TORONTO – As puck drop on the 2018-2019 NHL season approaches, and the first Hockey Night in Canada only days away, CBC employees completed their annual duty of waking Don Cherry from the cryogenic chamber he spends every offseason in.
“Being an intern at the CBC is a pretty great job,” said Kyle Hamilton. “You get to meet people, work on interesting projects. But unfortunately once a year you have to to disconnect the tubes from Grapes’ chamber and slowly wake him up by playing Rock Em Sock Em Hockey tapes at an increasingly loud volume.”
“The worst part is when he does come to, and he just starts yelling incoherently about visors and Europeans. It’s like watching a Coach’s Corner segment with no Ron MacLean to cut him off.”
The day after the Stanley Cup Finals Cherry sheds his latest garish suit and steps into the chamber, where he is immersed in antifreeze and has his cell tissue reduced to approximately -140 degrees Celsius. There he remains, his body unaging and refusing to die, with his hand frozen in the ‘thumbs up’ position. To keep him calm the jingoistic original version of the Maple Leaf Forever is played on a continuous loop.
“I’d love to say that his incoherence and xenophobic comments on Coach’s Corner are the result of being frozen and thawed so many times, but that’s actually just how he has always been,” said son Tim.
In order to make sure Cherry is ready to go on air he is asked a series of questions after being woken, ranging from who won the Hart trophy last year, to the name of his beloved Bull Terrier. As long as Cherry completely ignores the question, and instead gives a meandering response in which he repeats the phrase “She’s a beauty” several times, executives know he is ready to go.
