Don Cherry on Alex Ovechkin's goal celebrations.
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Canadians don’t celebrate goals now? That’s certainly news to me. They certainly celebrate like this when the goal is huge…or, in other words, when they care as much as Ovechkin does in every single game.
When the best the haters can do is criticize stuff like this, I think that’s a little telling.
What I would imagine Ovechkin says about Cherry in Russian: “What, I can’t celebrate a goal in front of him? What is he going to do, cry?”
Wait, what’s that? Crosby jumped against the glass after scoring a goal LAST WEEK? The game before the game against the Caps? He must be like some kind of immigrant soccer player!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zZoquFHq1Y
by grapejoos on Feb 28, 2009 11:02 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
Well said...
I like Cherry in general but he so far off the mark on this, it’s sad. What Ovechkin does is nowhere near what the soccer guys do, and in a league filled with intentionally dull “stars”, Ovi stands out. His celebrations are nothing but positive, there’s nothing derogatory against the opponent or self-centered like the NFL’s parade of megalomanical wide receivers.
More fun than a stick to the face!
On the Forecheck is SB Nation's blog covering the Nashville Predators.
I agree. Ovechkin’s celebrations are not at all pre-planned, which is the aspect of the soccer and football celebrations that always annoys me.
Did anyone else notice Ovechkin was wearing blue and copper in more than half of the clips Cherry pulled? In the last two years he’s toned it down some and made the celebrations more consistent. These days, he’ll jump into the glass, or go hug teammates, or pump an arm in the air, or some combination of all three. Unless it’s a truly spectacular or meaningful goal, that’s it. And it’s already been said several times but it can’t be emphasized enough, he does exactly the same thing whenever any teammate scores.
by Gould Old Days on Mar 1, 2009 11:57 AM EST up reply actions
old jerseys
yep …noticed that 3/4 of the clips were from 2+ years ago with the blue/bronze jerseys. so on the subject of pre-planned, this is probably something that gasbag cherry has wanted to rant about since ovy’s rookie year.
I read in the CBC HNIC comments that ron mclean didn’t agree with the blimp- is this the case? (the youtube clip doesn’t show it)
It’s pretty obvious that Don Cherry is insanely jealous that Ovie isn’t Canadian. Ah, to the untrained ears. Did you happen to think it’s a biting satire on Cherry’s part that he’s railing on Ovie so much in hopes of having people so turned off by his commentary that they all play like Ovechkin out of spite? Yes, Cherry is that brilliant.
Supporter of the Sergei Berezin "Give and Go" - You give me puck, then you go to hell
Interesting criticism from a someone who’s dress makes a circus clown’s look subdued. He mentioned Orr as a prime example of how Good Canadians celebrate. I guess if Canadians fly thru the air, it’s OK. As far as his prediction goes, he really went out on a limb predicting that a defenseman will some day nail him. That’s called “part of the game”. The better question is, how many more defensemen will Ovechkin lay out before he gets hit.
Anyone who suggests that Bates Battaglia could be a 30 goal scorer in the league if there weren’t so many Russians is out of touch with reality.
"Good crowd out there tonight, boys, let's really try to win this one."
You guys are missing the best part! You haven’t gotten to the part Grapes proceeds to declare the empty seats at Wings games a result of all their dirty, soft Europeans. It went downhill for their too.
It’s like his barely repressed xenophobia just exploded all over Ovie and the Wings tonight.
Here is another version of the clip. I’m sure Grapes would approve.
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Does anyone really think he means even half of what he says? Or is he just trying to incite the fanbase on each side of the issue? I’ve dug back through the archives of my old site and found this—Here is another side of Grapes’ feelings towards Ovechkin, as he expressed back in May 2008 to the Russian media right after the Russians defeated Canada at the World Championships. This was one of the first articles I ever translated and is still helpful today in understanding Don’s desire to build animosity in order to get the fans riled up.
"I tried to capture the spirit of the thing"-- Dickie Dunn
by tuvanhillbilly on Feb 28, 2009 11:54 PM EST reply actions
"This is all because of Ovechkin. We keep returning to the exact same players in our conversation- Orr, Bure and Ovechkin, and there is a reason for this. I don’t think that you have ever had a player like Ovechkin. Never. He plays like a Canadian! Seriously, think about it. Just like one of ours. Can I give him a higher compliment?"
Classic.
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Oh Don.....
Has anyone ever noticed that Don Cherry is like the hockey version of Bill O’Reilly? He finds a problem with most out landish stuff that everyone else is able to enjoy, and is blindly loyal with out putting in a oz of thought. Honestly no one takes that guy seriously, the only reason he’s still on TV is because everyone likes laughing at his suits and stupidity.
