On Tuesday morning’s airing of CTV’s “The Social”, one of the hosts referred to young hockey players as unthoughtful “white boys” who were “often bullies.”
During the program, the hosts spoke about hockey icon Don Cherry’s firing by Sportsnet over comments he made about people who don’t wear poppies. One of the hosts, Jessica Allen, proceeded to characterize a “certain type of person” who Cherry represents.
“They all tended to be white boys who weren’t, let’s say very nice, they were not generally thoughtful, they were often bullies. Their parents were able to afford to spend $5,000 a year on hockey,” said Allen.
“For me, Don Cherry is the walking and talking representative of that type.”
Since being fired from “Coach’s Corner”, Cherry has since stood by his comments and has suggested they were taken out of context.
Fellow CTV host Marci Ien proceeded to accuse Cherry of racism for his remarks, even calling on him to be fired when the story initially broke.
“All the hatred or vitriol and people calling for me to be fired because I said Don Cherry should be fired, it was unbelievable,” said Ien.
During the segment, the hosts proceeded to defend Justin Trudeau despite having worn blackface on multiple occasions because he “apologized” and it was in the past.
“What he did wasn’t two days ago or three days ago, it was fifteen years ago,” said host, Cynthia Loyst.
“He didn’t do it as prime minister, he didn’t do it at a time when he was a leader of a country.”
Ien has also accused others of racism in the past, including a claim that Toronto police questioned her because she was black in 2018.
Toronto police disputed her allegations saying that, in reality, she was pulled over for failing to stop at a stop sign and that race had nothing to do with the incident.
“I have viewed the video footage of your vehicle stop. You were stopped because of your driving behaviour. You failed to stop at a stop sign. It was dark. Your race was not visible on the video and only became apparent when you stepped out of the vehicle in your driveway,” said Toronto Police Service Staff Superintendent Mario Di Tommaso.
