by Ron MacLean
We made it to our little duplex—or semi-detached, as they call them in Ontario—and were surprised to find that the previous tenants had taken the appliances with them. When I signed the lease, I had neglected to notice there was no fridge, stove, dishwasher or washer/dryer in the agreement. The rent was $1,100 per month. We’d been paying $575 in Calgary. So we were shooting $15,000 out of $41,000 on rent. We were going to be up against it for a year or two. We slept on the floor for a couple of nights and woke up covered in flea bites—the house was infested. Thankfully, the furniture hadn’t arrived yet. Fleas weren’t covered in the lease agreement either, which meant we paid for the exterminator ourselves. Once again, we went through a Christmas with no money because we had to spend it all to get settled. On the positive side, the location was perfect. We were twenty-five minutes from Toronto’s downtown core, straight down the Queen Elizabeth Way. We stayed in that semi-detached for three years.
I was just a part-timer flying under the radar for the first five months of my stint on Hockey Night in Canada. I did about six ‘casts and worked the Toronto Maple Leafs games on Wednesday nights. It was relatively uneventful until the semifinal of the Brier (the men’s national curling championship) that year. On that day, March 14, 1987, something happened that would change my life forever.
That afternoon, the semifinal match between Newfoundland and British Columbia was tied, with two rocks to go in the tenth end, when the CBC in Ontario cut away to the NDP convention in Montreal. Two rocks to go in the tenth end of a Brier semifinal, and they cut away? In the west they joined an episode of Star Trek in progress. From a sports programming point of view, it was like, “You’re kidding!”
That same night, Dave Hodge was hosting Hockey Night in Canada. After the Flames beat the Leafs 6–4 at about 10:45 Eastern, the CBC joined a nail-biter at the Forum. The Montreal Canadiens were leading the Philadelphia Flyers 3–2. There were five minutes to go in the third period when Hodge threw to Dick Irvin and Scotty Bowman.
Scott Mellanby of the Flyers scored on his own rebound in the third period to tie the game at 3, and the teams were headed for five minutes of overtime. The problem was that this would bump into the 11 p.m. news. In those years, CBC policy was that you could run over into the late news’ time slot only if the original game went into overtime, not the bonus coverage. This meant that only the viewers in Quebec would get to continue watching the Habs game, because they had seen the game from the start. Hodge was told, “Let the viewers know that we’re leaving the bonus coverage. We have to move to Knowlton Nash and the news.”
Off air, Hodge said, “This is all wrong! It’s crazy after what happened earlier. We cut away from the Brier semifinal this afternoon, and you know all the heat we took here. Now you want me to go on and tell our hockey fans we’re not going to show them the overtime in Montreal? You can’t do this.”
And they said, “Well, we are doing this.”
Hodge said, “Well, if you do, do not involve me. At the top of the clock, just cut to the news. Do not have me with egg on my face trying to justify this decision.”
He was told, “No. Your job is to host the show and say ‘Welcome’ at the start and ‘Good night’ at the end.”
Hodge said, “Well, if I must do that, please sit on a wide shot of the arena and let me do a voice-over so at least my face is not on camera and I don’t have to suffer that indignity.”
Again he was refused. So, in the heat of battle, with about ten seconds’ warning, the red light came on. Hodge said, “Now, Montreal and the Philadelphia Flyers are currently playing overtime, and—are we able to go there or not? We are not able to go there. That’s the way things go today in sports, and this network. The Flyers and the Canadiens have us in suspense, and we’ll remain that way until we can find out somehow who won this game … or who’s responsible for the way we do things here. Good night for Hockey Night in Canada.” He flipped his pencil about half a foot in the air, and that was it.
Hodge returned home to Vancouver. He asked if he was suspended or fired, and the CBC didn’t give him an answer. He asked, “When am I going back to work?” They couldn’t tell him that, either. The CBC did suggest he fly back to Toronto and apologize to the head of sports at the network, Don MacPherson. Hodge replied, “I have nothing to apologize for. What I said, I believe.” Hundreds of letters were already rolling in, supporting his position.
A few days later, Dave talked to the CBC again. He said, “If I’m not suspended and you can’t tell me when I’m going back to work, then that must mean I’m fired.” And he moved on.
