Cornered

by Ron MacLean

  I was an honorary colonel for 1 Air Movements Squadron at 17 Wing Winnipeg. I’d recently spent time at CFB Calgary, speaking at a mess dinner. Afterward, we all retired to a bar downstairs, where I met the pilot who had landed the first Hercules aircraft that went into Kandahar. Although he couldn’t discuss details, his eyes were wide when he described how hairy it was there. He’d been on a joint forces mission—Russians, Americans, all these different allies—and said there was a lot of confusion. For instance, Canadians were well schooled at working on aircraft for just about every fleet in the world, but no one else was. The Russians didn’t know how to deal with American aircraft, and vice versa. This led to concerns about sending the airplanes off when they were not properly loaded. Loading, balance and everything to do with weight distribution on an aircraft is vital. The impression I came away with was that all these countries were there and the left hand didn’t always know what the right was doing. That’s the state of mind I was in.

  Historically, we hadn’t avoided hot-button topics. We’d certainly touched on politics all through the evolution of Coach’s Corner. I was ready to fall on my sword to make sure this subject was addressed.

  Don is Sir Francis Drake, Lord Nelson, Winston Churchill. People tuned in to the Gospel of Don to see how to live an honourable Canadian life. I thought, “You can’t have a guy that goes on every Coach’s Corner and pays tribute to all these fallen soldiers, and then when war breaks out, puts the mute on. You just can’t.” It was important for the viewer to hear from Don on that matter. And I was ready to fight him on this one.

  Don was aware. I wouldn’t cold-cock him, but he wanted to make it look like it was off the cuff to save us from ourselves. The CBC had asked us to give them the heads-up if we were going to debate any subject other than hockey, but we were sure if we did they would have forbidden us to go there.

  On Saturday, March 24, 2003, we were set up on location at the Air Canada Centre. U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci was in the crowd to see the Leafs play the Bruins. At the end of the first period, the score was 2–1 for Toronto. Time for Coach’s Corner.

  Don was stewing about an incident on March 20, during a game against the Islanders in Montreal. The crowd had booed the American anthem. It was a political hot potato, but not all that surprising. Two hundred thousand Montrealers had demonstrated the previous Saturday to protest the war.

  He brought it up, and it was the opening I was looking for. “Where do you want to go with this?”

  He said, “I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  “Everybody’d like to hear what you think about this.”

  “All right. I want to start off by apologizing to all of my American friends. I feel so bad about what has happened. If you watch the news down there, that Crossfire and Hardball or whatever they call it, all they do is talk [say negative things], those two jerks. They call him [President George W. Bush] a moron and bastard and things like that. And now [they’re talking about] this here booing in Montreal. And I guess there’s no comeback [because] we don’t go over there and support them over there. And it’s a tough situation when you think … God love England. God bless them. England and Tony Blair and Australia [are all sending troops]—and we’re not there. Fifty years of pride down the drain, as far as I’m concerned. But let me ask you one question. If we had a catastrophe up here, or God forbid somebody [attacked us]—who’d be the first ones in line?”

  I said, “That’s the first thing I wouldn’t do it on, Don. I wouldn’t base it on our security. I wouldn’t base it on commerce. These are our great trading partners. Friendship I understand. But I’ll say this about our air force. We’re in Afghanistan—”

  But Don didn’t want to hear about Afghanistan. “Just a minute. Let’s lay the cards on the table. The troops went over there because the fighting was going to be in Iraq. Let’s get that straight.”

  “You are absolutely not—” I began, and then, in my IFB, I heard our producer, Joel Darling, saying, “Okay, Ron, move on.”

  Don was adamant. “Let’s get that straight. Yes, sir.” I looked at him. “No, Don, that’s ridiculous.” Don said, “We have a country that has been—has come to our rescue—and helped us—” “That’s … you’re selling our soul.” I was getting heated. Don said, “We’re not selling our soul.” Joel was in my ear again. “Get off the topic, Ron.” I said, “Well, maybe—”

  Don said, “These guys are over there, they’re over there giving it all.”

