Don Cherry's latest - a shot at Ted Leonsis. For more, head over to FanHouse.
almost 3 years ago
J.P.
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Uncle Don we can hear you...
please someone turn up his hearing aid! Cherry reminds me of my grumpy old uncle who used to torment me at family gatherings.
I wonder if he thinks Leonis is an idiot for signing Ovi to a long term contract? And I’m rolling on the floor at the thought that he is now an expert regarding baseball traditions.
Cherry is nothing more than a salesman trying to keep a job on television. Someone needs to remind him it is 2009 not 1979. I’m old enough to recall those days and those traditions might have worked well then but they were for a different time. I enjoy watching guys like Ovichken and Green celebrate after a score. It shows passion and as long as they continue to score I’ll be just as happy to watch them jumping around.
Would someone please put a comforter on Uncle Don and wipe the drool from his mouth.
Uncle Don we can hear you...
And would someone mind checking his Depends…and give him a couple shots of Finlandia to calm him down.
by Bucky Katt-Luvs Caps on Mar 8, 2009 12:13 PM EDT up reply actions
what a terrible idea it was to give a long term extension to the most prolific scorer in the league over the previous 3 seasons who was still in the midst of his prime. Ted should have KNOWN that you would have to expect off the ice and mental issues would cause him to skate around like he was half asleep.
Yes. And what an awful message to send to the fan base – that the team was willing to open up the wallet for the best player on earth.
That said, there was no need to sign the extension when they did.
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Didn’t Leonsis admit on a recent tv special that he learned from his mistakes mainly through the Jagr and the Lang deals? If it wasn’t for these mishaps, it is quite possible Leonsis wouldn’t have had a more clear outlook on how to build a team. Hence, we have one of the best pipelines in hockey today because he NOW understands how thte system works.
I bet Cherry was a fan of “good old Canadians” like Tiger Williams and Theo Fleury. Look at this clip to see their celebrations.
by CapsFanSince1979 on Mar 8, 2009 1:08 PM EDT reply actions
If they celebrated every single goal like that I bet he would be upset with them as well.
Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.
by PPP on Mar 8, 2009 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions
Sweet. Ted responds (www.tedstake.com):
I am proud of my last name given to me by my father.
My ancestors are from Sparta. My last name is kind of a derivative of Leonidas, the King of Sparta and of 300 film fame. :-)
For those of you who are unfamiliar, it is pronounced "Lee – On – Sis", Leonsis.
Most intelligent, non-xenophobic and educated people have no issue with its pronunciation.
I’m writing a bit more on this but Cherry’s terrible with everyone’s names. He even struggled with some of the hometowns of the Canadian soldiers he honoured.
And making fun of Cherry’s upbringing (he was poor and definitely uneducated) is definitely not the high road. Might as well point out how many millions of dollars he has.
Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.
by PPP on Mar 8, 2009 2:29 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree. Cherry specializes in baiting people into responding to him and to write a response like that is giving him exactly what he wants. I’d have preferred Leonsis write something to the effect of “Don Cherry was right. The contracts were gave to Jagr and Lang were mistakes, and painful ones at that. But we’ve learned from them and we’re putting what we’ve learned in to practice and that’s part of what has made our team so successful right now”.
That said, I also tire quickly of Cherry’s belief that he knows more about hockey than anyone else on the planet. He rarely offers any real insight or backs up his positions with substantive evidence, instead falling back on ‘Well, I’m Don Cherry and I know hockey! This is so because I said so because I know hockey!’ which, in my opinion, makes him both entertaining and irrelevant.
is it fair to speculate that leonsis is not familiar with cherry’s upbringing? or his penchant for mispronouncing names? because i wasn’t. and to an untrained ear, cherry’s comments are at best ignorant remarks (indefensible since he knows enough to ridicule leonsis’ ownership team), and at worst racist.
I don’t think that it’s breaking news that Cherry is both unable to pronounce names with more than two syllables or that he was a high school dropout. He’s a former player that worked his way up to winning the Jack Adams. His career arc is actually pretty similar to Bruce Boudreau’s. I wonder if he’ll be labelled as knowing nothing about hockey in 20 years?
