Sir "Don" Grapes Cherry

 

So for week #2 with St. Patty's Day upcoming, alas we pivot to another miscreant birthed of sorts from our ancestors in the British Isles-”Sir” Don “Grapes” Cherry-who clearly loved that semi-secular holiday. Don’t worry, we’ll get to some AmeriKKKan soon enough. And yes, ladies soon after that.

Where to begin with ol’ Don? Well, he is a hockey AND Canadian legend (in that order, at least for me as a beer league player and a ½ Canuck on my pop’s side) for reasons you might not expect. He was mostly a footnote as a player, a minor league careerist who barely sniffed the NHL level during a long, grinding career doing so throughout both the 50s AND 60s mostly in the US and not Canada.

After his legs started to finally give out, he cut his teeth as an NHL head coach starting in the mid-70s, most notably for 5 seasons with the nasty ass Bawstin Bruins where he was named NHL coach of the year after the 75’ campaign and twice led them to the Stanley Cup finals. After that, he went onto even greater fame and notoriety as a commentator for the CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Co.) for Hockey Night in Canada-a large nation wide TV audience watched him starting back in the days of still limited showing of hockey games at the onset of the 80s when it was still a huge deal before full on cable and 100 channels.

Anyway, curriculum vitae now divulged, what you can say about Don is that he is a true character with his flamboyant suits and caustic (and honest) opinions on just about everyone and everything. He is a true Canuck legend. He is one funny ass mofo. He is a blowhard. He is definitely a man’s man.

And naturally as he aged into his 2nd century on earth, he got pretty damn cranky as most old men are wont to do and tell all of the kids to get off of his lawn. He is beyond old school-perhaps he should have been ejected from his mother’s womb a century earlier when handlebar mustaches and men in 3 piece suits rocked the world instead?

In short, he is a beloved figure in modern Canadian history, for mostly good and for a little bad. I mean, in 2004, he was voted by Canadian viewers as the seventh-greatest Canadian of all-time in the CBC miniseries The Greatest Canadian. But, alas, in due time, the march of time always wins out and Don finally lost out to the skate blade edges of those who just don’t like certain things and will have their wrath.

So, with Canadians being all sweet and sugary like their beloved maple syrup, one would reckon that no one would mess with the “DON”. Well, naturally, you would be wrong. Donny Boy said a lot of outrageous “words” and “phrases” publicly over the next 40 years without my fanfare so to speak-most in good jest but he was certainly polarizing. Of course, the karma police eventually caught up to him recently. I mean, over the years he had already offended pretty much everyone over the years (hated Euro-fags playing Canada’s game-Americans were okay to do so but…) including broads pretty much all of the time but in now arguably the wokeist nation on earth, he crossed the line and mussed up some folk’s kind sensibilities and he needed to be fucked with of course.

Grapes had certainly proven controversial for making non-mainstream political commentaries and faced criticism for remarks regarding Canada's lack of support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, insinuating that only "Europeans and French guys" wore visors on their helmets and denying climate change among other opinions that should certainly not be said if you are the wrong side of the political divide.

So in November 2019, he was canned by the “man” at Sportsnet from Hockey Night in Canada for his comments implying that Canadian immigrants benefit from the sacrifices of veterans but do not wear Remembrance Day Poppies. He used the toxic term “you people” and thus regardless of context and intent and any ex-post facto explanation, well, you just have to be run out of town these days for any sort of real or imagined verbal transgression like that-it was truly dangerous stuff to the feelings of so many brittle frozen folks out there in the vast tundra wasteland that is much of the Great White North!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=23&v=jCarkyvvFNI&feature=emb_logo

Of course, he received a ton of support for his work in and around the great sport of hockey for decades but naturally, in this day and age, hold the wrong opinion and you get the ax so to speak-or at least a cross-check to the back instead of just ignored.

Regardless, he is still out there now at 88 with a “Grapevine” podcast and still doing some charitable activities related to pets and animals. So guess what? You can’t kill Grapes, you can only make him stronger.

In a way, he was just too easy guy to cancel-an anachronism from a bygone era who was just way too old to change with the times, particularly when we are in loco times. You know, like that crazy old funny uncle that every family seems to have, right? So sure, go ahead and cancel uncle-I doubt he would give a shit.