• • • don cherry & canadian social divides
When Canadian television icon Don Cherry was fired from Hockey Night in Canada for his xenophobic comments in November 2019, the controversy over his departure played out in both public and private spaces. The Canadian public has made sense of and demonstrated our own social positions through our alignment with, or disavowal of, Don Cherry and his views on hockey, immigration, multiculturalism, Europe, Quebec sovereignty, Franco-Canadian identities, war, and gender. It is notable that some journalists characterize Canada as divided into two camps, Cherry supporters and Cherry opponents. As Kelly McParland (2010) states, “There is clearly a divide running through Canada, and it’s not French versus English, or East versus West. It’s pro-Don Cherry versus anti-Don Cherry” (p. A22). Although Cherry is most famous as a sport commentator, his significance to the Canadian populace speaks volumes about divisions in Canadian social life more widely. For example, on the day after his infamous career-ending rant, articles about his firing graced the pages of both English and French language newspapers across the country (Coletta & Strauss, 2019), with perhaps the most famous headline coming from the front page of the Montreal tabloid Le Journal du Montréal: “Bon Débarras,” or “Good Riddance.”
Focusing on English Canada, this work will try to make sense of what Cherry says and why it resonates with some Anglo-Canadians. This work stems from Allain’s ongoing research in the intersections of gender, Canadian national identity, and the sport of hockey, particularly her interest in the meaning-making and moral worlds of working-class white Anglo-Canadian men and their production of what some academics call “crisis masculinity.”
Cherry was an early adopter of what popular culture has come to label as right wing populism, existing in the popular consciousness before Doug Ford, Donald Trump and the Reform Party of Canada. He might very well have been the canary in the coal mine, flagging tensions that were to come. As Richard Gruneau and David Whitson (1993) reason, Cherry’s “popularity suggests that a not insignificant number of Canadian fans love to hear this public persona who gives voice to their own feelings and prejudices” (p. 187). In this regard, being attentive to Cherry helps explain how certain segments of the population position themselves in relation to social change. This project aims to explore what Don Cherry’s fame and infamy tell us about Canadian social life and the various ways that the media, the public, the state, and others have positioned his views as both aligned with and distanced from what it means to be Canadian.
Sources
Gruneau, R., & Whitson, D. (1993). Hockey night in Canada: Sport, identities, and cultural politics. Toronto: Garamond.
McParland, K. (2010, December 8). Canada’s Don Cherry divide. National Post. https://nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-canadas-don-cherry-divide
Academic Publications:
Allain, K.A. (2016). “A good Canadian boy”: Crisis masculinity, Canadian national identity and nostalgic longings in Don Cherry’s Coach’s Corner." International Journal of Canadian Studies, 52, 107-132.
Allain, K.A. (2008). "‘Real fast and tough’: The construction of Canadian hockey masculinity". Sociology of Sport Journal, 25(4) 462-481.
Knowledge Dissemination:
Ahearn, V. (2019, November 12). Reaction to Don Cherry marks a ‘divisiveness in Canadian social life,’ says prof. Canadian Press.
Coletta, A. & Strauss, B. (2019, November 12). In a changing Canada, Don Cherry’s firing is front-page news and a Rorschach test. Washington Post.
Hallihan, B. (2019) She became a Don Cherry expert, and now the world is calling. Telegraph-Journal.
Pack, P. (2019, August 10). Don Cherry’s dangerous legacy. VICE.