Coach in A Corner

When Don Cherry chooses to go on the attack, his targets generally decide fighting back is pointless. Maple Leaf coach Ron Wilson, for instance, has declined all season to respond to Cherry repeatedly goading him with derisive names for his coaching decisions.

Well, one NHL rookie isn't about to be ridiculed by the Hockey Night in Canada icon without urging Cherry to at least try to get his facts straight.

Being a good Canadian boy who once rode shotgun for John Tavares, worked his way up from the minors and has no problem dropping the gloves from time to time, Cal Clutterbuck of the Minnesota Wild was certainly surprised to be ridiculed as "Buttercup" by Cherry on Saturday night's Coach's Corner.

Cherry ripped Clutterbuck as "cowardly" for refusing to take his helmet and visor off during fights, and then taking it off as he skated to the penalty box after recent fights against Keith Yandle of the Phoenix Coyotes and Ian White of the Maple Leafs.

JIMMY JEONG/AP

Clutterbuck and Staios with visors on Jan. 30.

But in an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribuine, Clutterbuck rejected Cherry's version of events.

"If you look at the incidents, first time I asked (Yandle) to take our helmets off, and he said, 'No,' said Clutterbuck. "I'm not going to be the only guy to fight and take my helmet off. The second time against White, he jumped me from behind. So what does (Cherry) want from me? I mean, what do you want me to do? Really."

Replays apparently supported Clutterbuck's version of the Yandle scrap. In the case of White, Clutterbuck was involved with Lee Stempniak of the Leafs when White interceded.

Clutterbuck, from Welland, Ont., noted he fought Steve Staios of Edmonton last week, an NHLer who also wears a visor, and both players kept their helmets on. "(Cherry) didnt' show that. I don't know why," said Clutterbuck. "I think what he does for the game in Canada, he's an icon, but I'm going to have to disagree with him on what he says."

It's never easy to understand why Cherry supports some but not others. When Chris Simon used his skate on an opponent last season and received a lengthy suspension, Cherry declined to offer nary a critical word. Jason Spezza, who walked out on Cherry and the Mississauga Ice Dogs as a junior player, remains one of Cherry's favoured sons.

These days, it's a wonder anyone would be counselling hockey players to take their helmets off during a fight after the death of a senior league player in a game after his helmet fell off during a fight and he subsequently struck his head on the ice.

Probably About Time

Craig Hartsburg inherited a mess not of his making and couldn't fix it in 48 games. Given that he's an experienced coach at all levels and a former standout NHLer, that tells you something about how bad things are in the nation's capital with the Ottawa Senators.

You'll recall I said in the fall I believed the Sens would miss post-season play. But I thought it would be a near miss, not the disaster that has unfolded.

Interestingly, in replacing Hartsburg with minor league coach Cory Clouston, the Senators are just the latest NHL club to pass on a group of highly-experienced veteran coaches with championships on their resumes, a list that includes Pat Quinn, Bob Hartley, Marc Crawford, John Tortorella and Peter Laviolette.

Tampa chose to elevate Rick Tocchet when Barry Melrose was dumped. Carolina, after firing Laviolette, turned back to Paul Maurice. Chicago made the earliest move, replacing Denis Savard with Joel Quenneville.

Now Ottawa has replaced Hartsburg with Clouston, leaving Eugene Melnyk with two men - John Paddock and Hartsburg - on his payroll being paid not to coach.

Maybe that's why Clouston, and not Quinn or Crawford or Hartley or Tortorella, got the job. Melnyk didn't want to pay yet another coaching salary when Clouston was already in the organization down in Binghampton.

With 38 games left, you have to believe this is Clouston's opportunity to make some judgements about the team that he can move forward with. In other words, the idea has to be that he'll be the coach next season, and that this is a start on making next fall a lot more promising than the past 12 months have been.