John Shannon was now in charge of NHL on Global, a hockey telecast sponsored by Carling-O’Keefe Breweries. It was in competition with Hockey Night in Canada, which was sponsored by Molson. Shannon offered Hodge a hosting job, and Hodge took it. He kept his radio job at CKNW in Vancouver, as well. Radio is very much Dave’s thing. He’s an intellectual, a “theatre of the mind” over a “theatre of the obvious” kind of guy.
What it meant for me, a twenty-six-year-old kid from Red River, as Don called it, was that I got to roll in as the new host for Hockey Night in Canada and Coach’s Corner. Ignorance is bliss. I didn’t think too much about the opportunity. I was the backup goalie suddenly thrown into the game. I was supposed to be able to handle it. Right away, I got a call from the CBC higher-ups. “Listen, when you hear from the Globe and Mail, this is what we’re saying about such and such, and when you do interviews, we’re posturing it this way, and our position is this, and please don’t say that …” Those calls started to make me feel a little anxious. I was to replace Dave Hodge for good, beginning with a game in Montreal, on March 21, 1987. Montreal and Toronto had the oldest rivalry in the NHL. The teams had faced each other in fifteen playoff series and five Stanley Cup finals, with Toronto winning three of them. During the 1960s alone, the Canadiens won five Stanley Cup titles while the Leafs took home four.
Don Cherry and I caught a flight into Dorval Airport on Friday evening at 5 o’clock. If you’ve ever flown into Montreal on the weekend, you know it’s very busy. All the tourists go up for a fun frolic, and a lot of business commuters are on their way back home. We landed, and there was a long lineup of people waiting for taxis to take them into the downtown corridor. Don was bigger than life again, posing for photos, signing autographs, and I was meekly watching all this. Finally, we made it to the front of the line and our taxi pulled up. It was a Lada, a Russian car.
Don looked at the car, and then he looked at the attendant, and he said, “You gotta be kidding me, right? What are you, in a fog or something? I’ve been standing here for a half an hour and posed for a million pictures and I signed a billion autographs. Do you wanna know why everybody loves me? They love me because I’m for Canada. You think I’d get in that Russian car and ruin my reputation? Now order me up another one!”
The attendant refused, and I stood there with my eyes like golf balls. I couldn’t believe it. Don wanted to board the taxi behind the Lada because it was a Chev, but the attendant would not tell the Lada driver to pull ahead. The attendant said, “Well, Mr. Cherry …” Actually, he said “Monsieur Cerise,” which did not improve the situation.
It escalated into a war between the two of them. Finally, Don said, “Never mind. I’ll tell him myself.” He opened the door of the Lada and yelled at the shocked driver, “I ain’t getting in your communist dirtbox car! Now get the hell outta here.” And he slammed the door so hard the entire car rocked on its tires.
I was mortified. My job was to replace the legendary Dave Hodge and to rein this guy in, and I couldn’t even get him into a cab. It was all for the best, though, because there wasn’t enough headroom for Don in the Lada anyway.
14
ALL THAT “EINST FREINTZ” CRAP
I got to the hotel all keyed up. I couldn’t sleep that night. I’d done five previous shows as the alternate on Coach’s Corner, but nobody had noticed them, nobody cared. This time, there was a lot of light shining on me
due to the media brouhaha surrounding Dave Hodge’s exit. “Who’s this kid from Red Deer? He’s supposed to be the new Dave Hodge?” I replayed the taxi incident and thought about how to handle Don. I couldn’t let him intimidate me. I would step up next time, show him I was his equal. I was running on pure adrenalin by the time I got to the Forum.
During the first period, Don left the set for a little bit. When he returned, we were asked to tape a message to send to the Silver Broom curlers. Grapes said, “What do you mean? Silver what?”
Our studio director, Roland Saucier, was patient. “Silver Broom, Don. It’s the World Curling Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland.”
Don said, “Well, I like Scotland, but I don’t know the first thing about curling. I’m not doing it.” He crossed his arms and glared at all of us.
