WARMINGTON: New Don Cherry book a tribute to dad from the Coach's late daughter

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While millions of Canadians grew up with Coach’s Corner, behind the scenes in full support was the Coach’s daughter.

Cindy Cherry was a fly on the wall for all of it — from when her dad, Don, coached Bobby Orr and the Boston Bruins, to when he was unceremoniously thrown under the bus from his famous television segment.

She took notes.

This was a day Cindy Cherry was looking forward to. Unfortunately, we will have to celebrate the publishing of her first book without her. The venerable daughter of Canadian legend Don Cherry died July 15, 2024, at age 67 after a short illness.

“I am ready to write a book on it all from my perspective,” she told me a couple of years back. “It’s time.”

The book is a tribute to a dad from a daughter. A second book is set to be released at Christmas.

The only regret is she’s not around to see it. Her death was a shock. No one took it harder than Grapes himself. With the loss of kid brother Richard this winter at the age of 87, it has been a bad year for the 91-year-old Coach and Cherry family.

Hopefully this book shines some light back on that great family.

“I knew mom wanted this book out,” said Cindy’s son Del, 30. “It was ready to go. So, we have decided to do it now.”

So, this Monday, April 21, just as the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs kick off, “The Don Cherry Story, By His Daughter” will drop on Amazon and Indigo.

“This is her story, through her eyes,” said Del.

Cindy doesn’t waste any time getting to the elephant in room — the day her father was fired, Remembrance Day 2019, after 38 years on Hockey Night In Canada’s Coach’s Corner.

The first chapter, called Poppygate, covers Cindy seeing her beloved father, voted in a CBC poll as the 7th greatest Canadian, be thrown to the wolves by a woke mob for merely saying “you people love our milk and honey” the “least you could do” is buy a poppy on Remembrance Day.

He wasn’t being a bigot. He was being a patriot.

But Cindy writes he knew in cancel-culture Canada, there might be blowback. He was right.

Cindy writes her father told her he “looked at (sidekick) Ron MacLean said: ‘We may be hearing about that one.’ Ron, just looked at him inquisitively, indicating Ron might not have been listening as intently as Dad thought. However, he was bobbing his head in agreement throughout the dialogue, gave Dad the thumbs-up and at the end said, ‘love you for it’ and said ‘HNIC repeated this Coach’s Corner for their central Canadian viewers. How bad could they have felt it was if they rebroadcasted it?'”

She sets the record straight how Cherry had offered to go back on the air to “explain better what he meant.”

But the knives were out and there was blood in the water. People who wanted non-politically correct, straight-talking Don off the air for decades were circling like vultures — and few who Don carried to the top were there to stand up for him. Very few.

They could have thrown him a lifeline and he was ready to accept it. But they didn’t, writes Cindy.

“The narrative that Rogers/Sportsnet and Ron (MacLean) put out to the rest of the media was that all Don had to do to keep his job was apologize and he wouldn’t,” she writes. “This is what a lot of the corporate media shills and people on social media humped on — why didn’t Don just say he’s sorry and then he would have gotten back his job?”

It was a false narrative, says Cindy.

“To me, there was no doubt Rogers wanted dad gone, so they backed him into a corner knowing he wouldn’t kneel to their demands,” she says in the book. “I believe many people knew there was more to the story about dad’s firing but didn’t bother looking into it and just went with the corporate narrative.”

She said the brass “caved to the noisy minority” with the understanding that “if you said anything in dad’s defence, you would be labelled as racist, xenophobic, etc. So, who would want to take on that headache?”

Just like that, “one more Canadian tradition was gone” — not just for the country, but for her personally.

“Hockey fans had their Saturdays in a routine that revolved around 7:50 p.m. I even had my own. It was always nice that, no matter where I was, I could tune in and see my dad on TV Saturday nights.”

For others it meant the end of celebrating police officers or honouring troops dying in service, or “the great work of the police, fire fighters, first responders or pictures of winners of minor hockey tournaments.

“All of that stopped because some took offence to him questioning why people don’t wear poppies.”

But MacLean moved ahead without Don, as her father, who built the brand, now watches alone on the couch — discarded by the very people he made famous.

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Cindy was close to her dad. And the Cherrys are a tight family. When they were kids, Cindy gave her brother Tim a kidney so he could live. Tim is a remarkable man and story himself — a producer to all of Don’s shows, books and videos and a hockey scout. He and Cindy were raised well and are proud to be Cherrys. Together they suffered through the death from cancer of their beloved mother, Rose, in 1997 and they — along with Don’s wife of 26 years, Luba, took good care of the hockey icon away from the fame.

At 91, Grapes is well looked after, but there is a big hole in his life without Cindy.

He hasn’t spoken much about her death, however, Del says his grandfather and uncle will celebrate Cindy’s legacy Sunday when they tape their next episode of the Don Cherry Grapevine podcast, which recently hit a milestone of 300 shows.

It’s hard, but when it comes to talking about Cindy, there’s much more to discuss than her untimely death. She was the force behind the Don Cherry Pet Rescue Program and the Rose Cherry Home For Kids, as well as the Don Cherry Grapevine restaurants.

Cindy was all about giving back. She wasn’t interested in the notoriety her mother, father and brother experienced. Tim and Don did five books together, 30 Don Cherry’s Rock’em Sock’em Hockey videos, and a CBC movie.

She preferred to be behind the scenes and working on the charity side of it.

But when the system ganged up on her dad, with chapters like “Ron” and “Xenophobic” and “Misogynist” and “The French,” she decided to step out to defend her pops. She may not still be here. But her strong words sure are.

To purchase the book, you can go to Indigo or Amazon.

jwarmington@postmedia.com