Melnyk, meanwhile, looks a little silly today after his bombastic pronouncements of last year in which he suggested those who believed his team needed to be "blown up" should "blow themselves up." He was defiant and supportive of those who he had put in place, and to now turn around in a matter of days and, for the second straight year, fire a coach with less than one season on the job, makes it appear as though the problems with the Ottawa franchise might begin with the toast of the town, the man who got an ovation every time he appeared at the recent world junior championships, and that would be Melnyk himself.

Worlds Apart

Maybe it would have been too much for all of us to digest.

Arizona Cardinals; Super Bowl champions.

We've dealt with the Carolina Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup, and the Florida Marlins capturing the World Series. The NBA's equivalent? Maybe Golden State under Al Attles taking the title back in 1975.

But the former St. Louis Cardinals winning it all, well, that wouldn't have been Cinderella getting the glass slipper and the prince. It would've been one of the ugly stepsisters ending up ahead in the fairy tale.

The Cardinals didn't quite pull it off, ending a terrific Sunday that began with the Aussie Open men's final in Melbourne, included the Bruins-Canadiens and the Boss in the middle, and ended up with the Steelers getting No. 6 late in the evening.

What a day to be a couch potato.

Other thoughts from the weekend that was:

Santonio Holmes might have been credited with the greatest catch in Super Bowl history if not for the still unsurpassed grab of David Tyree of the Giants last year.

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To me, it was Ben Roethlisberger's ability to avoid the rush and scramble for extra time that ultimately made the difference. Roethlisberger is Fran Tarkenton in a big man's body.

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It was the second straight terrific Super Bowl, particularly the conclusion and third in a decade, if you count the 2000 heartstopper between Kurt Warner's St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans. That's a better rate of recent success than the Grey Cup, which last had an outstanding game in 2005 (Edmonton-Montreal) and only one other (2000, B.C-Montreal) in the past decade.

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LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR

Crosby and Malkin make a tough equation for the Penguins.

I'm thinking it was honest of Roger Federer to break down after losing to Rafa Nadal yesterday in a grinding Aussie Open final, but not great strategy. If Nadal didn't know he was deep inside Federer's head before, he surely does now. With six Grand Slam titles to his name, do we start wondering now how many Nadal will win?

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Given that every team sport now seems to produce different finalists every year, it's pretty clear Federer-Nadal is the greatest rivalry, individual or otherwise, in sports today. Nadal seems to own Federer now, but just in 2009 we have possible clashes at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open ahead.

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It's pretty apparent that a big part of the pro-fighting agenda in hockey is to take hitting out of the sport, a dangerous agenda indeed. We saw it again on Saturday when Luke Schenn, after a great hit on Evgeni Malkin, then had to drop 'em with Tyler Kennedy of the Penguins. The equation is simple: more fighting, less hitting; less fighting, more hitting. Frankly, I vastly prefer the latter.

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Doubt Brian Burke is going to go out and spend huge dollars on the free agent market this summer. But for a reasonable sum he might be able to bring in his entire checking line from the 2007 Anaheim team that won the Cup as Samuel Pahlsson, Rob Niedermayer and Travis Moen are all unrestricted free agents. Ditto for Ducks rearguards Francois Beauchemin and Kent Huskins. Bring in those five and suddenly you have a Leaf team with a lot more bite to it.

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It's pretty clear that the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to have to decide between keeping Malkin or Jordan Staal. They can't keep those two and Sidney Crosby and hope to be able to fill out the rest of the lineup with enough quality. Unless the cap goes up in the next few years - and there are those in hockey who believe it will go up, not down - having Malkin and Crosby at a combined salary cap hit of $17.4 million is going to make it tough for the Pens.

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Tracy McGrady was tough. Having Vince Carter force his way out of town was ugly, But if Chris Bosh were to bolt the Raptors in 2010 it would be darn near catastrophic in terms of public relations, and doesn't it seem as if the love-in between Bosh and the city is fading? He's getting booed just a little and doesn't like it.