When I was listening to a baseball game this past summer, the idea of “running up the score” arose and I heard probably the best comment about it I ever heard.

The announcers said that they were sure the team winning big would agree to stop scoring so many runs, if the losing team agreed to stop trying to come back.  If both teams agreed to stop trying and just go through the motions, fine, but otherwise just play baseball. 

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 01/16/10 at 10:06 PM ET

Baroque, amen.  I realize Cherry is just doing his job by riling people up and thus attracting viewers, but sheesh!

Posted by GregAnnapolis on 01/16/10 at 10:15 PM ET

The comments above me are ridiculous. the score was 6-1 in the 3rd period with about 10 minutes to play and the capitals were playing the leafs. theres a thing called sportsmanship and the capitals didnt show it. i know in the states don cherry has the image of a guy who just shoots his mouth off to create controversy but its not that. he promotes an honour code. a warrior code. i.e. drop the gloves properly. help your opponent get up once the battle is over. and NEVER kick a guy when hes down. humility. boys. theres a reason cherry loves guys like yzerman and sakic. they dont avoid touching their stick by pretending its hot when they score a goal.

Posted by Shawn on 01/17/10 at 01:43 AM ET

I just don’t get this idea of ‘running up the score’ being bad sportsmanship. The game lasts 60 minutes, you play hard for 60 minutes. These guys are pros, not kids, they don’t need a mercy rule; normal people don’t get to go home at 2 pm if they’re having a bad day at the office. If anything it’s much worse to say ‘hey, we’ve beaten you already, we’re just going to coast for a period or two’, that seems incredibly patronising to me. When Tottenham beat Wigan 9-0 in the EPL (soccer) a few weeks ago, nobody was criticising Tottenham for still trying after going 3 goals up, they were criticising Wigan for being rubbish enough to concede 9. Fair enough.

Posted by fredster from manchester on 01/17/10 at 07:54 AM ET

I think it’s poor sportsmanship to celebrate like mad every additional goal or run in a blowout and rub it in, but these aren’t kids playing for fun.  They are professional athletes, and sometimes are going to get their butts handed to them - just like sometimes they are going to be the ones handing butts to someone else.  Keep playing hard but just don’t gloat - I don’t expect anyone to ease up on an opponent.  That’s patronizing.

Besides, what if the Leafs scored a couple of quick goals and the game was 6-3 with about eight minutes left?  Push against the Capitals, draw a penalty, and a fluke power play goal goes in to cut the deficit to two goals with about five minutes left, and Washington could find themselves wishing they hadn’t passed on a few opportunities earlier in the game.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 01/17/10 at 09:34 AM ET

Shawn, there are two sides to this story.  This started with the leafs gooning it up with orr’s cheap shot on green.  If that doesn’t occur, then you don’t see ov and green on the pp.  The caps could have responded by gooning it up themselves, but that’s not how they are built.  For cherry to rip bb with no mention of orr’s antics just further proves his candian bias and is another example of why he needs to be ignored.

Posted by Capsfan on 01/17/10 at 11:05 AM ET

When the Caps are up big and end up with late power plays, Boudreau routinely plays the second PP unit and puts in guys who don’t normally get PP minutes (Jeff Schultz recently got time on the point late). However, when a team gets goony and tries to rough guys up late in a big win, he puts the top line out to punish them. His pattern on this is well established and the Leafs situation falls neatly into this pattern.

Posted by false_cause from DC on 01/17/10 at 11:20 AM ET

The Caps are usually very willing to back off the PP when they are up five goals. They’ve proven that time and time again. The reason Green and Ovechkin where in here was because Toronto was trying to get too rough with them. The Capitals use the PP as their enforcer. If you are going to take potshots at Green, sure as hell they’re going to try to score on you on the ensuing PP. That’s how the team works.

If the Leafs had played a clean game this never would have happened. Period.

