TOUGH GUY EMOTIONAL OVER HOCKEY SUICIDES

TORONTO -- Don Cherry, the hockey commentator better known for his bravado
than his sensitive side, said he once contemplated suicide as a junior
hockey player.

When he was 17, playing with the Barrie Flyers in a tournament in Quebec
City, he faced the real possibility of being sent home in disgrace after
saying he had been drinking with his teammates.

"At the time, I thought hockey was the only thing in life and here I'd
blown the whole thing," Cherry said. "My career was over and where was I
going? I tell you, it went across my mind."

He made the personal admission during his regular instalment of Coach's
Corner on Saturday night in response to a letter he received from the
mother of Jason Ricciuti, a 15-year-old Kelowna boy who hung himself in his
hotel room during a hockey tournament last month after he was caught with
marijuana and threatened with a suspension.

Cherry also said he was motivated by the recent death of Terence Tootoo, a
22-year-old player from the Northwest Territories who shot himself last
summer after he was arrested and charged with impaired driving.

He said he understood why the two players took their lives.

"You know why? It happened to me." He spoke about his own dark moment and,
referring again to the two suicides, twice said, "Don't think that didn't
cross my mind."

In an interview on Sunday, Cherry said he felt it was important to make
comments, particularly at this time when there are a lot of hockey
tournaments on the go.

"The kids are on the road, they're away from home and you never know," he
said. "Like I said, a thing like that happened to me."

He said he can still recall with clarity the exact details of the hotel
room where he contemplated his future.

"I can still see the bathroom with the little black-and-white tiles on the
floor, and I can still see, it was one of those wingback, hard chairs where
I sat up all night thinking about what I should do."

The irony of the situation was that he hadn't even had a drink in his young
life at that point, and had only admitted to drinking to go along with the
team captain's plan to protest the suspension of some team members.

In the end, the coach's wife discouraged her husband from going ahead with
his plan to suspend Cherry and the other players.

Cherry said he bounced the idea of talking of the suicides with his on-air
counterpart, Ron MacLean, who supported the move.

"He has an enormous constituency of kids, especially the teens who are at
that edgy, rebellious point in their lives," said MacLean. "So when he says
'Look I've had dark periods where you think you've let everybody down and
you're embarrassed,' I think it was a great thing to do. It meant a lot to
him."

Cherry said it was the first time he ever felt nervous before going on-air.

"I know the kids are sitting around watching Coach's Corner and they're
expecting to see me talk about hits, and then all of a sudden I hit them
with this," he said.