Don Cherry for President...er, Commissioner

Now, being from the United States, I would normally cheer for a US team were it to play against a team from some other locale. The only exception for me, however, is NHL Hockey. Assuming the Washington Capitals are not in the Stanley Cup Finals (and let's face it: they won't get there again for a while), I will cheer for the team from the land that invented the sport.

Why? Why indeed? First of all, Canadians care about their sport even more than we care about sports like baseball or basketball. You can go to any game played on the ice in Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, or Vancouver, and you will see an arena packed with some of the most knowledgeable and intense sports fans on the planet. The United States has only two cities that can come even close to the level of the Canadians: Detroit and Buffalo. Even then, the Ottawa fans knocked the fans in Buffalo dead. There is just such a passion for the game that is hard to find south of the border.

There is one man in the world of professional hockey who best personifies the spirit of Canadian hockey (despite, ironically, playing and coaching for a team called the Rochester Americans). His name is Don Cherry (the one on the left...the other guy is Brett Hull), and he puts even the most ridiculous of American sports commentators to shame. His wardrobe includes everything but the kitchen sink (and if they could find a way to make that into a suit, he'd wear it). He goes on red-faced rants that would make even Rush Limbaugh look like a school librarian. He is the epitome of the "old school" hockey fan -- all about the big hits, the fighting, and, most of all, giving the fans a great show. Ever heard of the Philadelphia Flyers of the late 70s that were known as the "Broad Street Bullies"? Cherry's Boston Bruins took them out of the playoffs. Twice.

Nowadays, as an iconic member of the Canadian Broadcasting Company's "Hockey Night in Canada", Cherry has become one of the most outspoken men on television. Unfortunately, since the NHL's offices are in the US, the rantings of this loud-mouthed, opinionated Canadian fall on the deaf ears of loud-mouthed, opinionated Americans (and commissioner Gary Bettman). According to old Don, fighting is an integral part of NHL hockey and is the part of the sport that brings in the fans. Don't believe him? Go back to the single most publicised event from the NHL's regular season: Ottawa and Buffalo dropping the game for about 10 minutes and beating the snot out of each other. What gets the home fans back into the game when all might seem lost? How about the enforcer from the home team taking the hated bully from the away team by the jersey and tossing him to the ice. Bettman is in the process of trying to take out one of the oldest (and, in my opinion, coolest) institutions in all of sports, and our well-dressed Canadian friend says that is a travesty.

That, my friends, is just one of the many logical and sensible arguments that Don Cherry comes onto Canadian television and yells about. Since, despite his fashion choices, the man makes a ton of sense, why shouldn't he be the commissioner of the NHL?

Let's face it: Gary Bettman is a spineless bum who has overseen one of the worst eras faced by any sport. At the beginning of his tenure, the league took off on the shoulders of guys named Gretzky, Messier, and Lemieux. Then, all of the sudden, those names disappeared and the league fell hard. The owners, backed by Bettman, realized that they were running out of money and took it out on the players. The players, knowing that the man at the other end of the table had no backbone, wouldn't accept his terms, but still wanted to play the game. So when the owners and Bettman locked the doors, the players ran off and kept making money. Bettman, realizing his mistake, caved in to a fair portion of the players' demands, thus shafting the owners that he originally backed.

Don Cherry, being the oh-so-pleasant man that he is, definitely would not have stood for the events leading up to the lockout, had those events even transpired in the first place. If the players had even decided to strike, you can guarantee there would have been replacement players, just like the NFL did in 1987. Also, you can guarantee that the replacement games would've been some of the roughest, toughest games you've ever seen. The man knows what's good for the sport, and he would be perfect in the league's driver's seat. Oh, and one other thing that makes him perfect: he's Canadian.