  I said, “Wait a minute.” I had to interrupt my argument with Don to argue with the truck. “It’s okay, Joel, we’ve got this. We’re fine.”

  I just felt there was nowhere to go. There was no point in getting off it. My mind was awhirl. I couldn’t just leave it at “You’re selling our soul”—something I said in the heat of the moment. I had to clarify my thoughts. I was also thinking, Okay, you’re probably hanging yourself here. You are going to lose your job over this. There were a lot of things I was juggling.

  Don said, “We’re over there, riding their coattails.”

  I said, “No, we’re not.”

  Don said, “And when all they needed was a little moral help—if we didn’t want to send anybody, at least have some moral help to help them …”

  I said, “Well that’s where the prime minister got into trouble. The day the war broke, or began, when he was trying to back off because he realized that you want to be a help—”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Everybody knows what I’m talking about. I’m not getting mad, I’m just—”

  I could see where he was going. I said, “It just hurts you to see them go it alone.”

  Don said, “I hate to see them go it alone.”

  At this point, I wanted to bring up Lapham’s argument that we should not be there because there were no confirmed weapons of mass destruction. Just two years earlier, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441. UN weapon inspectors went to Iraq to verify that there were no weapons of mass destruction and cruise missiles. They were given access and they found nothing. I didn’t want to attack George Bush—I was reckless, but not suicidal. I said, “But what if it’s the wrong thing to go?”

  Don said, “Who says it’s the wrong thing to go?”

  I said, “I think it is.”

  Don said, “Well, you think it is …”

  Hating that I’d made it sound like I thought my opinion was important, I said, “Yes, not that that matters.”

  Don said, “The people that think it is—like you—are walking out on the streets with signs.” I tried to interject, and he said, “Wait a minute! And the people who think that it’s right are over there laying their jobs and their lives on the line.”

  I said, “That’s ridiculous.”

  Don said, “No, it’s not ridiculous.”

  I said, “I would go and fight on, you know—the basic question—”

  Don said, “What are you saying? What are you saying? Say it.”

  I pulled out Lapham. “Why attack Iraq if Iraq hasn’t attacked you or your allies?”

  Don was born five years before the beginning of the Second World War, so he spent his formative years during the war. He equated what was happening in Iraq with Nazi Germany. “You know, that’s the same thing as Hitler. Hitler never attacked us.”

  I said, “And they voted Churchill out two months after Hitler surrendered.”

  Don said, “So you’re saying if they don’t attack us—I’ve heard that before about the Second World War—then you’re saying that the United States is wrong?”

  I felt we were complicating the issue by bringing up the Second World War. I didn’t want to get trapped there, and I wished I hadn’t responded with the remark about Churchill. “Well, I don’t have every bit of information.”

  Don said, “Are you saying they’re wrong?”

  I said, “No, but I understand Prime Minister Chrétien’s concern about not going in. And I understand it’s good sometimes to s
tep back from the herd and, as a good friend, you might say once in a while, ‘I don’t know about this action.’”

  Loyalty and team are very important to Don. He said, “So if I ever get into a fight in a bar, you’d—” “I’d be there with you—that’s just what I’ve been saying.” “What if I were wrong, and you’d say, ‘Well, he was wrong.’ You’re with your friends, right or wrong. Either you’re with us or you’re against us.”

  I said, “And that’s why the prime minister got in trouble for trying to back off on the day the war began. Because now he was betwixt and between. And I think, as I say, Canada is helping the United States.”

  Don said, “How?”

  I said, “In Afghanistan. Our troops are in Bosnia. Don, listen, Don.”

  “Wrong.”

  I said, “You don’t know how—we don’t have enough—you know our military is underfunded—America is—”

  Don said, “There was forty countries backed the coalition.” He was alluding to the forty-nine UN countries that voted to support the U.S., including Britain, Australia, Singapore, Japan, the Netherlands and ten eastern European countries.

  I said, “Right.”

  Don said, “And we didn’t.”

