Matt Gurney and sports reporter Amanda Cupido debate Don Cherry’s comments on women in the locker room,

For a Toronto Maple Leafs fan such as myself, Saturday night’s game between the Leafs and the Canadiens proved all kinds of disappointing. I almost welcomed the distraction provided by Don Cherry’s first-intermission Coach’s Corner segment, during which the old-school hockey guru told co-host Ron MacLean that he didn’t believe that female reporters should go into the dressing room of male players.

“I don’t believe — and I really believe this — I don’t believe women should be allowed in the male dressing room,” Cherry said, to the comically evident discomfort of MacLean. “I remember the first time it happened to me. Guys are walking around naked and I hear this woman’s voice and I turn around and there’s a woman, and she’s asking me about the power play, and I say let’s go outside, and she said ‘I’m not embarrassed,’ and I said, ‘ I’m embarrassed.’” MacLean, who was clearly already en

visioning all the emails he was about to receive from CBC execs, gamely spoke about equal opportunity in every job, even agreeing (when Cherry asked) that male reporters should be allowed into the change rooms of female athletes.

Cherry has been slammed for these “sexist” comments. No surprise there. But having read the comments, and watched the clip again, it’s clear that Cherry’s comments were outdated — old-fash-

Cherry’s call for gender-segregated change rooms, without exception, would be supported by most people

ioned, if you prefer — but not sexist. At least not by the standard of the rest of society. I’d say Cherry is speaking for the vast majority of Canadians here, even if his delivery (as is so often the case with him) left something to be desired.

Those outraged by his “sexist” and “retrograde” views need to read what Cherry actually said again. He’s not saying that there shouldn’t be female reporters — that would be sexist. He’s saying that female reporters shouldn’t go into male change rooms, and male reporters shouldn’t go into female change rooms. Personally, I think pro athletes and pro reporters are all mature enough to handle some exposed naughty parts, and that Cherry’s worked up over nothing. But however worked up he may be, what he said isn’t sexist. He’s calling for complete equality — gendersegregated change rooms, no exceptions.

It’s also probably what the vast majority of Canadians would agree with. To anyone out there who’s outraged at what Cherry said, I propose a simple test: Imagine every locker room and shower facility, at every public rink and private gym across the land, was suddenly made co-ed.

If you find yourself even the slightest bit discomfited by that idea, I have bad news: You are Don Cherry.

Cherry isn’t the only one out there tripping over “bathroom politics.” Over the last several years, we’ve heard everything from men who identify as female launching human rights complaints to secure their right to use a female change room at a gym, to a Toronto man’s recent outrage after being told that he was not able to watch his young daughter’s swimming lessons because it was a female-only class, closed to male eyes out of the religious sensibilities of the participants.

Public buildings and school facilities have struggled with how to accommodate transgendered citizens’ needs for toilet facilities. And the increasing number of girls in minor hockey has forced arenas across the land to ponder how to handle female players in older facilities that might only have change rooms for the home and visiting teams (indeed, a few years ago, a major Canadian corporation ran a commercial honouring volunteers that portrayed a gruff, male hockey rink employee kindly hand-building the league’s only little girl her very own change room.)

The easy solution to all these problems is for us to collectively decide that in 2013, it’s OK to get changed and hit the showers around everyone, regardless of gender. That wouldn’t bother me, and I speak from experience here: Several years ago, I ran into someone I’d gone to high school with in the locker room of our gym. Thing was, last time I’d seen him, he’d been a she. The world didn’t end.

But I clearly seem to be the odd one out here. From restaurant bathrooms to the showers at the gym, most Canadians still seem to value sex segregation. And that’s fine. Society has the right to decide these things for itself. But let’s not jump down Don Cherry’s throat when he says that he’d prefer women not be in a man’s change room. It seems most people agree with him.