http://www.cbc.ca/clips/ram-lo/coach030322.ram
-Ian.
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http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030325/ SHOTVN/TPSports/TopStories
Cherry, MacLean to face music over debate By JAMES CHRISTIE UPDATED AT 1:49 PM EST Tuesday, Mar. 25, 2003
TORONTO -- Hockey Night in Canada commentators Don Cherry and Ron MacLean will feel some heat -- but no discipline -- when CBC executives take them to task today for their debate of the U.S. war with Iraq.
CBC Sports executive director Nancy Lee huddled with CBC executives yesterday, including vice-president Harold Redekopp, to discuss the sports commentators' controversial remarks during the popular Coach's Corner segment of the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast last Saturday.
"Don has been in trouble before [with network executives] and all they do is voice their displeasure about his comments," a CBC insider said last night.
Lee is expected to meet HNIC executive producer Joel Darling and other HNIC top producers this morning and then she is scheduled to meet Cherry and MacLean.
MacLean will face more of a slap on the wrist than Cherry. The HNIC host not only dragged Cherry into the lively debate about the war, but he also ignored a plea from Darling to move onto a different subject.
Lee phoned the production truck on Saturday evening to voice her displeasure of the banter between Cherry and MacLean. When the segment was halfway through, Darling said into MacLean's earpiece to move on.
MacLean replied on the air, "No, no, we're not moving on. Don't worry about it."
The stars of the country's most-watched weekly television show will be told today that HNIC is not the place for such discussions. But they will not be formally muzzled.
"We didn't have it planned," said Cherry of the feisty ad-lib debate that drew more than 1,500 calls and messages as well as complaints to CBC ombudsman David Bazay.
Most calls opposed Cherry's pro-U.S. stand. Cherry backed the U.S. military attack to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and was critical of the Canadian government's refusal to enter the war.
Of the calls and e-mails, the split was approximately 60 per cent against Cherry's views and the use of the country's most popular sport program as a platform for political views.
"The CBC does not feel Hockey Night in Canada is the appropriate place for discussion on the war in Iraq," CBC spokeswoman Ruth-Ellen Soles said yesterday.
Cherry said it had not been his intent to get into the subject of the war itself. "We were going to talk about the booing of the American anthem in Montreal last week," he said.
When the connection of the booing to the war in Iraq was made, "I said 'I don't want to go anywhere [with that subject].' " But MacLean persisted, saying: "Everybody wants to know what you think."
"That's when it took off," Cherry said.
Cherry, wearing a tie emblazoned with a Star Spangled Banner motif, apologized on behalf of Canadians, saying that "years of pride went down the drain" with the behaviour of the Montreal fans.
While MacLean supported the government's choice not to go to war, Cherry characterized that position as "lack of support to our American friends."
"I hate to see them go it alone. We have a country that comes to our rescue, and we're just riding their coattails," Cherry said.
Soles confirmed a meeting of the on-air broadcasters with the producer and sports chief. "They will be dealing with the issue and I don't know what form that takes. But it's something they have to pay attention to."
Lee was in Ottawa yesterday, but Soles said the trip had no connection to the Saturday night rant.
MacLean said the discussion was "totally off the cuff. I saw Don was wearing his [U.S.] tie. We'd planned to talk some hockey. Then he let the people in Montreal have it."
When MacLean signed off to turn the broadcast over to news anchor Peter Mansbridge for an update on the war, Cherry took a shot at the fact that Mansbridge does not offer an opinion on the war. It is not his job to comment as a news reporter.
Mansbridge did not return a request for comment last night.
This isn't the first time Cherry has been in trouble with the network. At the 1998 Nagano Olympics, he was rapped by Bazay for criticizing the selection of freestyle skier Jean-Luc Brassard as Canada's flag-bearer. Cherry called him "a French guy, some skier that nobody knows about."
Cherry also caught criticism from the network when in January, 1997, he said on Coach's Corner that jailed sex offender Graham James, a former junior hockey coach, should be "drawn and quartered."
Coach's Corner
Here are the highlights of the exchange between Ron MacLean and Don Cherry on Hockey Night in Canada last Saturday. The seven-minute segment began with a shot of the crowd at the Air Canada Centre cheering the U.S. anthem.
Cherry: Do you think that will make CNN? I don't think so, it's only when those jerks in Quebec boo the national anthem. It was very embarrassing.
MacLean: Where do you want to go with this?
Cherry: I don't wanna go anywhere [with war commentary].
MacLean: Everybody wants to know what you think.
Cherry: I want to start off by apologizing to my American friends . . . It's tough situation when we're not there. God bless England and Tony Blair. The Australians. The chips are down and they are there. . . . We have a country here [United States] comes to our rescue.
MacLean: That doesn't mean we have to sell our souls.
Cherry: All they needed was a little royal help. I hate to see them go it alone.
MacLean: Why attack Iraq if Iraq hasn't attacked you or your allies.
Cherry: You are with your friends, right or wrong.
MacLean: I love the Americans and I wish them Godspeed, of course, and I wish the Iraqis all the best in getting out of this as quickly as possible. But as a Canadian we have to stand for ourselves sometime. . . . In a democracy you have a right to disagree or agree.
Cherry: You're either for them or against them. [United States] didn't want any troops. All we had to say is that when the chips are down, we back you.
MacLean: Peter Mansbridge is at the . . .
Cherry: Oh, Peter'll have something to say. He'll be neutral.
MacLean: Don't knock any of this.
Cherry: Come out one way or another. Don't sit on the fence. . . . And if anybody has a job for me Monday . . .
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