  I said, “That’s right, and we made a decision. I think you have to stand by it. You’re Canadian. I love the Americans, and I wish them Godspeed, of course, and I wish the Iraqis all the best in getting out of this as quickly as possible, but as a Canadian, we have to stand for ourselves sometimes.”

  Don said, “You actually are saying you don’t back the United States in this war.”

  “Right.”

  Don said, “In this war.”

  “Right.”

  We were winding down when Don said, “What more can I say, folks? We’ll end it right there.”

  Then Joel was in my ear again. “Nancy Lee’s on the line. This is coming right from the top. You have to get off the topic!”

  Cari always says I’m a total rebel. She says I like to fly in the face of the establishment. Cari knows me well.

  I said, “We do have a couple of minutes. Why don’t we show—and you know, Don, that’s democracy. I’ve always felt America … you know, they had an awful tragedy, of course [with 9/11], but they had an opportunity to showcase their appreciation of democracy. But listen to me. In a democracy, you and I can have a difference of opinion. And if I hear things like ‘Good versus Evil’ or ‘Wrong, Right,’ ‘You’re with us or you’re against us,’ that’s not necessarily a democracy. That’s tyranny.”

  Don shot me a look. He had just paved the way for a clean ending. A beautiful out. And this is where trust between partners comes in. Don puts his money where his mouth is. This was the bar fight he’d just been talking about. Right or wrong, you stand by your friends. His contract was up at the end of the year, and this could be used as ammunition against him. He could have earned copious brownie points by holding his hands up and saying, “Enough, Ron, let’s move on to something else, okay?” Instead, he stood at my side and took another swing.

  “So you’re saying the United States is wrong?”

  “No, I’m saying it’s our right. Our right. Canada’s right to make a decision that goes against them. That’s all.”

  Don said, “Well, if you’re against them …”

  I said, “I’m not against them, I’m just—”

  “You’re against them. You just said you were against them. If you’re against them, then they must be doing something wrong.”

  I said, “We’re not supporting … We said let’s give it more time, we took a tack and now that the war is on—”

  Don threw his hands up. “See, folks, what I have to put up with here. He actually means this, that our best neighbour, who’s always been there, all the time—and if we get the chips down, and we get in trouble again, they will be there—and when they needed us, and all they said, all they needed was us to say, ‘We back you.’ They didn’t want any troops. Just say, ‘We back you.’ When the chips were down, we turned our back on them.”

  We were close to time, and I thought that was a good exit point. “All right, we’ll leave it at that. Peter Mansbridge is out there—”

  “Oh, well, Peter’ll tell it, he’ll have something to say,” Don said sarcastically. “He’ll be neutral.” Once Don is on a roll, it’s easier to stop a freight train. I had to give him a chance to cool down.

  I said, “Don’t knock this. That’s the thing, don’t knock any of this.”

  Don said, “Come out for it one way or another!” I said, “I am.” “Don’t sit on the fence!” I said, “I am.”

  Don said, “And you’re wrong.”

  “And I’m a Canadian. But you’re a Canadian guy. I don’t get it.”

  Don said, “I’m a Canadian and I’m with the United States because they’re always with us.”

  I said, “All right. You have ties with the United States and that’s your comment.”

  Don said, “Got it.”

  “And that’s the way it should be in our democracy.”

  By this time, it was dawning on us there might be serious consequences to what we had just done.

  Don said, “Anybody who’s got a job for me Monday, I’ll be happy to—”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  Don said, “What?”

  I wrapped up. “You’ll be fine. That’s good stuff. It’s what we’re all worried about. You know that. Don Cherry, on the Coach’s Corner. Hockey Night in Canada on CBC.”

  We were off the air, and—crickets. You could hear a pin drop. Don picked up his empty Tim Hortons coffee cup and started tapping it slowly on the desk in front of him. There was complete silence in the studio except for that cup.

  Finally, Grapes said, “So you took a chance. Huh? You took a chance.”

