Three minutes and ten seconds for piling on

Hey Mike Milbury! It's time to move down the bench, it's getting rather crowded down there at the Bash Sidney Crosby Celebrity Roast!

While Milbury may have started the talk fest over any of Sidney Crosby's tendencies earlier this week, he is seemingly far from alone when it comes to diatribes against the Penguins captain.

Since Mount Milbury exploded, we've been treated to outbursts by Flyers assistant Craig Berube and seemingly feeling left out of all of the hate, Rangers coach John Tortorella weighed in last week with his opinions, finely honed from his days of 24/7 on HBO.

Yet the weekend and end of the season would not be complete without the weekly encyclical from the CBC's Don Cherry who provided his contribution to the Sidney's a whiner debate on his Coach's corner appearance on Saturday night.

After providing a rather helpful history lesson on the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers at Vimy Ridge 95 years ago, (one which while perhaps not sanctioned by History teachers, or English teachers for that matter,  at least gave Canadians a thumbnail sketch of a pivotal day of Canadian History and gave cause to remember those that sacrificed for us) Cherry then turned to the topic of the week, the deportment of Sidney Crosby while on and off the NHL ice.

Cherry too takes up the theme that the league's marquee player needs to develop a thicker skin, absorb the blows and stop antagonizing other players.  All comments that we seem to remember making the rounds when Wayne Gretzky once played the game.



Of the 8 minutes or so of Coach's Corner, three minutes and ten seconds of the discussion was focused on Crosby (though he almost got sidelined when Ron MacLean tried to compare Crosby to Bobby Orr, never a good thing to try to do when it comes to Cherry) and the growing perception among controversial coaches and hockey analysts that he is a whiner.

We're not really sure that the case has been made for that point just yet, both Milbury and Cherry seem to be cut from the same cloth when it comes to their interpretation of hockey and code and all of that.

While coaches like Berube and Tortorella perhaps know how best to push buttons for any upcoming games between their clubs and the Penguins. For the coaches it could be a way to get Crosby off his game, mindful of the extra attention that will now be focused on his every move on and off the ice.

As for Milbury and Cherry, their comments tend to reinforce previous themes on their take on how the game can be played, though in the case of Cherry unusual at it may seem, he didn't seem to get quite as personal in his comments as Milbury did last week and for which Milbury found cause (or was forced) to apologize.

Regardless, safe to say we somehow doubt that Sidney Crosby will be a guest between periods with Milbury any time soon, nor we suspect will he be finding much time to spend in the Corner that the coach holds court in.


CBC-- Don Cherry offers Sidney Crosby advice
Toronto Star-- Don Cherry tells superstar Sidney Crosby to 'stop whining'
Globe and Mail-- Don Cherry the latest to blast Sidney Crosby
CTV-- Don Cherry criticizes Crosby's hockey playing style
Sportsnet-- Cherry Criticizes Crosby on Coach's Corner