“You told me to wear pink! That tie is lavender!” Don Cherry, the most daring dresser in Canadian television, probably, let alone in hockey, wore pink last Saturday in support of a cure for breast cancer. Cherry, the hockey commentator whose fractious half-time show “Coach’s Corner” is a controversial Canadian institution, is here complaining to his drily ironic sidekick Ron MacLean that the NHL’s designated breast cancer tie is not pink, and that it doesn’t really match the properly pink ensemble he’d asked his tailor make for the occasion. Cherry, whose views on most topics can hardly be considered progressive (this is a drastic understatement), has at least never been worried about conforming to the rules of masculinity in fashion, or to any other rules for that matter. How often do tough guys mix stiff Edwardian collars with a pattern of hot pink pink carnations? Or daisies, or boudoir-pink chrysanthemums, or… all the other flowers. I’m not a hockey fan (this is a drastic understatement), or a loudmouth fan, but Don Cherry’s sartorial experimentalism is the utmost. I got these photos from a now defunct blog, but you can see more at DonCherryJacketWatch. Cherry’s longtime tailor, Frank Cosco, died last year, and his son is now having to deal with Don’s finicky requests.
If all hockey fans came dressed this way, I’d actually go to a game.