  The immediate fallout was fairly minimal. Nancy called me in. I wasn’t worried, but I was kind of excited. I’d fallen on my sword and was ready to face the consequences. She and I sat and talked it through. It seemed the CBC brass were mad, but not furious.

  Nancy told me how I was to position it in the media. “I/we went too far. Coach’s Corner is about hockey.” She said that I was not to refer to the incident by word or gesture on any upcoming Coach’s Corners. Nor could I talk about any war issues. In fact, going forward we could not talk about anything not related to hockey without her signing off first. All in all, it seemed reasonable.

  I had a speaking engagement that week in Kenora, an event for former player and coach Bob Murdoch, and almost everyone who came up to me sided with Don. Then I had an event in Winnipeg, and former Jets fans felt the same. Apparently, I had taken an unpopular position.

  18

  THE NINETY-NINE ALL-STARS

  On September 16, 1994, the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement expired, and negotiations on a new deal reached a standoff over the owners’ desire to introduce a salary cap. Owners were claiming that, for every dollar of revenue, teams were paying $1.14 in salaries, and they wanted players’ pay pegged to a percentage of revenue. Gary Bettman had been commissioner of the NHL for less than a year, and his claim to fame had been to bring the cap to the NBA.

  In return, the NHL Players’ Association suggested a tax on payrolls exceeding $50 million and offered a reduction in rookie salaries, a 5 per cent reduction in existing contracts, and annual revenue sharing—but no cap. For the second time since 1991, hockey was stopped.

  Several players went to Europe to play on different teams, and in December 1994, I went on a trip with Wayne Gretzky. With the International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) permission, he formed a team of close friends and called it the Ninety-Nine All-Stars. The roster included Al MacInnis, Rob Blake, Kirk Muller, Mark Messier, Pat Conacher, Brett Hull, Steve Yzerman, Tony Granato, Charlie Huddy, Todd Gill, Russ Courtnall, Steve Larmer, Marty McSorley, Paul Coffey, Sergei Fedorov, Rick Tocchet and Wayne, with Kelly Hrudey and Grant Fuhr in goal. Travelling with the NHLers was and is one of my favourite
things to do.

  The Ninety-Niners were booked to play seven exhibition games in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The CBC decided to broadcast two of the games, on consecutive Saturday nights, to hockey-starved Canada. The first game was in Helsinki, Finland, and the second was broadcast from Stockholm, Sweden. It was kind of a Hockey Night in Canada Presents. The players made about $4,000 per game, but the profits went to charity and the NHL players’ pension fund. Wayne chartered a plane, and most of the guys brought their fathers.

  The day we took off, the team played an exhibition game against the Detroit Vipers of the International Hockey League. Bill McSorley, Marty’s father, came to watch. As the plane was loading, everyone was telling Bill to get on the plane. He hadn’t packed anything for the trip, but he came along anyway. The trip was magical.

  On the first Saturday, we did a broadcast in Helsinki, Finland. Next stop was Tampere, a town north of Helsinki. Theo Fleury was playing there at the time. After the game, our group spent the night at a nightclub, drinking double sambuca shooters with beer chasers. I got up in the morning feeling kind of fuzzy. We were leaving for Oslo, Norway, that day, so I started to pack, but could not find my passport. I ran down to the lobby and spotted a Finnish newspaper reporter. He told me that the next day, December 6, was yet another Finnish holiday—they have fifteen a year. This time, it was Independence Day, celebrating Finland’s separation from the Russian Empire in 1917. He suggested I hustle back to the Canadian consulate in Helsinki to get a new passport. I scrambled to finish packing and to leave a message to let the guys know I would meet them in Oslo, and then I grabbed a taxi to the airport so I could hop the next flight to Helsinki.

  I got to the consulate in Helsinki before it closed and managed to get a new passport. Early the next morning, I caught a flight into Norway.

  The rest of the guys were late in getting there because they’d had a problem with their charter. It was karmic justice, because it turned out that my passport wasn’t lost. Rather, somebody had snuck into my room and taken it as a joke. I can’t confirm it was Gretzky, but I heard rumours to that effect.