As for the remarks being racist, people fall back to that far too easily just because he’s Don Cherry. What part of what he said about Leonsis was racist or ignorant? Did Ted not blow that Jagr signing?
None of that is to say that Cherry hasn’t said some bad things before but people are too quick to yell “RACIST! XENOPHONE!” just because they don’t agree with Cherry or don’t want to look a little deeper at what he is saying. He’s obviously hampered by not being the most eloquent person on the planet.
Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.
by PPP on Mar 8, 2009 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions
well…i said they were racist at worst. mispronouncing an ethnic name and seemingly doing it on purpose (doing it a second time after his partner corrected him).
i don’t think cherry’s comments deserve that kind of wratcheting up, either. but i think you may be mistaken by guessing ted’s intentions (“making fun of Cherry’s upbringing”). calling someone uneducated does not mean you are taking a pot shot at his grade school days.
Watch it again. Cherry mispronounces it, MacLean corrects him, Cherry tries to pronounce it correctly and still fails. That’s not xenophobic at best.
I’ll agree that at best Ted calling him uneducated was poor word choice but how about I don’t guess at the intention behind Ted’s words and you don’t guess at the intention behind Cherry’s?
Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.
by PPP on Mar 8, 2009 3:43 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t think anyone said Cherry doesn’t know anything about the game. Obviously he does, but that fact alone doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to provide evidence for his points and that we should accept them at face value because of who he is.
The problem with Cherry is that he’s made up his mind and looks for evidence to support it rather than looking at the facts and making up his mind. He decided European players were worthless and that grit was all you needed to succeed and it hampered Mississauga while he was their owner. He decides that he doesn’t like what he views as a European style of play and claims Ken Holland’s team is “too soft” despite all the success the Red Wings have had.
He didn’t decide that they were worthless he decided that they didn’t have the same level of grit as North American players. On the whole would you argue otherwise?
Mississauga was also hampered by being an expansion team and having Jason Spezza and Patrick O’Sullivan being babies.
What’s wrong with not liking a style of play? He also noted that the RedWings are very good but that he thinks that their style of play is depressing attendance in blue collar Detroit. Is that a fair assessment? I think that it would only be a factor for a very small segment of the market.
Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.
by PPP on Mar 8, 2009 8:43 PM EDT up reply actions
He didn’t decide that they were worthless he decided that they didn’t have the same level of grit as North American players. On the whole would you argue otherwise?
I think it’s really an individual thing, though I do think North American players are generally more physical. My understanding is that Cherry initially declined to participate in the CHL Import Draft and declined to take on European players in trades (hence the, ‘worthless’ comment). While I don’t disagree about Spezza and O’Sullivan I also think that the fact the IceDogs won 16 games in their first three years while Brampton won ~65 is at least in part a reflection on Cherry. Not that he doesn’t know much about hockey, because knowing the game and being a successful owner or GM are not the same thing, but that he generally makes up his mind and looks for facts to support it rather than the other way around.
As for Detroit, I really don’t know. On the one hand the Red Wings have been so successful for so long that the fans might have a “wake up when it’s the playoffs attitude” and the economy in Detroit and Michigan is terrible. On the other hand, the only study I’ve read indicates that teams that fight more draw more, all else being equal.
On the other hand, the only study I’ve read indicates that teams that fight more draw more, all else being equal.
The funny thing about that is that for a Sports Economics class my buddy and I figured that those same teams won less.
Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.
by PPP on Mar 9, 2009 1:09 AM EDT up reply actions
That’s really ironic he rips Ted for signing Jagr, yet he’s the guy that is pretty much responsible for the infamous too many men on the ice call that the Bruins took in the Stanley Cup Finals, where LaFleur scored on the ensuing power play and the Habs won the Cup in OT
Ron and Fez Noon to Three
by YvonLabresMoustache on Mar 8, 2009 6:17 PM EDT reply actions
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| GP | W | L | OTL | PT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Florida
|
53 | 25 | 17 | 11 | 61 |
|
Washington
|
54 | 28 | 21 | 5 | 61 |
|
Winnipeg
|
56 | 26 | 24 | 6 | 58 |
|
Tampa Bay
|
53 | 23 | 24 | 6 | 52 |
|
Carolina
|
55 | 20 | 25 | 10 | 50 |
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