MacLean on Cherrymania, Sochi and life-saving skills
TORONTO — Ron MacLean arrived 10 minutes early for an interview at The Tea Emporium, a bright café with a wall of tea and room for two chairs, on Danforth Avenue, in the heart of Toronto’s Greek district. The store was empty.
MacLean introduced himself to the man working behind the counter, a lapsed hockey fan named Jeff Kovac, and sat in one of the two open chairs near the storefront window. Less than 10 minutes later, a young boy trudging along the slushy sidewalk outside froze in his tracks and stared through the window, mouth agape.
MacLean, wearing a collared shirt and slacks, smiled broadly and waved.
“We’re a hockey country,” he said. “If I’m a little less dressed, I find I sneak around a little easier. Usually, I’m in a ball cap and jeans. If I dress at all, then suddenly, you kind of morph into the role that everybody identifies you.”
Before he left, MacLean fielded 20 Questions from Postmedia News.
1. What are you getting Cherry for his 80th birthday, on Feb. 5?
RM: “It’ll be likely cufflinks. Because we’re so farflung, I can’t bring anything bigger than that. You’re getting a scoop there. I won’t say what they are.”
2. Cards on the table: How does a septuagenarian former AHL player make an entire country grind to a halt for seven minutes every Saturday night of the winter?
RM: “There’s two things that attract a crowd, that we pay for, in entertainment. One is talent, and the other is charisma. And Don has charisma. You know? It’s as simple as that. I especially recall when FOX television got into the hockey racket, and they tried glowing pucks and animated robots. And their whole focus was kids, and what they could do to appeal to kids. And kids recognize charisma, whether it’s in a Georges St-Pierre or a Don Cherry or a Justin Bieber. They quickly resonate with that charisma. That’s what it is: He’s got it.”
3. Has there ever been a moment, on air, when you have thought: “We’ve gone too far?”
RM: “I would say I go too far. Don’s a pretty calculating guy. He sort of thinks through what he’s going to do from all angles: ‘What’s in it for me? What’s in it for CBC? What’s in it for my audience?’” 4. You go too far? RM: “Where I screw it up is, I’ll try to have an ethical conversation. And a good example was when Chris Simon was suspended twice in the span of a few days. First, he received, I believe, 25 games for cross-checking Ryan Hollweg. He came back from that lengthy suspension and, within a game, stepped on a player named Jarkko Ruutu and received the 30-game suspension. While we were discussing it — and Don was sort of saying, ‘Look, Hollweg didn’t get hurt, neither did Ruutu, and this guy’s a rat, this Ruutu’ — I brought up this point: ‘You know, Don, did you ever think that maybe Chris didn’t accept the suspension in the first place? ... Maybe he didn’t accept the initial suspension because he’s First Nations, and a lot of First Nations kids in Canada grow up feeling they’re not going to get a fair shake.’ That’s what I said, to which Don replied: ‘Oh, what are you saying? Because he’s an Indian, he’s got an inferiority complex?’ Right there and then, I knew, ‘Uh-oh, this is going to be difficult, with the clock running.’”
5. If you had a chance to do it again, would you still draw comparisons between hockey players and first responders, like you did in an intro before a playoff game two years ago?
RM: “Oh, in a heartbeat. That is one I completely feel, strongly, that I was in the right. I was upset with our people for asking me for a clarification. I completely stand by what I said in every way. The only regret I ever had about that opening was that I felt the pictures didn’t match the text.”
6. Rogers Communications Inc. has sub-licensed NHL games to the CBC for another four years, despite signing a 12-year deal with the league. Could you imagine a world without Hockey Night in Canada?
RM: “Well, of course. Honestly, I’ve always said I live more for beer-league hockey than I do for Hockey Night in Canada. So from a personal point of view, it’s my job and I enjoy it, but it’s certainly very little of what I appreciate about life. I think it’s a great institution. And I hope it lasts.”
7. Either way, do Don Cherry’s suits belong in the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, or in a vault locked far from public view?
RM: (smiles) “Don has clearly cut a swath that’s just a part of this time period in Canadian history. Really, he has. Whatever we would do in Canada to capture that, whatever’s appropriate. The national art gallery would be a great place for his jackets, in Ottawa.”
