Don Cherry

Donald Stewart " Don " Cherry ( born February 5, 1934 in Kingston, Ontario ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player and coach. Currently, he hosts along with Ron MacLean at the Canadian station CBC Coach's Corner, a format as part of the very popular in Canada Hockey Night in Canada.

• 2.1 Awards and achievements

Career as a player

1951 Don Cherry began his career in the Canadian Junior Football League OHA Windsor Spitfires in, but in the same year he moved within the league to the Barrie Flyers. In 1953 he won the Memorial Cup with these. In 1954 he moved to the pros and played with the Hershey Bears in the AHL. In the playoffs, the season 1954/55 he came to the Boston Bruins for his single insert in the NHL. In the following years he played for several teams in the lower leagues AHL, EPHL, CPhl and WHL. The longest he was active with the Rochester Americans in the AHL from 1963 until 1969. He finished temporarily his career, but returned in 1971 for 19 games with the Rochester Americans, before he took over mid-season as coach.

Awards and achievements

• Memorial Cup 1953
• Calder Cup in 1960, 1965, 1966 and 1968
• Lester Patrick Cup in 1969

Career as a coach

Under Cherry's leadership, the Americans were able to again reach the playoffs, and he was awarded the Louis AR Pieri Award 1974 as the best coach of the AHL. The Boston Bruins committed him out as head coach. Cherry made ​​over time by his eccentric appearance and remodeling the team a name. Under his leadership, the Bruins were considered one of the toughest teams in the league, so they also had success. 1976 Cherry won the Jack Adams Award as the best coach in the NHL. 1977 and 1978 the team reached the Stanley Cup final, but where they failed both times to the Montreal Canadiens. In the semifinals, 1979, the Bruins met again in Montreal. In the seventh and deciding game of the series Boston held two minutes from time with a 3-2, as a punishment was pronounced against Boston because too many players were on the ice. Montréal used the power play to compensate for and won the game in overtime. Cherry was subsequently dismissed.

Already in the autumn of 1979 he had a new job with the Colorado Rockies. The team existed for only five years and was made ​​famous by sporting and financial failures. Also, Cherry was the Rockies do not exempt from the crisis, and the team finished at the end of the 1979/80 season the last place with only 19 wins in 80 games. The Rockies dismissed Cherry after only one year.

While Cherry at Canada Cup 1976 assistant coach of the Canadian national team was, he was responsible for the team as head coach at the Ice Hockey World Championship in 1981. Afterwards he trained for a long time no more team.

2001 Cherry returned for a year behind the gang. He took over as coach at the Mississauga IceDogs in the Canadian Junior Football League OHL. Cherry was at this time also the owner of the unsuccessful team that could only reach 16 wins in 204 games in the previous three years. Under Cherry's leadership, the IceDogs were able to increase only slightly, winning eleven games. Cherry then gave as coach again.

Awards and achievements

• Stanley Cup Finals in 1977 and 1978
• Jack Adams Award 1976
• Louis A. R. Pieri Award 1974

Career in television

After Cherry with the Colorado Rockies in 1980 failed to qualify for the playoffs, the Canadian television station CBC hired him as an expert for the transmissions of the playoff games. In 1981 he was co-commentator, but as he showed himself often partisan, took his job not long. Instead, the station created Coach's Corner, about a 15 - minute program, which will be sent during the broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada during the break after the first game third. Cherry is analyzed together with Ron MacLean the running game, individual players and discusses current topics in the NHL, but is also expressed on political issues. Often Cherry stands out because of controversial comments. It manifests itself most critical of European and French-Canadian players and is an advocate of the "old " ice hockey with physically aggressive playing style. He also showed up in his mission as supporters of the Iraq war.

During the final series of the Stanley Cup Playoffs 2007, he made ​​his debut in the American television when he analyzed a game for NBC.

His trademarks include statements like "All you kids out there ... ," his colorful and often comical acting suits, his bull terrier Blue and that he does not mince his words. Since his first appearance on CBC at the beginning of the eighties, Don Cherry has developed the Canadian public a cult figure.

Others

• Don Cherry had incidentally made ​​some appearances as an actor and voice actor. In the Canadian television series Power Play, he assumed the role of a hockey coach and lent a figure in the animated film The Wild his voice.
• 2004 selected Canadian television viewers in the CBC program The Greatest Canadian, the most important Canadian. Cherry finished in seventh place and was even better placed than hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, the tenth.
• "Keep Your Head Up, Kid: The Don Cherry Story" In March 2010, his life was filmed in a two-part TV movie of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is based on a screenplay by Don Cherry's son, Timothy Cherry.