WARMINGTON: Cherry sets record straight on MacLean's claim 'Poppygate' was TV exit strategy
Canadian legend pushes back on claims he orchestrated his Hockey Night in Canada firing or that he was ever in a Boston hospital
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The one thing Don Cherry learned this summer is his longtime television sidekick is no longer in the Coach’s Corner.
And Ron MacLean hasn’t been since he abandoned on a Saturday night in 2019, leaving Grapes to take the full force of woke Canada while saving his own skin. But, still, the legendary former Boston Bruins coach was shocked with what he read on Friday.
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WARMINGTON: Cherry sets record straight on MacLean's claim 'Poppygate' was TV exit strategy Back to video
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“I am disappointed in Ron that he wouldn’t let it go,” Cherry said in an interview Saturday. “He should let it go.”
Needless to say, MacLean poured salt in old wounds with his interview in the Kingston Whig Standard and Postmedia papers. Now the star of Coach’s Corner for 38 years is setting the record straight.
A lot of you people out there have never forgiven MacLean for letting Cherry, who will be 92 on his next birthday, be thrown under the politically-correct bus to never return to Hockey Night in Canada again while he saved himself. But almost six-years later, this may actually be even worse than ‘Poppygate.’
Cherry said he couldn’t believe his eyes when he read the most recent story. It suggested he orchestrated the controversy that ensued from his “you people” and “milk and honey” comments about people not wearing Remembrance Day poppies to end his long reign on HNIC, describing it as a cunning and calculated “exit plan” to bow out thanks to health concerns.
“It was a bit clumsy, but it was the right outcome,” MacLean told award-winning sportswriter Gare Joyce. “Ultimately, that’s what needed to happen. It was liberating. Don needed out and the time was right. (Remembrance Day) was his last swing, taking a stance that’s unpopular, but that feels good in his world.”
MacLean went further by saying Cherry, then 85, was struggling with his breathing.
“When we landed in Boston, I had to park him on a bench and get his luggage,” MacLean said. “We checked into the hotel and then took him to a nearby fitness centre that had a sauna — tried to clear out his lungs.”
MacLean added “he was so sick” and after having “a couple of beers by myself” he “got a call from (National Hockey League Commissioner) Gary Bettman” who told him Cherry was “in hospital.”
The narrative presented was this illness played a role in Cherry wanting to retire.
“I think that pneumonia scare was it,” MacLean said. “The pneumonia said to Don, ‘It’s time.’ He had to think, ‘Why is this grind suddenly so hard?’ He was ready to have an exit strategy. From that moment on, he was plotting a way out.”
The story also said “in the days before St Louis raised the Cup in Boston that June, there was real doubt about Cherry’s ability to go on the air with MacLean in the first intermission of Game 7. The show did go on, but it led to Cherry soon landing in a Boston hospital with pneumonia and MacLean believing that the Coach’s Corner wasn’t sustainable going forward.”
It felt like revisionist history but I reached out to Don, his son Tim and wife Luba to be sure. They said it’s inaccurate.
“I didn’t go to the hospital in Boston. I went to my room,” said Cherry. “I was pretty tired” but “I just didn’t go to the hospital.”
He didn’t miss any appearances then or in the start of the next year or in the six years he has done his Grapevine podcast.
Grapes said later, after returning to Canada from the Stanley Cup finals, he did quietly go to hospital in Mississauga on his own time where he was kept overnight for assessment and treated for pneumonia, which helped him get on the healing path.
“I am very disappointed in Ron, that he would bring this up,” said Cherry. “I am very disappointed that he would reach back five years and do this.”
Tim added, “I can’t believe someone’s health was in a story. It’s really nobody’s business.”
MacLean has not so far responded to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Cherry was making it clear, MacLean’s assertions are not true.
“No, I wasn’t looking for a way out. I was surprised,” said Don. “I never even thought of that.”
Tim teased he can’t think of any TV star being that “dumb” to purposely blow up their career with subtle comments taken out of context or “that smart” to do it in a Machiavellian way to their advantage.
“It makes no sense,” Tim said.
Added Don, “he can say what he wants but it never happened“ and “I guess he had to say it, but he doesn’t say it right.”
From my perspective, I think it’s important to say that Don didn’t say anything racially charged. And he should never have been fired but instead praised for reminding people to buy a poppy to remember the fallen. MacLean had a choice to make and he chose to keep his high-paying job and let the jackals surround his pal. He has to live with that decision and he can’t rewrite it.
MacLean was on the set with Don, agreed with what Cherry said and then later offered a full Mea Culpa to keep his gig.
“I was doing the honourable thing by making it look whole,” MacLean told Joyce. “The attack on immigrants was improper and I was not happy with it – it goes against my ethics. I was able to take my stand and he was able to take his, but I was also playing the game and that card allowed Don to gracefully get out – he could go out on what was for him a high, (saying stuff) that would get you elected president of the U.S. now.”
It’s pure nonsense. There was no attack on immigrants, no scheme to “get out” and MacLean only spoke up when there was a Sportsnet edict to do so. He was not honourable. Most Canadians feel he left his guy on the battlefield.
As for the popular podcast, both Don and Tim say they never intended to say their last installment after the Stanley Cup was meaning they were hanging up their microphones. Both say they plan to do another season of their podcast.
“The Who said they were doing their final show in 1982 and they are playing here next week,” teased Tim. “You never know.”
Don said he’s “hoping to do again” but if he decides it’s time, he would like to do a final show to say “see you later.”
As for Ron MacLean being welcome around his home, he said “not with the wife he isn’t.” Luba declined comment for the story, saying she will speak with MacLean directly.
As for Grapes’ relationship with his longtime TV partner?
“I don’t have any feelings toward Ron,” he said.
When asked if there is a chance for them to sit down and talk it out he said, “No, I don’t want to talk to him about it.”
The coach knows who is in his corner and who isn’t.
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