TIME TO SQUISH SOME GRAPES

(Originally posted earlier today. Here's the NFL picks.)

The Senators game last night wasn't on TV, so Ottawa-area hockey fans were not otherwise diverted when Hockey Night in Canada's Don Cherry dissed an Ottawa columnist, the Sun's Chris Stevenson, during the Coach's Corner segment.

Cherry and Ron MacLean were talking about a recent Hockey News cover story about the disappearance of NHL enforcers. MacLean mentioned a column that Stevenson wrote last week. For whatever reason, Cherry blurted out, "Who the hell is Chris Stevenson?"

MacLean tried to injerject, but Cherry fired back, "What, are ya havin' a love affair with the guy or somethin'?" (Don't read anything into that. That's a standard Cherry line.)

A CBC icon maligning, even if it was off-the-cuff and without prejudice (knowing Cherry, that's pretty likely) someone who's had as many years on the NHL beat as Stevenson... that should be a call to arms. Sens Army, are you listening? Your team just beat the Devils 8-1, so for now you really don't have much to complain about unless the Leafs whip the Senators 6-0 again. (Like that's going to happen twice in one millennium, let alone one month.)

Americans do media feuds much better than us -- we're too polite and our egos, with Cherry the possible exception, generally aren't big enough -- so this will probably be laughed off as Cherry being Cherry again. A polite note, a phone call, boom, over. Very classy, very laid-back, but talk about borrrr-ing.

The timing for blowing this all out of proportion -- sports media the way the Americans do it -- is too good to be true. The Battle of Ontario is set to resume with the Leafs and Sens playing a home-and-home series on Tuesday and Thursday, and now here's a gold-embossed invitation to whip up anti-Toronto sentiments. You have the most visible personality on a CBC broadcast that is often accused of being the epitome of a Toronto-centric national media maligning a veteran hockey writer in a rival city.

This could be some fun to watch if the Ottawa media and fans are up for really making sport of Cherry as the Leafs come to town for the return game on Thursday.

So here's from free advice from a disinterested third party: Live a little, Ottawa. Don't take this lying down -- be like the biker in the bar in Anchorman after Ron Burgundy dropped a F-bomb on the air: "No one talks about my city that way! Don Cherry's ass is grass!"

Make Don Cherry turn beet-red. At least then his complexion would go well with some of his ugly suits.

(Disinterested third party, indeed: This is coming from someone who not only cheers for the Leafs and works at the same newspaper as Chris Stevenson, but had the other Cherry brother, Dick Cherry, for a principal back at Bath Public School. Still, this idea is coming from Independent Neate.)

Related:
Chris Stevenson blog (Ottawa Sun)

Back with more later. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.