Posted on 11/21/2006 1:59:58 PM PST by CardShark
MISSISSAUGA, Ontario — Clad in matching nylon workout pants and jacket, looking like he might be preparing to coach a game later that afternoon, the seventh-greatest Canadian of all time makes his way up through the stands at the Hershey Center in the western Toronto suburb of Mississauga.
Though he hasn't coached a National Hockey League game in 26 years, this is still Don Cherry's element — the hockey rink. He has spent most of his 72 years in places like this, actually having helped design the Hershey Center for the major junior team he once owned and briefly coached here. But for all of that time spent behind benches and in dressing rooms and in front of microphones in similar places, Cherry remains an iconoclast, a controversial figure sometimes improbably isolated from the game to which he has given so much of his life.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
I thought there were seven, but the "Greatest Generation" has been aging.
woohoo, I'm one of the five
who are the 6 greatest Canadians?
This article is awesome. Thanks for posting it.
http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/
Canada, here are your Top 10 Greatest Canadians, in order of votes received:
# Name
1 Tommy Douglas
2 Terry Fox
3 Pierre Elliott Trudeau
4 Sir Frederick Banting
5 David Suzuki
6 Lester B. Pearson
7 Don Cherry
8 Sir John A. Macdonald
9 Alexander Graham Bell
10 Wayne Gretzky
We enjoyed Grapes when he coached the Bruins in the late 1970's. What a character! And who could forget Blue? Definitely a man of opinions, which resulted in the same fate as all Bruins coaches with a brain...Sinden gave him the axe.
Go Don!
GSD
thanks for the list. I had to follow the link to find out who most of them are. Canadians sure love their socialists, eh.
Five hockey fans?
There's three in my house alone! ;^)
Hockey Ping!
"Many influential critics were not entertained, or amused. At one point, the celebrated Canadian columnist and author Roy MacGregor said that Cherry's "thinking, and his extraordinary influence, has been the single most destructive influence on the development of Canadian hockey.""
Another socialist trying to hide the truth. The elites in Canadian society have turned hockey into a wimp sport. I believe Cherry was expressing that and some people got upset.
Hockey is rough, you get smacked around, dang that's why we wear all that equipment. To make it European offers nothing to the game except jobs to European players who wouldn't last a month in the NHL prior to wimpifying the game in the late 80's.
Given, I am not a fan of all the holding, grabbing and neutral zone traps. I think that ruined the game more then anything else.
At my rink, they wanted to do away with checking this year at the Peewee level. I almost threw up.
It's too bad they used so Getty photos and they can't be posted here. It's worth checking out the article just for the quotes on the pictures.
"I've been trying to tell you people for so long about the Russians, what kind of people they are, and you just love them in Canada with your multiculturalism," he scolded. "They're quitters and evidently they take a lot of drugs, too."
That one just about made me shoot my green tea at my monitor!
Yeah! Woo-hoo!
There are at least 3 in my European history class alone! (2 are from Canada though, and then there's me).
Well only the French love their socialists. The rest sure love their Molson, eh? And aboot T'rono'o, the Leafs are having a great season, eh? Nice talking, to ya, have a nice day, eh!
Gotta love Canadian accents ;-)
Here in PA, at the high school level, they are cracking down on the obstruction penalties (holding,hooking, interference) and as the boys get accustomed to it,the skill level is showing more.
There's still plenty of checking, but there are less cheap shots let go by the refs.
I didn't know there was a Hershey Center in Toronto! My home ice is Hershey, PA!
I'm going to have to plan a summer vacation to the Hockey Hall of Fame!
Are the Hershey Bears still there?
I'm a season ticket holder!
They won the Calder Cup last year!! (# 9)
And they look good enough to repeat!
Great read! Cherry is a piece of work.
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