Posted by Jess on 01/17/10 at 12:03 PM ET

Don Cherry is the biggest blow hard who covers hockey…  Like someone else posted, the Leafs decided to goon it up, so the CAPS respond by putting out their # 1 power play unit…  That’s how it works…  If you want to take cheap shot liberties when the game is out of reach, expect the other team to keep coming after you until the game is over…  Don Cherry doesn’t cover that at all, because quite simply he is a biased idiot…  Always has been , and always will be…

Posted by Stealth from USA on 01/17/10 at 12:04 PM ET

For someone who purports to love hockey so much, Don Cherry always seems to be really angry at the state of it.  Why?  He’s a crotchety, opinionated old man, with a clear hometown bias and pretty poor taste in facial hair.  He’s bought the Ovie vs. Crosby ‘debate’ hook-line-and-sinker and because Overchkin isn’t a baby-faced Canadian, he hates him.  That’s dumb.

I like Shawn’s spirited defense of Cherry.  “A warrior code?”  Seriously?  Flamboyant descriptions aside, I should note that’s its really easy to play Mr. Pious when you get to write the rules of piety:  Cherry truly is a great martyr; a guardian of all things good and true; the balance on which we weigh all others’ worth.  I know it because he told me.  Face it, Don Cherry is Canada’s Bill O’Reilly, except politics are less important than hockey up north.

Guys, Ovechkin and the Capitals are everything the NHL could be: Exciting, hard-hitting, young and competitive.  Seriously, what is wrong with that?  But Cherry yearns for the old days.  The truth plain and simple is that faster, higher-scoring teams like the Caps are ascending in the NHL.  And the league has changed the rules to make it happen.

Yes, the Caps are great at wracking up the score.  That’s what they are built to do at the expense of defense (on occasion).  They’re going to experience the upsides (5-6 goals a game over the last 6) and the downside (lost 7-4 before winning it from behind 5-4).  If they have the potential to score 8 but give up 7, of course they should keep playing til the bitter end!  And why should these rules only apply to one team on the ice?  When the Lightning went up 4-1, should they have stopped pouring it on because they were blowing out the Caps?  They shouldn’t have, but they did and they lost 5-4. 

When someone who claims to love the game of hockey as much as Cherry can only focus on specific celebrations, you know its just sour grapes.  When someone who yearns for pure hockey hates the league’s most gifted sniper (ever?) because he hits and plays too hard, you know its just hypocrisy.  When someone who is supposed to be an expert on the NHL obstinately doesn’t see the writing on the wall, its time to just stop listening.

Posted by Regniweol on 01/17/10 at 12:17 PM ET

Cherry goes on to say his teams always spread the scoring out over several players because he used everyone in those lead situations when he coached. On this I challenge him to find a team with as balanced a group of scorers as Washington, Last week the Caps won 8-1 in Atlanta and Ovechkin had just 1 point. The Caps have more 10 goal scorers than anyone. The best caps players get most of their playing minutes on power plays. Maybe Boudreau knows more than Cherry credits him. Who knew the Caps would be shorthanded late in the game killing off 5 on 3 Toronto PPs twice in the last 5 minutes. It was about getting a solid 60 minutes and a good goaltending performance - something lacking last week - so Washington didn’t try to coast. (The game was never 5-0 by the way..another Cherry misnomer…if other teams fear Washington’s PP so much then play more carefully). There also are no “hockey Gods”.

Posted by yesisaiditfirst from Halifax, NS on 01/17/10 at 01:28 PM ET

Don Cherry is just a talking head and the Canadians who worship him are sheep that feed on what media tells you without forming their own opinion.

These are professional athletes, there isn’t a honor code, there is just winning. That’s all that matters at the end of the day and the great athletes don’t care how they win, whether they do it personally or help the team to do it. This is a sport where you can drop the gloves, so something happens and you don’t like it DO something. This is also a sport where a team who steps off the petal can have 3 goals scored against in 2 minutes.

The leafs were getting stomped so they decided to goon it up, good for them you can do that. Sometimes that stuff can rally a team.

But Cherry was wrong on facts, again, the Tor game was never 5-0 at the end of the 2nd it was 4-1. That can still be a respectable game. As far as puting out top line guys on the PP, it was just rotation and Bouds wasn’t going to change it. You look at TOI for the Caps top 6, they have less EV time than a lot of 3rd and 4rth line players. Also who do we throw out when the game gets to a 5+ goal lead? The caps have the most potent offense in the league and are projected to have the most 20 and 10 goal scorers in the league.

Posted by breaklance from wash dc on 01/17/10 at 06:37 PM ET