year.
Boston Bruins
After his three-year stint in Rochester, he was promoted to the NHL as head coach of the Boston Bruins for the 1974–75 season. The Bruins were coming off a successful run of two Stanley Cups and three first-place finishes, but after Cherry's first season as coach the team would see the exit of superstars Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito.Cherry quickly developed a reputation for being an eccentric, flamboyant coach who strongly encouraged physical play among his players. According to Cherry, he moulded the Bruins' playing style after that of his dog, Blue, a feisty bullterrier. While the team had been known for Orr and Esposito who were highly skilled scorers, the 1975–76 Bruins started the season in brief slump in part due to Orr's knee injury that saw him play only ten games, plus Orr would become a free agent at the end of the season. Cherry remade the team with enforcers and grinders which became known as the "lunch-pail gang" and "the Big Bad Bruins", with Esposito and Carol Vadnais being traded to the New York Rangers for Brad Park and Jean Ratelle, as Esposito disagreed with Cherry's coaching including having a disinclination to backcheck. This approach of "balance over brilliance" rejuvenated the Bruins, in particular the careers of Park and Ratelle, as they continued to be one of the NHL's best teams during the latter half of the 1970s, capturing the Adams division title four straight seasons from 1975–76 through 1978–79, with Cherry winning the Jack Adams Award for the 1975 season. In the 1977–78 season, Cherry coached the Bruins team to an NHL record of 11 players with 20 goals or more on a single team.
The Bruins were able to defeat the rough Philadelphia Flyers twice in the playoffs under Cherry's tenure. The Bruins made the Stanley Cup finals twice, both times losing to their arch-rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, in both 1977 and 1978. The late 1970s Canadiens were one of the most dominant teams in the NHL, with three of their eight regular losses in the 1976–77 season coming at the hands of the Bruins. In the 1979 semi-final playoff series against the Canadiens, Cherry's Bruins pushed the series to the limit but they were undone by a late penalty in the seventh game. Up by a goal with less than three minutes left in the seventh game, the Bruins were called for having too many men on the ice, which he blamed on himself, saying later "The guy couldn't have heard me yell. I grabbed two other guys trying to go over the boards. That would have made eight on the ice." The Canadiens' Guy Lafleur scored the tying goal on the subsequent power play, and ultimately the Canadiens won the game in overtime. Montreal went on to defeat the New York Rangers for their fourth straight Cup title. Cherry, who had an uneasy relationship with Bruins General Manager Harry Sinden, was fired by the Bruins afterward.
Colorado Rockies
Cherry went on to coach the Colorado Rockies in the 1979–80 season. Under his tenure, the Rockies adopted the motto "Come to the fights and watch a Rockies game break out!" and the slogan could be seen on billboards all over Denver throughout the season.However, as he later admitted, his outspokenness and feuding with Rockies general manager Ray Miron did not endear Cherry to management. While Cherry did much to motivate the players, goaltending was still the team's weakness as Miron refused to replace Hardy Åström, whom Cherry dubbed "The Swedish Sieve". Cherry recalled one game where his players had taken ten shots on goal without scoring, but Åström then conceded a goal from the opponent's first shot and so was yanked from net.
In a late-season game in Chicago, the Blackhawks scored the game-winning goal while Mike McEwen, a favourite of the Rockies owners, was on the ice. When McEwen returned to the bench, Cherry grabbed him by the jersey and shook him. McEwen left the team for several days and did not return until after meeting with Miron and the club owners. Cherry's belief, stated later, was that the owners had promised McEwen that Cherry would be fired after the season.
The Rockies finished with a league-worst 19–48–13 record, also the worst single-season mark of Cherry's coaching career. He was fired six weeks after the season ended.
Team Canada, Saskatoon Blues, Mississauga IceDogs
Internationally, Cherry was an assistant coach for Team Canada at the 1976 Canada Cup and was head coach for Canada's team at the 1981 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.In 1983 Cherry agreed to become the new head coach of the Saskatoon Blues, Bill Hunter's proposed relocation of the St. Louis Blues to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. However, the NHL's Board of Governors rejected the move on May 18, 1983, and the Blues remained in St. Louis.
Cherry was involved with the Ontario Hockey League's Mississauga IceDogs as part-owner from 1998—2002 and as the coach from 2001—2002. As owner and general manager, he gained notoriety by refusing to take part in the CHL import draft, and by only playing North American-born players. The IceDogs' first three seasons were difficult ones with the team winning a total of 16 games combined. Cherry took over coaching duties in the fourth season after firing Rick Vaive and hiring himself as replacement. During Cherry's one season as head coach of the IceDogs, the team managed 11 victories and failed to make the playoffs for the fourth straight year. Cherry drew some criticism for his sudden decision to allow European-born players onto the IceDogs line-up during the one season he coached the team.