Ron MacLean keeping quiet on what comes next for Hockey Night in Canada

By ESPE CURRIE AND ALEX BLOOMFIELD

TORONTO (680 NEWS) – Many are wondering what “Hockey Night in Canada” will look like without Don Cherry, but the remaining host of “Coach’s Corner” isn’t revealing too many details about the future of the segment ahead of this Saturday’s broadcast.

Ron MacLean, Cherry’s co-host for over three decades, has been silent since his televised apology on Sunday night. He spent Wednesday in meetings with the program’s brain trust, and afterward, confronted by a CBC reporter in the network’s parking lot, seemed to reveal Cherry’s removal will be addressed in some way this coming weekend.

MacLean has said he’s spending a lot of time thinking about what he will say come Saturday, and told the Canadian Press it all happened so fast – “I wish we could have had another day.”

MacLean has co-hosted “Coach’s Corner” with Cherry since 1986, with the exception of a couple of years.

RELATED: What’s next for Coach’s Corner? Quick replacement for Don Cherry unlikely

Social media remains a heated battleground over Cherry’s ouster, with some throwing out names of possible replacements, and others speculating the first intermission will simply take on another format.

An online petition to bring Cherry back has garnered over 200,000 signatures so far, and a protest at Sportsnet headquarters on Wednesday saw some heated exchanges.

#FireJessicaAllen was trending nationally on Twitter Thursday morning because of the CTV “The Social” co-host’s comments about the controversy.

Allen told viewers during a panel on Tuesday that she doesn’t “worship at the altar of hockey” and found, in her experience, that those who do “all tended to be white boys who weren’t, let’s say, very nice.” She also called for parents to take their kids out of “the hockey bubble.”

Many parents expressed anger over her comments, with some calling for an apology and her dismissal from the show.

Others said that by stereotyping and singling out a specific group, she did the same thing Cherry did when he called immigrants “you people” and claimed newcomers don’t wear poppies and therefore don’t support veterans.

Rogers Media is the parent company of both Sportsnet and this radio station. 

With files from the Canadian Press

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