Don Cherry sets sights on his own colleague in latest embarrassing rant

I have to admit that I stopped watching Coach’s Corner years ago, not only because the star is a xenophobe and a bully, but also because Don Cherry stopped being relevant a long time ago, even before he ran the Mississauga IceDogs into the ground. I’ve always thought that perhaps if enough people stopped listening, Cherry would stop talking. Which would be nice.

So I was not watching this past weekend when Cherry went on a rant about a good person and a very good play-by-play man in Paul Romanuk. But thanks to the power of social media, I got to see it replayed several times. And it was pathetic.

Cherry was so rankled that Romanuk didn’t promote Coach’s Corner at the end of the first period of the Montreal-Buffalo game Romanuk was calling, that he unleashed a tirade against his Sportsnet colleague that he usually reserves for Russians and players who wear visors.

First, the backstory. With about six minutes left in the first period, Romanuk teased the first intermission, including a plug for Coach’s Corner. Then the period ended and, seemingly pressed for time, Romanuk told viewers to stay tuned for, “a busy first intermission.”

And that’s when Cherry, whose pettiness is only rivalled by Donald Trump, ripped into Romanuk.

“And this is your ‘busy’ first intermission,” Cherry said. “Where’s he from? What’s that guy? Who’s the name?”

And at that point, Cherry’s enabler, Ron MacLean, replied: “Paul Romanuk. This is funny. And for those of you watching the Montreal show, Paul said, ‘And a busy first period coming up.’ ”

Not yet content with embarrassing his colleague in front of the entire Hockey Night in Canada viewership, Cherry had to continue. “Thirty-four years and this guy comes over from Europe. Can’t make it there, so he comes on our show. All right, let’s go.”

Cherry then went on to call Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Martin Marincin, a Slovakian, “the Russian, whatever his name is,” and refer to Calgary Flames rookie Matthew Tkachuk as ‘Taychuk’. He also highlighted a goal by Minnesota Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon, then blurted out, “They need all the help they can get.” Presumably, he was talking about the Wild, who had two regulation losses in their previous 21 games. Then after his only cogent segment, one in which he said younger players should use smaller pucks, he dug the knife into Romanuk again. “Do you think Paul would like that? They don’t do that in Europe, eh? They don’t use small pucks.” And as MacLean was signing off, Cherry interrupted once again with, “Busy! Busy!”

And, as is often the case, Cherry was wrong. Romanuk, who was a successful and respected play-by-play man, voluntarily left his job as the Toronto Raptors radio play-by-play man and moved to London in 2005 when his wife, Kari, was offered an executive position with Coca-Cola Europe. In his nine years there, Romanuk stayed busy as a freelancer, working World Championships, Spengler Cups and the Champions Hockey League for Euro Sport. Then when Rogers landed the Canadian NHL rights for $5.2 billion in 2014, it approached Romanuk about coming back to be one of its play-by-play men.

Sportsnet and NHL properties president Scott Moore and vice-president Rob Corte offered no comment about this matter, but nobody would be surprised if there were absolutely no repercussions for Cherry. Let’s face it, if Cherry were to be dismissed for on-air indiscretions, it would have happened a long time ago. So there’s no sense in demanding that Cherry be taken off the air because that will never happen. At CBC in the past and at Rogers now, Cherry seems to occupy some sort of rarified air. Staffers have long been under orders never to either contradict anything Cherry says, regardless of how inane it might be, nor are they to even talk about anything Cherry is going to cover on Coach’s Corner. And staffers learned a long time ago that there is no sense locking horns with Cherry because that is a battle they will never, ever win.

Because just as he was as a player, Cherry is a bully. He uses his status to belittle others, even if they work alongside him. This is not the first time he has taken fellow HNIC employees to task in a public manner. And even though Cherry is never to be crossed, he seems to have carte blanche to publicly rip anyone he wishes. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

There was a time – many, many years ago – when Cherry was opinionated and informed and relevant. Those days are long gone. Somewhere along the line, Cherry became a parody of himself, dressing like a clown and, generally speaking, acting like one, too. A lot of people who work with him feel the same way, but they don’t have a voice. It’s a shame that Cherry’s voice is still the loudest one in the room. Because really all it’s been spewing out for years now is white noise.

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