If you’ve never heard of him, Don is Canada’s beloved but racist uncle that was often a favorite feature to watch on Hockey Night in Canada. Before his final tirade, it was easier to give these parallels to most Americans…Don Cherry = Canadian John Madden; HNIC = Monday Night Football. When he wasn’t bitching about his nation’s predominant political perspective, he was more of a pundit lamenting over the ‘good ol’ days’ when there were no helmets, composite sticks or Swedes. You could also purchase DVDs of great fights with him as the host.
What the 80-year-old grouch had to say wasn’t terribly new regarding immigrants. Sadly, Canada has always had a xenophobia batch amongst them too and it consolidated into a louder, stronger faction of shitheads around Ontario called Ford Nation. Yeah. Named after their (thankfully) dead, former Toronto mayor who was caught on camera smoking crack by Gawker and the Toronto Star. Not a surprise, the Ford family has been known to be involved with drug dealing in addition to their pump-and-dump investment scams.
With Don, I think he was overdue to retire. People his age and from his former profession, hockey player in the Fifties, are more likely to suffer from dementia. Despite being Canadian, he was born a little before the Boomers which made him more likely to harbor such a crappy, outdated and racist attitude. Canada like America is changing. Either welcome the newcomers to help them synthesize their Canadian-ness or build up useless walls (mental, economic) which results in France’s ongoing problems with their few million Arabs and Africans.