8. Is it true that he has picked the material for his jackets at Fabricland?
RM: “He has a Fabricland card. He did a skit on Rick Mercer’s show where he showed him — I don’t know what it is — a points card that they have at Fabricland. He goes there, picks the material, and then he takes it to a tailor to have the jackets made up. And he generally gets eight new suits a year.”
9. If you were not a broadcaster, what do you think you would be doing today?
RM: ( immediat e ly ) “Teacher, for sure. That was always my goal. And I’ve always said: A sommelier, or a maître d at a restaurant. I just love the idea — much like Jeff is doing this — that you can make someone’s day when you do that job.”
10. So, not a lifeguard along the Delaware River in Philadelphia, pulling people out of the water like you did after interrupting a lunch with Cherry four years ago?
RM: “No, but that was fun to do. That was a neat event. I’ve always chuckled at the fact that there was only one other person that could really have gone in, other than Don. And it would have been very difficult for Don because of where we were situated. He had to scale this enormous seawall. He would be mad if I ever said that, but the truth is, it would have been difficult for him to get down there as quickly as I could get down there.”
11. You will be doing hockey, as well as studio work for the CBC, in Sochi: When will you have time to sleep?
RM: “Like Beijing, or any of those destinations, it’s probably two little windows of sleep. I’ll go to bed at nine in the morning, and sleep until, I guess, one; that’s four hours. And then — we’ll see how it goes — but I might go back to bed around six in the evening for an hour. Or, I might go to bed at one in the night for an hour, depending on how the day went, and how we did.”
12. And you will do that for 17 straight days?
RM: “For 17 days. But you know, you’re living clean. You’re not partying. You’re so exhausted mentally that, when you hit the rack, you just fall into a coma. You’d be surprised.”
13. In all of the events you have covered around the world, have you ever been concerned for your safety?
RM: “Never. Never. It hasn’t even occurred to me. I mean, that’s kind of to Don Cherry’s thing about visors: The minute you start thinking safety, you’re on the road to being ineffective.”
14. Is Russia, given the recent terrorist activity there, any different?
RM: “Well, no. Sochi will be under a pretty strict security lockdown, as you could imagine. I think Munich taught everybody you just can’t take security for granted.”
15. In light of Russia’s anti-gay legislation — and concerns over arrests and other forms of crackdown during the Games — do you expect you will have the editorial freedom to discuss the issue on air?
RM: “We know every word we say will be parsed and analyzed by Russian government officials, and by IOC officials and by our own officials. In 2008 in Beijing, I did an interview with Mark Tewksbury where I broached the subject of gay athletes, because he had written a book — Inside Out: Straight Talk from a Gay Jock — and I really thought it was important ... and I was kind of counselled that it might not go over well with all of our viewers. I broached the subject anyway.”
16. Which was stranger: Covering snowboarder Ross Rebagliati and marijuana in 1998, or figure skaters Jamie Sale, David Pelletier and the French judge in 2002?
RM: “Well, Ross Rebagliati, for sure, was the strangest thing. Because I was at women’s hockey when I got the call to go and cover the news conference, at which Carol Anne Letheren and the Canadian officials were going to explain the charges levied against Ross Rebagliati. But I just found it really curious, when we had a whole fleet of reporters on the ground in Nagano, why they called me to cover the pot story. ”
17. Where is the strangest place you’ve been recognized?
RM: “Croatia. There aren’t too many places in the world where we Canadians aren’t there in numbers. But Croatia is one of them, and it’s funny, because there are a lot of Croatians living in Canada. But just grocery shopping for beer in Croatia, on the island of Hvar.”
18. Is there a special room at home where you keep your many Gemini Awards?
RM: “I don’t have any of them anymore. Oh, my dad has one. So by default, I’m going to have one. No. I give them away. I’ve always given them away. I’m not a big awards guy, and that’s not to diminish the gift.”
19. Have you kept any trophies you won actually playing sports?
RM: “Yup. And I like those. My hockey trophies from my childhood are meaningful. A golf championship award, in 1976, is meaningful. I received an award from the OHA for refereeing — which was most deserving official — which was meaningful. Those I liked. I am, at the core, kind of a sportsman.”
20. The last question: Do you have a ready pun we can use to end the interview?
RM: (smiles) “Oh geez. Um. I would have teed one up, had I known where we were meeting.”