Roland said, “Don, it would really help out. We got a lot of grief for the way we treated the Brier last week. It would really help to mend a lot of fences. The skip is Pat Ryan from Edmonton. Just say, ‘Good luck to Pat Ryan and the boys, thumbs up, we’re all cheering for you.’ That’s all we need.”
Don sighed. “All right, for an Alberta boy I’ll do it. I’ll do it. It’ll only take sixty seconds, right?”
He sat down on the chair beside me. Then Roland, standing by the camera, told us to stand by in fifteen seconds. He started the countdown. “Dix, neuf, huit, sept, six—”
Don held up his hands. “Hold it! Hold it. Hold it. Just a minute here, what the heck’s going on? Roland? What is it with the ‘einst freintz’ crap? This is Hockey Night in Canada! It’s bad enough I’ve got to do this thing for curling, but you’re throwing me off completely here.”
My upper lip was sweating again, and I was feeling weak and a bit panic-stricken. I forgot all about my resolve to take control. Thankfully, Roland remained calm. He started the count again, this time in English, and we finished the promo.
The first period came to an end, and it was time for Coach’s Corner, live for the entire country. Don started before I could get a word out. He said, “You know, a little something here before we get rolling. Look, kid, I know you’re scared to death, don’t worry! Don’t worry, kid, you just sit there. I’ll carry you on this one. Okay, so anyway, folks, a lot of slings and arrows directed at the CBC this week. Everybody’s hot because Dave left. First of all, I want you to know it was Dave’s decision. He was not fired. He’s got beauty contracts, I hear, like six-figure, multiple bones. Twenty-five-year thing he’s got going on with radio out there. They already hired him at TSN to do that—what do you call it?—investigative stuff. Anyway, Dave’s happy. He was sick and tired after sixteen years of interviewing sweaty hockey players. It was his decision, so you people quit knocking the CBC for letting him go. That’s not how it went down.”
I opened my mouth to interject, but Don kept going. “Furthermore, all you people ripping Hockey Night in Canada don’t know what you’re talking about. I want you to get out there to Detroit. Everybody loves us. Go down to Buffalo. We’re heroes. America knows Hockey Night in Canada is the greatest sports broadcast in the world, so leave it alone, all right?”
I lifted my finger to answer, but Don barely took a breath. “Anyway, during the first period there, Ron, I like to get a little feel for what’s going on live in the building, eh? Midway through the first, I’m out there standing behind the penalty box—Montreal Canadiens are killing a penalty, right? Puck goes back to, uh, the rookie guy, the defenceman, supposed to be the next Chris Chelios, what’s his name?”
My big chance. I looked at Don and said, “Mathieu Schneider?”
“Yes! That’s it! Mathieu Schneider! That’s good, kid. You got a bright future. The puck goes back to Schneider, he rifles a slapshot, trying to clear it down the ice, hundred miles an hour, goes over the glass by about this much, catches a fan flush on the cheek. Beauty cut, I got to admit. To you kids out there, I know you listen to me because I’m the expert here, if you ever get to an NHL game, please remember, you must keep your eye on the puck at all times. Right? That’s good. What else we got? Before you start, I just have to say, Ron—you women are going to get mad at me out there …” He started jabbing his finger at the camera, and my bottom jaw dropped open. What now?
Don continued, “… but I was standing out in the hall in the first five minutes, and it was a tip shot. A guy tried to get it over the blue line, and it went over my head and it hit this poor lady in the face.” He held his hand to his cheek, and I struggled for something to say.
Then Don started smacking the desk with the heel of his hand. “I’m telling ya, when you come to the games, keep your eyes on the puck. I’ve seen some awful smacks, and it’s always a woman yapping away there. Look at the game!”
My job was to make sure this guy didn’t offend anyone, and he just slammed 51 per cent of the population. I leapt in. “No, no! Lots of fans … What are you talking? … Both genders get involved in talking about the game!”
He swept my remarks aside with a pass of his hand. “Aw, c’mon … I’m just trying to help them!”
I remained indignant. “Don’t blame women, men or anyone else for getting into the odd conversation when you get a ticket to come to the Forum.”
Don shook his head, “What a twerp.”
“It’s an exciting opportunity for a lot of people,” I continued. “All right, all right. Ask some more questions.” He shook his head and glared at me, “What else you got?”
