Since it’s fun to liveblog ANYTHING, I’m going to do a minute-by-minute liveblog of Don Cherry’s first ever ESPN appearance.  I imagine it’ll last about… oh, 7 minutes tops:

11:51 PM: As the show - SportsCenter I should remind you - opens, good ol’ John Buccigross reminds us that Don Cherry is making his ESPN debut tonight.

11:52 PM: SportsCenter goes ahead and… starts off with hoops.  We may be here a while.

11:54 PM: Grapes is probably wondering who Mike Tirico is, despite appearing on his radio show yesterday.

11:56 PM: I really didn’t think this post would require a jump, but we’re headed there, as ESPN continues on basketball.  See how I’m totally making a point about something here?

11:57 PM: Back to the studio, more basketball stats.

11:58 PM: Back to basketball game for post-game press conferences.  But yeah, let’s take our sport back to ESPN, we totally need them, right?

11:59 PM: We’re past that 7-minute prediction, as ESPN’s moved on from talking about basketball to talking about the new Dallas Mavericks basketball coach, who apparently also works at ESPN.

11:59:30 PM: Finally hockey!  As ESPN opens with a montage on the Pens-Flyers rivalry that’s been a-brewin!  John Buccigross: “Very violent.”

12:01 AM: We’re on to JB and Barry Melrose, who looks like Rocky Blyer according to Bucci.  They’re NHL2Night-ing up the highlights, as Bucci drops a “twisted wrister”.

12:02 AM: Barry and John talk about Fleury’s emergence, Philly’s lack of energy, and Malkin being just plain awesome.

12:03 AM: John and Barry post-mortem and attempt to give Flyer fans hope.

12:04 AM: Crap, now they’re promoting this as a “later on in the show” thing.  Crap.  Well… this is awkward.  I’ll get back to you when they get to Grapes.  One more thing, can Danica Patrick somewhere in her statement say the words “Sorry I hit that dude with my car!?!?!?”.  My bad, I’ll get back to you when Cherry shows up.

12:08 AM: In case your wondering, they’re still on basketball, and in the commercial tease they said nothin’ but baseball on deck.

12:15 AM: Guess what?  More hoops!  Kobe Bryant on the mic.  Did I just hear a professional, paid reporter, refer to a Laker as “D-Fish”?  Not once, but twice?  But yeah, bloggers would ruin the integrity of newspapers!

12:18 AM: Apparently, the segment has been taped already, aired on ESPNNews, and is essentially Coach’s Corner-lite with Bucci substituting for MacLean.  Well, that’s another bummer.  Thanks ESPN.  Ass.

12:21 AM: They finally tease Grapes, and Bucci refers to him as “The latest Disney character”.  He’ll be talking Pens-Flyers and all those empty seats in Detroit.  Like he did on Coach’s Corner tonight.  Fun.

12:25 AM: Still baseball and hoops.  Can we all agree to stop hating on Versus for a little while after all this?  Oh fine, you can still hate Beninati.  And Engblom.  And Jonesy and Olczyk, but only when they say something that lowers them to the levels of Engblom or Beninati.  But hey, leave Doc Emrick and… well, leave Doc alone.

12:27 AM: Fun fact: The Twins were my first favorite… never mind, back to Pens-Flyers!

12:28 AM: A best of Don Cherry moments, including the Detroit Octopus moment, the Coneheads thing, and of course “Why keep score”.

12:29 AM: Bucci introduces Cherry to the 95% of people who have no clue what the hell this is.  And Don’s suit confirms their worst fears.  It looks like he killed a rejected Backstreet Boy for that suit.

12:30 AM: Don talks about the Flyers, saying that they need to play “Bobby Clarke hockey”.

12:31 AM: Grapes calls Jordan Staal “Eric”.  And rehashes his “Malone is God” complex.

12:32 AM: Really guys, Detroit is a redneck town?  Because Grapes just said “Detroit is a redneck town”.  That said, he makes an interesting point, and the Pistons and Tigers do very well.  But still, Bill’s post today pwns it.

12:32 AM: Grapes ends the segment and promises to “bury Barry” Melrose.  As Neil Everett puts it, “How do you follow that?”.  I won’t.  Good night folks.

12:35 AM: I have this DVR’d, so I’ll post a complete recap of that 2 minutes tomorrow.  Goodnight, rednecks.