Cherry Picking: Don Cherry Rips Stone versus Silfverberg Decision
What I remember most from this playoff run is the Senators up 3-2 in series and pulling Stone from the lineup and replacing him with a guy
— Don Cherry (@CoachsCornerCBC) June 15, 2012
from Sweden who didn't contriubte one bit of blood, sweat or tears for the club.I can't imagine how Stone felt. So proud to set up Spezza
— Don Cherry (@CoachsCornerCBC) June 15, 2012
For whatever reason, Don Cherry used today as an opportunity to heave excrement on Paul MacLean's decision to insert Jakob Silfverberg, a more accomplished and polished hockey product, for Mark Stone, a player who had a resounding 8 minutes and 43 seconds of professional experience.
Despite medical evidence supporting the fact that one's vision deteriorates as they age, Don Cherry's 20/20 hindsight still seems to be working. Go figure.
With his reference to Silfverberg as 'a guy from Sweden', Don's philosophy of Canadian hegemony over the rest of the hockey world has clouded his common sense. We get that enough on Coach's Corner, but now it's apparently permeating his Twitter feed.
This argument that MacLean should have kept the game five winning roster intact just doesn't fly.
While it makes for water cooler conversation, the insertion of either Stone or Silfverberg into the lineup was such an inconsequential decision. If the Senators were really depending on either one of these players to be key contributors in either of the last two games, then they had already lost.
A head coach should always put his best lineup on the ice to give his organization the best opportunity to win and in my opinion, Paul MacLean did just that. Unfortunately for MacLean, the players and the fans, it simply didn't work out for our benefit.
Grapes brain is a flow chart with one question: Does this person have maple syrup flowing through their veins?
Cherry isn't the only one. That was heard on Team 1200 and in blogs the day after as well.
We won with Stone in the lineup and we put in Silfver. Then we lost and still didn't go back to Stone.
Why change what works? We had a winning lineup. :(
What does it say about this year's playoffs that this decision is what Cherry remembers most?
To be fair, and to not even remotely discount Stone's contribution in that one game, how much blood, sweat, and tears had Stone shed for the Senators before that one playoff game? He was right rightfully giving it all as team captain for the Brandon Wheat Kings, not his future team in the NHL. Same as Silfverberg as the captain of Brynäs'.
I'm glad that your criticism of Cherry was cogent. I recently blasted someone who vented his spleen on Cherry's tweets about the Stone/Silfverberg decision - not because he was wrong for disagreeing with Grapes, but because his argument was effectively no better than Cherry's own. It is amazing the extent to which we have the capacity to illogically hold that our own position is right just because that of our opponent is wrong.
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Maple syrup flowing through their veins is immediately followed by ability/inability to cover the points followed by how they look when they are walking into the rink
If Canadians really have maple syrup coursing through their veins, I'm going to have to flirt way harder with the hot Canadian women I see the next time I'm in the country.
