I actually watched that segment last night, and not being a Wings fan I feel I have an objective point of view on this.  I was a little puzzled by the segment to be honest!  To point out a player like Datsyuk was rather odd.  The examples of those hits were suspect at best.  First most of them were either side on hits or hits where the other player turned his back.  There were a couple of “hits from behind” but I did not see one case where there was enough force to knock over a small child.  Let’s look at Boogard’s hit on Prust from the night before, not that it was a hit from behind, but you’ve got goon’s out running around at the end of a game leaving their feet to knock a guy silly, and Cherry decides to pick on a star player.  As for their style of play…it’s simple…I can understand why the fans don’t want to go watch a team that has multiple star players, moves the puck well, is consistantly at the top of the standings and has won what four or five cups in the last 12 years…must be their style of play!

Posted by Mac from Canada on 03/01/09 at 07:48 AM ET

Guys,

Cherry isn’t taken seriously from Canadians so don’t look too deep into this.  He is a moron.

That being said I do find it rather puzzling that they cannot see out the building in Detroit.  A great team that is defending the Stanley Cup.  Isn’t this “Hockey Town”

Posted by Mr, Nasty on 03/01/09 at 07:53 AM ET

Everybody hates the Red Wings.
It is us against the world.

F*** you!

We have the Stanley Cup,
and we are going to keep it!

Posted by w2j2 on 03/01/09 at 08:28 AM ET

We have the Stanley Cup,
and we are going to keep it!

Wish I still believed this, but last night was pretty disgusting.

In regards to Cherry, this stuff doesn’t even bother me. He’s a psycho old xenophobe. He’s at the point where he’s so over the top that he’s a characiture of himself. He’s like the old grandpa that seems like he lived forever, and with every passing year he became less and less mentally stable.

Detroit has proven him wrong a number of times. They won the Cup last year with all the characteristics he said you couldn’t win a Cup with, and without the characteristics he said you needed to win a Cup.

Posted by Nathan from the scoresheet! on 03/01/09 at 08:45 AM ET

I stopped listening to Cherry entirely (as opposed to mostly) when at the end of last season, the comment was made that Lidstrom knocked down the last barrier in being the first European born and trained player to captain his team to a Stanley Cup, and he was dismissive, waving his hand and claiming that because he was the only one, it told you something - as though in his not-at-all-humble opinion, it was a mere abberation, and soon enough the natural order would be restored and Canadian grit and testosterone would rule the day once more.

If Boston wins the Cup over San Jose (to choose the highest point values in each conference), will that mean that the best chance for a Cup is to have a European defenseman as your captain?  Canadian forwards (Crosby, Marleau) are a recipe for losing? 

Seriously, I don’t see how that man still has a job.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 03/01/09 at 09:05 AM ET

youtube allows for starting within a video: just append

to the link => e.g.

Posted by yzemaze from somewhere in f***ing Bavaria, Germany on 03/01/09 at 09:21 AM ET

@ Mac from Canada -

Cherry has ripped on Datsyuk before, in very personal and unprofessional fashion.  He generally doesn’t like Russians, but he seems to despise Datsyuk particularly, although I can’t imagine why.

(And I didn’t see the Detroit - Nashville game last night, but it was just one game, no matter how ugly and horrible it was.  No extra points are deducted from the standings for being embarrassed as compared to San Jose giving up three goals, scoring two, and being entirely unable to breach the Montreal wall of Jaro Halak in getting their regulation loss last night.)

Every team gets whalloped sometime - clearly Detroit was short of their season quota.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 03/01/09 at 09:26 AM ET

I used to love Cherry when I was a little kid and really looked forward to his segments on HNIC. When he began trashing the Russian 5, however, the slide began. Now, now he voices everything I could hate in our game if I wasn’t too busy admiring all the great things. Too bad.

Posted by Osrt on 03/01/09 at 10:12 AM ET

The Wings style that Cherry hates can’t be too bad;  look at their success….