It sells beer
I wouldn’t get too worked up about it. Cherry is first and last a businessman and he knows controversy sells. The more outrageous the statement, the more reaction it generates, the more people tune in to watch, the more money the network makes. Of course his comments are stupid, ridiculous, xenophobic, but he’s got everyone screaming about them. In TV terms, he’s moving the needle. It’s an act and he plays it really well. I bet he doesn’t believe half of what he says.
This is a pretty ridiculous beef, but it’s not completely groundless. Ovechkin really doesn’t act like he’s scored before. I love the intensity and that he is clearly into the game, but it can be a bit much occasionally.
At the same time, I don’t think he needs to change.
This may be the first time I have EVER defended Crosby for anything, but his goal was with about two minutes left in a tie game. Ovechkin tends to go nuts no matter the situation. Even when somebody just almost lost a nut http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTh9fo9znHk
Swing by The Flyer Frequent if you have nothing better to do.
salmon, you’re absolutely right. a tying goal in the 3rd period of a playoff game is no reason to get excited and pump up the crowd and your teammates. what was he thinking?
Yeah, if this comes when the caps are already up by 2 goals or more in a regular season game, then this is a bit “over the top”, especially considering what Thoresen was going through…but it was PLAYOFF game, and I’m sure that as it occurred, Ovechkin had no idea what the condition of Thoresen was.
Any player, ANY player would have been excited when that goal was scored.
Having said that, Ovechkin’s “enthusiasm” is what gets me excited to watch EVERY game the Caps play.
by PaintDrinkingPete on Mar 1, 2009 1:23 AM EST up reply actions
Ironically, Ovechkin didn’t even score that one. But yeah, first game in the playoffs, tying the game in the third..I’d have reacted the same way. And Thoresen didn’t lose a nut.
Can't we get Chris Bourque a red jersey now? Thanks.
Come back to me with your comment when Ovechkin gratuitously celebrates after a meaningless goal. He celebrates like that because it is who he is, he is the emotional leader of the team, and it gets the team (and, at home games, the fans) fired up. Hate him for it if you want. He’s still the best player of this generation.
And, btw, if you’re going to hate Ovechkin for being an ass, Crosby is the wrong guy to stick up for.
So…I guy who dresses in fabrics that not even Graceland would upholster the furniture with is complaining about a player being too outlandish.
o-o-o-o-o-kay.
And one might note that the clips of Ovechkin celebrations were almost all taken from his first two years in the league (the uniform gives it away). Not to say he’s sedate about celebrating, but I haven’t seem many of the spin moves or dives on the ice this year or last. Of course, when you score 110 goals in your last 143 games, you have to start thinking about pacing yourself.
If you've read this far...seek help.
Don Cherry is still around?
Oh, good for him.
All great points especially about Crosby’s recent celebration.
Maybe if Alex dressed like Elton John Don would like him more.
SALMON-If I’m Alex ( or any capital) and its my first playoff game and we tied the game after being down 2 in the third period I’d go nuts too.
I don’t care if Crosby comes to the phone booth and does a cartwheel after he scores.
-shwedy
Naughty, Naughty
Excessive celebrations should be punishable upon pain of death.
It’s a shame Cherry’s such a xenophobe, because he’d really get on with Tikhonov.
tictactoehockey.blogspot.com
by turnituptoeleven on Mar 1, 2009 12:42 AM EST reply actions
I’ve never disagreed with him more.
(I’d elaborate, but my mother taught me if you can’t say something nice about someone…)
by PaintDrinkingPete on Mar 1, 2009 12:42 AM EST reply actions
Xenophobia?
Right now I can’t believe these comments I’m scanning the blogosphere for someone who’s giving voice to my anger so I’ feel like I"m not the only one.
I really just hope that Ted Leonsis, who has the mouthpiece to say this better than any of us, calls him out. For being a fraud and for calling for a run on the best player in hockey.
Has Cherry ever seen an Ovechkin interview? Ovechkin would rather be part of a team where he scores no goals and wins the Stanley Cup, and he’d celebrate every goal the same way. Cherry is embarassing to Canada to try and speak for them like this.
Cherry is gutless
I notice he picks the, what to him is, the effeminate and European celebrations of soccer to criticize. Could this be because if he knows if he chose to use the “excessive” celebrations of the NFL he would be crucified? The Canadian way- chose your potential foes carefully or is that just the Don Cherry way? Unfortunately there is still classic hockey on the NHL Network and you can watch games from back when it was only North American players doing all the celebrating, like jumping across the goal crease after scoring winning the Stanley Cup.
