The doctor vs. Grapes

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/03/2010 (5815 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HE was in front of a sympathetic audience eager to learn more about concussions in hockey, so noted neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Tator called out Don Cherry.

“Don Cherry is a negative influence,” Tator told Hockey Canada’s concussion seminar in Regina last December. “And it’s about time we started calling a spade a spade.”

The comment caused a small firestorm as many media outlets went for the headline instead of the substance.

Shortly after the conference, Cherry ran head-first into a determined radio reporter who was waiting for him outside a Toronto studio. Cherry had earlier told the reporter he wouldn’t be getting an interview, but the reporter persisted, all the while his tape recorder running.

Cherry told the reporter to “f off,” saying if he was going to respond, he’d do it on his “own station.”

The reporter responded: “Mr. Cherry, you don’t want that guy to have the last say.”

Cherry: “I don’t give a f about him. I don’t give a f about him.”

The recording went viral for a while on the Internet.

A week later on Coach’s Corner, Cherry’s regular Saturday night segment on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, Cherry claimed that he has done and said plenty to reduce stupidity in the game.

It is true that he has constantly spoken out against checking from behind and supported the stop-sign campaign for jerseys. Dr. Tator even has in his office files a poster of Cherry and Doug Gilmour with a message about checking from behind.

Cherry is also in favour of a more safe automatic icing rule.

But December was not the first time those whose business is health and safety have criticized Cherry. In 2004, the president of the Canada Safety Council, Emile Therien, called on the CBC to remove Cherry because he condones violence and fighting in hockey.

On Coach’s Corner, host Ron McLean specifically questioned Cherry about Dr. Tator. Cherry says: “I’ve always been taught that if you dish it out, you’ve got to take it. And I usually take it. But this is totally unfair for this guy to say I’m responsible.

“I would hate to think that Dr. Tator was doing it just to get his name in the paper.”

Tator says that was not his goal.

“I think I just spoke my mind,” he says. “We’ve been too gentle with him over the years. I really feel that a culture change is necessary and the culture he preaches of rock ’em-sock ’em is not the culture we need in order to reduce concussions. That is a bad message — win at all costs, violence, aggression, those are bad messages.”

Dr. Tator says he has no regrets about the storm that ensued.

“The only thing I regret is that it may have detracted from the issue of concussions, that a lot of reporters were much more interested in the fact that someone would criticize Cherry publicly,” he says. “They wrote about the personalities rather than the issues. I’d rather the issue was given prominence.”

After the incident, Tator called Cherry, possibly to make peace.

“He never answered,” Tator says. “I was advised and agreed, that I should call him and ask him to join the injury prevention team. That’s the message I left. He never called back. I’m still waiting for his call.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca