The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) is no longer accepting complaints about three broadcasts related to Don Cherry’s firing after receiving a “large number” of them to date.
The complaints have been about three separate incidents: last Saturday’s Coach’s Corner segment, Cherry’s firing by Sportsnet, and more recently, Tuesday’s episode of The Social in which co-host Jessica Allen made disparaging comments about “white boys” who played hockey.
“The CBSC has received a large number of very similar complaints concerning comments made about hockey on CTV’s The Social on November 12, 2019,” writes a message on the council’s complaint page.
Allen’s comments about hockey players were widely panned on social media.
“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,” she said about the “certain type of person” that Cherry represents.
In response to the comments, the hashtag #FireJessAllen trended on Twitter. Allen eventually addressed her statements on Wednesday afternoon’s show, where she claimed she was only speaking about her “negative experiences” with certain white hockey players.
“I was speaking about my own lived experiences, often negative experiences with those who’ve played the sport and how they’ve led to me being conflicted, really conflicted about how hockey is so closely bound to our national identity,” said Allen.
Since being fired from his spot on Hockey Night in Canada, Cherry has stood by his comments calling on everybody to wear poppies for Remembrance Day, and saying that people took his words out of context.
