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Don Cherry says he would apologize on Hockey Night in Canada if given the chance

Despite getting fired from Sportsnet's Hockey Night in Canada on Monday over seemingly discriminatory comments about immigrants and Remembrance Day, Don Cherry has been appearing on Canadian television more than ever in the past 24 hours.

Though he's reiterated to various outlets time and time again that he's not sorry for his on-air remarks — which singled out "you people that come here" for not wearing poppies — he did change his tone ever so slightly in interviews with CTV News yesterday.

"I wish I had said it different[ly]. I wish I had said 'everybody' instead of 'you people,'" Cherry told CTV News Toronto anchor Michelle Dubé. "If I had a chance to go on this Saturday, I would [say that] I wish I would have said 'everybody.'"

He went on to say he can "see how it hurt some people," adding "if I hurt anybody, I'm sorry about it."

He explained in a separate interview with CTV National News correspondent Omar Sachedina that he was not singling out immigrants.

Cherry has been sure to clarify on numerous occasions that he surely didn't mean immigrants of colour in particular, and that "you people" could have meant "Irish, it could have been Scottish, it could have been anybody," as he told Sachedina.

Still, he said in the interviews that he's not backing down and does not regret his controversial statements, which have divided Canadians.

"If I've gotta go out, I'm going out the way I said it and the way I mean it. I'm not going to be a phony," he said to Sachedina.

The somewhat inflammatory hockey commentator also told CTV that Sportsnet said he could keep his job if he abided by a set of conditions, which included something "beyond" a simple apology and laying low for two days.

In another interview with CityNews, Cherry expanded on the issue a bit further, stating that "On Saturday...I would have apologized if I had hurt people and stuff like that..and I said I would, but it wasn't enough."

Based on interviews his given on the media tour he's been on since yesterday, it doesn't look like he'll be following anyone's conditions, in typical Don Cherry style.

Lead photo by

CTV News Toronto


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