I’d done about two or three editions of Coach’s Corner that first season when we did one where Don came at me hard, which I loved but the CBC didn’t.
Don started by going off on the league. Dave Brown of the Philadelphia Flyers had cross-checked Tomas Sandstrom of the New York Rangers, for which he received a fifteen-game suspension. Don lashed out at the length of the suspension, saying that because Sandstrom was a New York Ranger, everybody saw it. But if it had been a late-night Los Angeles Kings game, no one would have cared or been the wiser. I argued that we could not tolerate cross-checking to the head. I said, “What about Mats Naslund?” Meaning that, if we allowed that kind of roughness, we would lose smaller players like Naslund and the game would lose thunder.
Don replied, “Mats Naslund, who cares? He’s a Smurf. Don’t worry about the kids in pee wee hockey [meaning Naslund was so small he was a pee wee]. That has nothing to do with it. This is the NHL.”
Later, Bob Cornell, the CBC’s deputy head of TV sports and a lovely man, pulled me into the Delta Chelsea hotel in downtown Toronto for a lunch meeting. Bob was concerned. He said, “Ron, when you’re doing the Don Cherry segment, we can’t have Don running roughshod over our CBC host. You are representing the network.”
I sat there thinking, “They want me, a Junior B referee from Red Deer whose career ended after midget, to tell the NHL’s coach of the year Don Cherry—whose two best friends are Bobby Orr and the winningest coach ever, Brian Kilrea—they want me to tell him what’s going on in hockey? They must be nuts.”
I thought there had to be another way. I simply couldn’t argue with Don on everything. First, I didn’t have the wherewithal. Don had a way better understanding of the game. Second, we had only six minutes, so there wasn’t enough time. Don needed at least five and a half to cover just a couple of points. It occurred to me that puns might be a way to soften the blow. If Don went on a rant, I might be able to defuse the situation by cracking a joke.
I’d used puns earlier in my career as a DJ, and at CFAC I wrote openings with puns—too many, too often. John Shannon tried to break me of the habit. He sat me down and told me the viewer might groan or chuckle, but it shifted the focus from what I was saying.
When I threw one out, he’d say “That sucked” or “Stop it, it’s irritating, you don’t need them.” His remarks fell on deaf ears. They were like a sickness. I was addicted to them.
In the end, he let me have me one a night. As soon as I said a pun in the opening, I’d hear him in my IFB: “Okay, you’re done for the nig
ht. That’s enough. You can’t use them again.” It forced me to be much more disciplined.
I hadn’t yet used them in Toronto, but I felt they might work, so I dove in headfirst. And went overboard. After a few shows, Don pulled me aside and said, “You know, Ron, Richard—my brother—said, ‘It’s not a good thing for Ron to be doing those little wisecracks at the end of every Coach’s Corner.’ Richard thinks it makes me look bad, having this young whippersnapper mocking me with these puns. Maybe do it one in every three shows, but you shouldn’t do it every Coach’s Corner.”
I think Don was trying to save me from myself. He realized the puns were lame and that it would be better for my sake if I cut back on them. But he wanted me to save face, so he gave me the impression that I would be doing it for his sake.
A few weeks earlier, Don had told me a story about Rick Bowness, who is now assistant coach in Vancouver. Before Al MacInnis or Brad Richards or Sidney Crosby, Rick was a real hotshot Maritime hockey player. In his rookie season with the Atlanta Flames, 1975–76, his coach, Fred Creighton, told him his skating wasn’t strong enough for him to play centre, so they were going to put him on the wing. And that crushed Rick. It set him on his heels, and he never recovered. That’s why, instead of telling me I was doing something bad, Don said, “Can’t you help me out here?”
Don never so much as chuckled at my puns. Half the time, he wasn’t listening anyway. He might roll his eyes. He didn’t want the construction workers and the guys in the beer hall to think that he actually liked “the twerp.” He’d be ruined.
But one time he couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud. It was the stupidest thing, too. He was talking about how it was funny to see Mike Keenan wearing glasses, and I said, “I thought you liked coaches who make spectacles of themselves.” It was during the playoffs, so I guess he was really punchy.