Even Nixon Only Got Four More
Everyone I know hates Don Cherry. Sure, I know he's popular across Canada (I think he is, anyways), but every HNIC post-mortem I conduct with the Inner Circle inevitably moves from a discussion of how bad Raycroft looked or whose dumbass idea it was to broadcast the Senators (Kanata's Team!) nationally to whatever piece of crypto-fascism croaked out of Grapes's maw. Now, while Grapes bugs me as much as he does any self-respecting hockey fan, it's not him that gets me reaching for a cold 50 or a warm gun on a Saturday night in February. It's Ron Maclean.
It has become popular for both Cherry lovers and haters to assert than Don represents Canada, speaks to something in our national DNA. Nonsense. Cherry represents no country so much as Dubya's USA, using his bully pulpit to promote militarism, aggression, and "good local boys" over cultured play, turning the other cheek, and foreigners. Anne Coulter's views on gun control are a pretty good comp for his position on making visors mandatory.
It's Ron Maclean, signed today for seven more years who is the quintessential Canadian, the one who embodies the worst traits of our nation as he toadies up to Cherry's Big Man. Apologizing for Cherry's racism with jokes about drowning French Canadians, a referee who uses his platform to shit on his fellow officials (and then hilariously make the same calls when put in the line of fire), Maclean covers smarm and condescension with a patina of reverence for Gzowki's Canada, the white, middle-class rural enclave that occupies an inordinate amount of our mental real estate despite its irrelevance to the day-to-day lives of most Canadians. Along with Cherry, he has helped turn Coach's Corner into a platform for continued propaganda for our war in Afghanistan. But while Cherry would justify it by believing in the mission (and fuck you if you don't, buddy), one gets the sense that Maclean would only claim he was "supporting the troops," reflecting the same malevolent appeal to Canadians' best instincts that has characterized the Harper government's selling of the war.
Watching the two on Saturday nights, you know that Cherry believes in something. What does Maclean believe in, except sucking up to those bigger and stronger than you? As a wiser man than I once said, "Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
It has become popular for both Cherry lovers and haters to assert than Don represents Canada, speaks to something in our national DNA. Nonsense. Cherry represents no country so much as Dubya's USA, using his bully pulpit to promote militarism, aggression, and "good local boys" over cultured play, turning the other cheek, and foreigners. Anne Coulter's views on gun control are a pretty good comp for his position on making visors mandatory.
It's Ron Maclean, signed today for seven more years who is the quintessential Canadian, the one who embodies the worst traits of our nation as he toadies up to Cherry's Big Man. Apologizing for Cherry's racism with jokes about drowning French Canadians, a referee who uses his platform to shit on his fellow officials (and then hilariously make the same calls when put in the line of fire), Maclean covers smarm and condescension with a patina of reverence for Gzowki's Canada, the white, middle-class rural enclave that occupies an inordinate amount of our mental real estate despite its irrelevance to the day-to-day lives of most Canadians. Along with Cherry, he has helped turn Coach's Corner into a platform for continued propaganda for our war in Afghanistan. But while Cherry would justify it by believing in the mission (and fuck you if you don't, buddy), one gets the sense that Maclean would only claim he was "supporting the troops," reflecting the same malevolent appeal to Canadians' best instincts that has characterized the Harper government's selling of the war.
Watching the two on Saturday nights, you know that Cherry believes in something. What does Maclean believe in, except sucking up to those bigger and stronger than you? As a wiser man than I once said, "Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
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