{"id":66633,"date":"2025-07-15T04:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T04:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/66633\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T04:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T04:34:09","slug":"don-cherry-disappointed-in-former-on-air-partner-after-public-spat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/66633\/","title":{"rendered":"Don Cherry ‘disappointed’ in former on-air partner after public spat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don Cherry and Ron MacLean spent over three decades working together on Sportsnet as the co-hosts of Hockey Night in Canada. But nowadays, the two seemingly don\u2019t have much of a friendship to speak of after a back-and-forth spat ensued between the two over the controversial ending of their working relationship.<\/p>\n

Cherry was let go by Sportsnet in 2019 after an infamous anti-immigrant rant<\/a> that is now called \u201cPoppygate,\u201d referring to Cherry saying that he believed immigrants were less likely to wear poppies to honor fallen Canadian soldiers.<\/p>\n

Last week, MacLean shared his opinion on what ultimately led to this rant, saying that be believed that Cherry did speak his mind, but did so knowing that he would likely be fired, calling it his \u201cexit strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit clumsy, but it was the right outcome,\u201d MacLean said in a recent conversation with Gare Joyce of The Kingston Whig Standard<\/a>. \u201cUltimately, that\u2019s what needed to happen. It was liberating. Don needed out and the time was right. (Remembrance Day) was his last swing, taking a stance that\u2019s unpopular, but that feels good in his world. For Don, it\u2019s all a fight. It\u2019s all a battle. So he was happy and I\u2019m happy for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing the honorable thing by making it look whole. The attack on immigrants was improper and I was not happy with it \u2014 it goes against my ethics. I was able to take my stand and he was able to take his, but I was also playing the game and that card allowed Don to gracefully get out \u2014 he could go out on what was for him a high, (saying stuff) that would get you elected President of the U.S. now.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to why MacLean thought Cherry was okay with being fired, he claimed that Cherry\u2019s past bout with pneumonia played a role, suggesting that life on the road was unsustainable with his struggling health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that pneumonia scare was it,\u201d MacLean added. \u201cThe pneumonia said to Don, \u2018It\u2019s time.\u2019 He had to think, \u2018Why is this grind suddenly so hard?\u2019 He was ready to have an exit strategy. From that moment on, he was plotting a way out. The first opportunity (to end Coach\u2019s Corner) was going to be a happy one for Don. And I thought he did it well.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacLean\u2019s comments seemingly got back to Cherry, declaring that he did not intentionally get himself fired for any health reason, or any other reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I wasn\u2019t looking for a way out,\u201d said Cherry in a conversation with\u00a0Joe Warmington of the Toronto Sun<\/a> about MacLean\u2019s comments. \u201cI never even thought of that. I\u2019m very disappointed in Ron that he would bring this up. I\u2019m very disappointed that he would reach back five years and do this. He should let it go. He can say what he wants, but it never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, Cherry made it incredibly clear that he and MacLean are not friends and will not be talking anytime soon to clear up the disagreement with how they each saw the end of the on-air run together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have any feelings toward Ron,\u201d Cherry added. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t want to talk to him about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don Cherry and Ron MacLean spent over three decades working together on Sportsnet as the co-hosts of Hockey…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":66634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[47219,47220,293,47221,47222,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-66633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-don-cherry","9":"tag-hockey-night-in-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-nhl-on-sportsnet","12":"tag-ron-maclean","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}