I would also appreciate Mr. Cherry not using the Texas Bullseye approach (shoot and draw a bullseye around your shots) to video. Why not show Ovie’s celebrations when team mates score?
It’s a sad day when the fun in hockey is being arbitrated by Don Cherry, a man who makes his living by grumbling about how unhappy he is. What did his celebrations look like during that one year he played?
I hate Pittsburgh. And the Pens too.
Schtick
It’s so contrived, the straight-man alongside him (sorry, I do not have Center Ice/HNIC; but he has that Ed McMahon “no-talent” look about him) both feeds him lines and feigns shock at the remarks.
In truth, watching this is pathetic. All defenseman have their chance to “cut him in half” any time they want, and they have not because most are on their ass after he’s spun them around, or afraid they’ll wind up that way. Also, unlike Canadian golden boy Eric Lindros, OV plays full speed WITH HIS HEAD UP and will hit them back.
As Beethoven state above, OV’s joys are in the Caps scoring goals, not just him. I’ve seen him as crazy jumping on unsuspecting teammates after they’ve scored.
In this SportsCenter world of ours, where we only get highlights, there will be those around (mostly Canadian) who will have only seen the goals who will tend to agfee with Grapes. Those of us who see him skate hard 23+ minutes a day can smile to ourselves knowing otherwise. Bring on Jason Strudwick……
Don Cherry talking about sticking out...
Is like my wife giving a lecture on responsible shopping.
This guy is so out of touch it is insane. It really is not his fault though. He is very old and when your entire career relies on you being outrageous and causing drama you have to grasp at straws.
I understand why Crosby missed a game last week though, no way someone could skate with Don Cherry that far up your @$$.
Don Cherry is a racist.
If Ovi was black he’s be hounded off the air for those remarks.
sigh I wouldn’t give this clown more airtime, though.
You’re right. Insert the word “white” every time he says Canadian and the word “black” every time he says European and you get a truer sense of how bigoted his statements are. Yet because he’s in Canada and it’s “their” game, he’s allowed to get away with this garbage on national TV. I know most of what he says is intended to be controversial, but could you imagine the firestrom if Peter Gammons went on ESPN and said the same thing about Latin American players? He’d be gone in a day.
Yup.
I think his comments on Ovi are (a) racist, (b) bitterly jealous, and © hypocritical as someone pointed out above. His comments on Detroit are more bitter jealousy because the Canadians didn’t win the cup last year.
It must be hard having that many things go wrong in one season and having to wear suits that obnoxious just to be relevant. We should be tolerant and understanding … and ignore him.
After all, last I checked we have a big important division game today. New Jersey plays the Flyers today – I hope the Flyers kick their a**** and we beat the Panthers, I’d like a little breathing room in the conference standings, thanks. So yes, we have more important things to talk about, like the Cats.
How can Cherry's comments be racist
when it is unlikely he has any idea who his own parents are?
You think this was to spur on Team Canada for next year?
"Every person is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit." Elbert Hubbard.
He's a joke...
He can have a team full of Jason Strudwicks and Douggie Gilmours, and I will take my team full of Alexander Ovechkin’s and beat them 99 times out of a hundred
Ron and Fez Noon to Three
by YvonLabresMoustache on Mar 1, 2009 9:29 AM EST reply actions
And he’d talk about that “one” on HNIC for the next decade, ignoring the other 99.
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What a clown!
So if he were a GM and building a team from scracth, he’s NOT going to grab Ovi with his first pick?
Don is actually more of a jingoist
America could use more jingoism, but I digress…
Don loves his country, and the his countrymen who play the game, and good for him. But players all over the place celebrate a lot like Alex Ovechkin does. If AO’s celebrations were “in the face” of the other team I’d agree with Grapes, BUT THEY’RE NOT.
It’s obvious that, while Don Cherry likes great hockey players, he’d prefer the very best be Canadians. Do you expect him to tell Sidney to stop his whining and play the game?
He has told Sidney to stop his whining and play the game in the past.
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Please, Please
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In 1960, if you thought Gordie Howe represented what was wrong with hockey, then the problem was with you, not with hockey.
In 1970, if you thought Bobby Orr represented what was wrong with hockey, then the problem was with you, not with hockey.
In 1980, if you thought Wayne Gretzky represented what was wrong with hockey, then the problem was with you, not with hockey.
In 1990, if you thought Mario Lemieux represented what was wrong with hockey*, then the problem was with you, not with hockey.
In 2000, if you thought Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur and Dominik Hasek represented what was wrong with hockey, then the problem was with you, not with hockey.
In 2009, there’s something wrong with anyone who thinks that Alex Ovechkin represents what’s wrong with hockey.
* Other than the team he played for…
I don’t think that at all. Celebrating is fine. (If it’s not, we end up with this crap.)
But it’s not okay to show up the other players. Skating by the bench and sticking your finger in their faces—people who didn’t even have anything to do with the goal, mind you—is juvenile and asinine. Ovie’s not the only one to do it (Kovalchuk comes to mind as well), but he’s the most recent one I’ve sen do it.
Pittsburgh Black And Gold -- So new, it still smells like paint!
Wait, what? “Not the only one to do it”? When has Ovie ever skated by the bench and stuck his finger in the faces of the other team?
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I’ve never seen a direct finger pointing incident by AO like Kovalchuk did, but Ovechkin has certainly WOOED and taken other subtle jabs when skating by an opponent’s bench to get to his own.
I honestly have no problem with the celebrations, but I think Ovechkin does show up opponents perhaps a little more than he might think or Cap fans may realize/admit.
I recognize the latter part of that, but two points:
1) JustinM’s claim is that Ovechkin skates by the bench and sticks his finger in opponents’ faces. I’m waiting for evidence thereof.
2) How many of the goal celebrations highlighted during Cherry’s rants can be seen as showing up opponents and not merely celebrating a goal in a similar fashion to Crosby here?
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Valid points. Like I said, I don’t know if #1 is out there for Ovechkin (it is for Kovalchuk). But I didn’t make that claim.
- is a good point. I guess you got to just realize lot of time Cherry talks to fire people up, it’s his job to create controversy like these, it’s not like he’s a Crosby apologist or anything. Far from it.
I could point out there’s a difference between scoring a GWG on the road at your biggest rival and celebrating every goal like it’s the biggest goal ever, but it doesn’t bother me. The personality and joy that young players show when they score a goal is something the league needs more, not less of.
I imagine when Bill Clement started raising his arms to celebrate a goal a lot of old curmudgeons said the same thing that Cherry is saying today.
February 22. All the highlights I can find stop while Ovie is still surrounded by his teammates, but I did see the highlights of it after the game that same day.
I can, however, find text mentions of it on the web. Here on a Stars blog. Here from Mark Madden (scroll to the 2-23 entry…no direct links) and also here.
Here or here, and that last one was the January 14th game.
To say that he doesn’t taunt opposing benches is ridiculous.
Pittsburgh Black And Gold -- So new, it still smells like paint!
You know what really bugs me about this? It’s the implication that some mysterious D-man can and should take Ovechkin out for being happy when he scores. Has Cherry even watched Ovi play? Seriously, I wish this mysterious D-man luck because people have been trying to take Ovi out for years and more often than not they’ve ended up either looking ridiculous or flattened themselves.
Hey kids, the next time you’re playing hockey and someone does something you don’t like, don’t whine about it. Just wait a few minutes. And the first time you see them coming across the neutral zone with their head down, just cut ‘em in half! That’s the Canadian way of solving your problems!
Normally when Cherry says stupid things, that’s just Cherry being Cherry. But when he’s promoting headhunting, that’s downright dangerous. I agree — that is the most disturbing thing about this video.
by Gould Old Days on Mar 1, 2009 12:08 PM EST up reply actions
Agreed. I didn’t like it was it was some Ottawa douche suggesting it in last season’s playoffs, and I don’t like it now. Just because I think AO could grow up doesn’t mean I think someone should hurt him.
Pittsburgh Black And Gold -- So new, it still smells like paint!
I think the interesting part about it is that Cherry says people should act “more Canadian” with these matters, but as Vi said, suggests someone take a run at Ovechkin. If that happens (and trust me, I really hope it doesn’t), then let it be a Canadian player. Just to see how Cherry reacts to that. Will it suddenly be OK because 1) it’s a Canadian boy and 2) Ovie had it coming to him?
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Don Cherry has finally lost it. He sounds like my grandfather muttering under his breath at the teevee about all those young whipersnappers. Oh, and jumping into the glass (a la Cindy Crosby) is wrong, but taking a run at a guy and trying to end his career because he has passion for the game is okay? Please, CBC, pull the plug.
I had no idea I hated this sport so much because I don’t mind seeing emotion on the ice.
How about Cherry (and his dog) never steps in front of a TV camera again and Ovechkin can celebrate every other goal.
'Nucks Misconduct - Housing Swedish Millionaires Since 2000.
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