Posted by yzerman19 from Nashville on 03/01/09 at 11:21 AM ET

To all the whiners who say Detroit isn’t “hockeytown” cause they can’t sell out their arena, I say “F OFF”.  It has gotten old hearing that crap time and again, the Wings have been keeping seats filled in all the arenas around the league helping your sorry teams afloat(i.e. variable pricing for Wings games, cause they know that they sell)  Selling seats is directly affected by people having little to no disposable income, not cause there are not enough fights or goonery.

Posted by yreland from Van Dieman's Land on 03/01/09 at 11:34 AM ET

I usually like what Grapes has to say, but between this and the Ovechkin stuff he really went off the rails…

Posted by Forechecker from Nolensville, TN on 03/01/09 at 11:42 AM ET

All of his attendance claims are lies as well.

Posted by Heaton on 03/01/09 at 12:36 PM ET

He’s a Comedian. A bad one.

Posted by Juan Caballero from Paraguay on 03/01/09 at 01:03 PM ET

I beg to differ, Juan.

Even bad comedians are funny sometimes.  The way he belittles people like a catty junior high school girl is infuriating - and far from funny.

(Aside from the fact that it’s sublimely irritating to hear someone rip on Europeans when the only difference is that one person’s European immigration history is more recent than that of another.  Go back three generations and I’m in Poland, Ireland, or Germany, not a native Michigan resident.)

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 03/01/09 at 01:20 PM ET

And somehow attendance in Detroit’s is better than in St Louis, New Jersey, Columbus, Phoenix and Atlanta, all with over 40 fights this season, and equal to that in Anaheim, with almost 70 .

Posted by kushiro on 03/01/09 at 04:02 PM ET

Cherry’s looking for attention…yet, again.

Ass…

Posted by SYF from a "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" on 03/01/09 at 04:11 PM ET

I vowed I wasn’t going to talk about Don Cherry today but I can’t help it.  I’m still angry.  He told lies about the Wings attendance, lies about Datsyuk, Lidstrom, etc.  I didn’t like him trashing Ovechkin last night either.  Hmm, no Canadians ever celebrate goals?  Theo Fleury?  Tiger Williams?

Posted by hockeychic from Denver, CO on 03/01/09 at 05:49 PM ET

Stiil remember Cherry talking about the perfect guy Breandan Witt. A true warrior on ice….

After the Niklas Hagman incident…. Did Cherry talked about it? Course not….

And Pavel is the dirty one….

Posted by Juan Caballero from Paraguay on 03/01/09 at 06:37 PM ET

It was the Russian Five, not the Fab Five (Michigan is no longer allowed to mention the Fab Five).

The Lions didn’t sell out the last bunch of games, the Tigers had draws with big, new names (this is essentially the same Wings team as last year’s and has not had significant changes, with good reason, for the last four years).  Michigan’s ticket base is ginormous and they only have 6 home games per year.  The Pistons are no longer selling out.  And really, criticizing Lidstrom?  The prototypical defenseman, one of the top 3 of all time?  Please.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of your xenophobia, Mr. Cherry.

Posted by Joel from Los Angeles, CA on 03/02/09 at 05:37 PM ET

Don’t let the facts get in the way of your xenophobia, Mr. Cherry.

Are you serious?  Cherry’s xenophobia is great (for him).  It means he never has to face the facts about his least favourite European players.  If he did, his brain would explode (Note: Don Cherry does all his thinking with his bile duct).

Consider the following game of “Who am I?”

I am an undersized but agile and skilled forward who was taken in the late rounds of my draft year.  Not only am I a high-scoring forward, my superb defensive play resulted in my winning the Selke trophy.  Who am I?

Well, if this question were asked in the mid 90’s, you’d say Doug Gilmour, Cherry’s favourite hockey player.  Today, we’d say Pavel Datsyuk.  There, I said it.  In many ways, Datsyuk is the Russian Doug Gilmour.  And Cherry despises the guy.  Personally I’d love to hear Gilmour’s thoughts on Datsyuk as a player (They both rank among my favourite players).

Posted by Evan from Canada on 03/10/09 at 07:13 PM ET