English language: 0 - Toronto Star: 1

The Toronto Star today ran a story - online, anyway - about how the children's singer/champion Raffi Cavoukian has started a Twitter campaign to "mute Don Cherry." Raffi encouraged his followers to mute their TVs during last Saturday's Leafs-Canucks game when the "Coach's Corner" segment aired during the first intermission of "Hockey Night in Canada." Cherry is a former NHL coach and flamboyant, loud-mouthed broadcaster, who likes the physicality of the game - including fighting and head shots.



Raffi, a children's advocate who was recognized by the Canadian Paediatric Society in 2010 when the organization made him an honourary member, told the Toronto Star: “For years I’ve been watching him [Cherry] get louder and louder. He sounds and acts like a bully. That’s not fun and it’s not a good example for the kids who are watching. In this day and age of all the hockey violence, we should be putting a stop to this.... I have nothing against the man personally. I’m just saying his act is uncivil and doesn’t belong on our public broadcaster.”

("Hockey Night in Canada" airs every Saturday on CBC TV.)

Good on Raffi! Boo, Don Cherry!

And boo on the Toronto Star. The first story I referenced at the top of this post was nothing more than a series of tweets between Raffi and his followers, and a Toronto Star poll. Okay, I guess. As a sidebar anyway.

But the "byline" read "storified by the Toronto Star."




WHAT? It reminds me of one of my favourite comic strips - "Get Fuzzy," which features Bucky Katt, a perpetually apoplectic Siamese who regularly murders logic as well the English language. One of my favourite Buckyisms is "You can wordify anything if you just verb it." And that's what the Toronto Star has done.