Cherry Goes After Ovechkin Again

After Alex Ovechkin scored his 50th goal last season, he had a rather unique celebration. Even before that happened, Ovechkin's celebrations had drawn the ire of CBC Hockey Night in Canada legend Don Cherry.

Yes, Cherry certainly tends to wear his Canadian heart on his sleeve. However, people generally listen to what he has to say, no matter the potential biases involved. After Ovechkin basically got away with a slew-foot earlier in the week, Cherry was very pointed in his comments on Coach's Corner Saturday night. Video after the jump.

Ovechkin did get off too easy when it comes to his hit on Rich Peverley. It's not about the slew-foot being an automatic suspension. Anyone who watches hockey can ascertain that Evgeni Artyuhkin is a much dirtier player than Ovechkin will ever be.

However, Cherry does have a point when it comes to the superstar. Ovechkin plays the game hard, which no one will ever question. That doesn't give him license to plow people from behind, or hit them in the knee. As Cherry notes, there is a reputation developing, and it isn't necessarily a good one.

At some point, Ovechkin will be asked to drop the gloves and stand up for his style of play. It might not be a desirable thought for Capitals fans, but it's one that is likely to become reality very soon if Ovechkin doesn't tone down his hits a little bit.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-25-2009 @ 10:36PM

kfogs1957 said...

Great player, dirty player. He likes to score, yap, and hit, but has never backed up his physical style of play.I agree he's going to have to pay the piper. What he did to Gonchar last year was no accident. Great player, but not a clean one. By the way, what else would Boudreau do but defend his player?

10-26-2009 @ 10:57AM

Rachel said...

People need to lay off Ovie! He is an amazing player, and if he wasn't nobody woud be calling him dirty! He went after a guy with the puck and a small completely unintenioned incident happened. Stop calling Ovie dirty! You sound petty and jealous!

10-26-2009 @ 11:01AM

basawaj said...

Cherry's nothing but a xenophobic nutcase. He's been calling for a player to go after Ovechkin for over a year now. And how did the players respond? By awarding Ovechkin with The Lester B. Pearson Award as the most outstanding player in the regular season. I'll take the NHL players' opinion over some old bigot anyday.

10-26-2009 @ 11:20AM

breaklance said...

I'll defend Ovi. Its great to see Cherry take a more unbiased view on Ovi, opposed to last years comments. I do think Cherry is right in that the way Ovi plays he has a good chance of coming into these gray area's of "cheap shots." Being super physical, and super aggressive, he drives the nets, always goes for the fore and back checks but I don't think he has a malicious bone in his body. The history they portrayed isn't good, and you certainly can't look at it and say he's totally innocent but all of them don't have clear intent to injure. The Briere incident, he just had the puck and was in that window of time allowed to be checked...was it from behind yea...doesn't help Briere was watching his pass. He may of been going to the bench but other than being in that general area he didn't give any indication of stepping off the ice. The check on (sorry don't remember name, but the one he injured shown in the replay), was a clean hit. They both went to the boards, the other guy lowered his head at the wrong moment. That kind of a hit happens often, guys getting blindsided because they are looking for the puck...The knee hit on Gonch, didn't look good. Add in playoffs, rivalry, and he was a former Cap, it has a lot of media spin. To me, a fan who watched from home, it looked like Ovi was going for a big hit but bailed at the last moment, tried to get out of the way and didn't get his leg out. And the recent slew foot, again didn't look good. Ovi certainly had positioning to do it, but if you watch Ovi and Peverley's sticks he was out muscled. Did Ovi's positioning help on that, yeah.

Conclusion: Ovi a dirty player, no, not on purpose atleast. Its a by-product of his style of play. Cherry is right, at some point someone is going to take a whack at Ovi. Best way is to drop the gloves, no player in their right mind should want to injure Ovie(or for that matter, Crosby, Malkin, Kane, ect) because they are the nhl's meal tickets. Take out one of them for a season, and the nhl won't be the same(and at its delicate fanbase already, it really won't be good), case in point Brady and the Pats.

10-26-2009 @ 11:31AM

ranndino said...

It is funny to see Cherry and you whine about Ovechkin's accidental slew foot (he was just trying to get body possession) after his good old Canadian boy Richards was not suspended or even fined for trying to murder David Booth on the same night Cherry made these comments.

You are also wrong about people listening to Cherry. Anyone with a brain considers him an outdated old crazy bigot who is always railing against Russians because in his head the Cold War is still going on.

He has a deep seeded hate for Russian players. No matter what they do they always get criticized. Most Russian players have always been criticized for not being physical enough. Along comes Ovechkin who hits everything that moves and all of a sudden he's a head hunter and a dirty player.

Hockey is a very fast game, especially when played by lightning fast 235 lbs guys like Ovie. Accidents will happen. He's not a dirty player and never tries to hurt anyone intentionally. Anyone who knows him will tell you that. The hit on Gonchar was also an accident. If Gonchar took the hit the knee on knee wouldn't have happened. Instead, he tried to avoid it (I don't blame him for that), but just couldn't get his leg out of the way in time. You can clearly see that on the replay if you remove your bias goggles. Ovechkin never stuck his knee out. He just skated through Gonchar's leg. There was no way he could have reacted to Gonchar trying to avoid the hit.

10-26-2009 @ 11:45AM

BTW, nice cherry picking of Euro players doing something wrong. That never happens with North American players, of course. Especially, Slava Kozlov. Now there's a real goon. Give me a break, Cherry.

10-26-2009 @ 1:37PM

Kelly said...

You have got to be kidding me. This is why people should ignore stupid blogs like this and listen to reporters who actually do a little work and find out what the players think. NO ONE thinks Alex Ovechkin is a dirty player or is getting a reputation for one, except the increasingly demented Don Cherry. Not a word about Mike Richard's shoulder to head hit? Oh, that's because he's Canadian, and they're held to a different (MUCH lower) standard than the Russians that the bigoted Cherry hates.

10-26-2009 @ 11:30PM

drmatthewsink said...

Was it not Mark the Great of the Oilers who some might argue is better than the Great One and Super Mario.

Was he dirty? Well, Do you remember the HEAD SPEAR on Gradin's head as one of many?

But we love Mark.

We shall see.

10-28-2009 @ 2:20PM

qongquest said...

many think that cherry was putting down ovechkin. not. cherry was warning ovechkin about the rough stuff. why play rough when other players on the team are paid to play that way. cherry was also saying that if ovechkin continues to play that way he will have to answer to some of the fighters in the league, plus the wear and tear this type of playing has on the body. good going grapes for trying to help ovechkin.