“Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series”
Jared won for his portrayal of Don Cherry in the CBC mini series “Keep Your Head Up, Kid: The Don Cherry Story”

The Series also won for “Best Cinematography”

Also nominated:

Jared Keeso – Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series

Sarah Manninen – Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series

Tim Cherry – Best Writing in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series

Glen MacPherson – Best Photography in a Dramatic Program or Series

Rejean Labrie – Best Production Design or Art Direction in a Fiction Program or Series

Patricia Henderson – Best Costume Design

The Industry Gala Presentations will take place on Tuesday November 2nd and Wednesday, November 3rd at the Kool Haus Entertainment Complex; the Broadcast Gala will take place on Saturday November 13th at the historic Winter Garden Theatre and will be broadcast live-to-tape on Global and Showcase.

Also nominated, Being Erica, Episode 109 “Everything She Wants” for Best Television Series Drama.

A full listing can be seen at: http://www.dgc.ca/page.php?id=101

From journeyman minor league hockey player to broadcasting legend, KEEP YOUR HEAD UP, KID: THE DON CHERRY STORY, the two-part biopic scored a massive hit for CBC Television. More than 1.38 million viewers tuned in for the series debut episode on Sunday, March 28 and an additional 1.27 million watched last night’s finale of this unlikely Canadian love story. Viewership peaked at 1.83 million.

“Don Cherry has been a beloved member of the CBC family for 30 years and it‘s wonderful to see that Canadians feel that same personal connection,” said Kirstine Stewart, General Manager CBC Television. “The success of this movie is a testament to CBC’s dedication to great storytelling that connects and resonates with viewers across the country.”

KEEP YOUR HEAD UP, KID: THE DON CHERRY STORY is the brainchild of Cherry’s son Tim Cherry, who is the writer and executive producer. Directed by Jeff Woolnough, produced by Shawn Watson and executive produced by Laszlo Barna, Wayne Thompson and Jamie Brown. It is an E1 Entertainment, 5 for Fighting and Frantic Films production in association with CBC Television.

ORGINAL ARTICLE

The Don Cherry biopic, titled Keep Your Head Up, Kid, is a whopping four hour, two part production that will air Sunday and Monday on the CBC (8 p.m. local times).

Is this marathon epic worth sitting through?
The answer is: Absolutely.

The story is not deep, but it moves along quickly. It is never dull, the performances are fine and it has a great look. The sets authentically evoke eras that begin in the 1940s and conclude in the early 1980s. The action sequences are well done.

Don says he is pleased with the way his late wife, Rose, is portrayed, and well he should be. Sarah Manninen, a TV actress, gives a strong and believable performance as Rose, the supportive wife and the glue that holds the family together as Don bounces from one minor league hockey backwater to another, dragging Rose and the kids with him as he plies his trade, which consists mostly of laying a beating on people and getting paid very little to do it.

TV actor Jared Keeso, who plays the great man, has more hair than Grapes did post-30, so he can’t replicate the comb-over. And, Keeso’s Cherry seems a little quiet for a guy who, as an NHL coach and later a TV personality, loved the camera, the celebrity and the media. But perhaps Don was a tight-lipped, no-nonsense type in his early years.

Keeso does bring energy and stolid determination to the role, and also some humour. In the end, it’s not hard to make the connection between the Cherry we know and the actor playing him in the movie.

What’s perhaps most remarkable about the production is the contribution of Don’s son, Tim Cherry, who is a co-producer and the writer. Tim has no experience as a script writer, yet he penned the screenplay, with help from screenwriter-author Paul Quarrington, who was brought in to polish it. (Paul died of cancer in January.)

When I talked to Tim two years ago about his plans for the movie, he mentioned that Goodfellas, the Martin Scorsese film, was an influence. Like Goodfellas, Tim uses a voice-over narration, along with period music, to give the story pace and context.

Part 1, which follows Don’s early career as a player, does at times have the feel of Goodfellas. Substitute New York’s guys and dolls of the 1960s and 1970s with another colourful gang of violent misfits, wannabes and weirdos — Cherry’s minor league teammates — and you get a sense of what Tim and director Jeff Woolnough, a TV veteran who has directed CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, were trying to accomplish.

There’s Larry Zeidel (played by Sean Bell) the minor league loon, infamous for his stick fights, who is incensed when Cherry passes him as penalty minutes leader. And, of course, there is Eddie Shore, the certifiably crazy owner of the Springfield Indians, who strung a noose around his goalie’s neck and tied it to the crossbar of the net to stop him from flopping. Shore is played by the great Stephen McHattie.

Other good supporting performances: Ian Tracey as Cherry’s beleaguered boss with the Boston Bruins, the general manager Harry Sinden; and Craig Eldridge as Punch Imlach, the coach of Springfield and later Toronto Maple Leafs.

Part 2 on Monday moves the story to Cherry’s coaching career and, appropriately wraps it up with the gut-wrenching Game 7 of the 1979 Stanley Cup semi-final between Cherry’s Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens, a game the Bruins probably should have won and ultimately cost Cherry his job.

This contains the best scene sequences of the movie. The now iconic picture of Cherry, standing on the bench, flamboyantly bowing to the braying crowd at the Montreal Forum, is reproduced. Real footage is blended with shots at the bench and the dressing room. You feel the tension building, and the sense of panic and confusion on the ice as the Bruins cling to the lead, fighting off relentless pressure by the Canadiens. The devastating impact of the too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty in the final three minutes of regulation time hits like a fist.

It’s hard to believe that he actually did this, but during the game Cherry left the bench and ran down the hall to the Hockey Night In Canada studio to complain to producer Ralph Mellanby about the telecast replaying the fights that Canadiens players won, but not replaying those in which the Bruins triumphed.

Mellanby looks at Cherry like he’s got two heads. Indeed, the scene does make Cherry look like a horse’s ass. They could have kept it out, but to Tim’s credit, it was included because, well, it was such an insane thing to do and it needed to be told. It also heightened the drama of the moment, and spoke to how out of control hockey people will get, Cherry in particular, in the heat of battle.

A biopic that is written and produced my one’s loving son is almost by definition going to be self-serving. And certainly, Cherry comes across very well. Yes, he makes some mistakes along the way, but, generally, Don is the noble and principled warrior. But, he’s also shown to be stubborn, over-burdened with hubris and not above undermining his boss Sinden.

Of all the talking, and also writing, that Cherry has done over the years about his relationship with Sinden, this movie portrays the Bruins boss the most sympathetically. Cherry admits in the movie that he pushed hard to trade Phil Esposito, even though at the time of the controversial deal he claimed to be largely a bystander and let Sinden take the heat. As the years went on, Cherry, to his players and the media, made Sinden the heavy while presenting himself as the good guy. In the narration, Cherry says he doesn’t blame Sinden for firing him.

It’s not easy to get a TV movie produced in Canada. Financing is difficult and, when you mention the idea of a sports flick to an executive at the entertainment division of a TV network, generally you will get a blank stare.
So, kudos to Tim Cherry for pulling this off and for delivering, with plenty of help from Woolnough, an entertaining and well made movie.

ORIGINAL LINK

If you were born after 1980, you might not realize that there was a time when Don Cherry of Hockey Night in Canada’s “Coach’s Corner” segment did more than push sartorial boundaries and mix together hockey and patriotism with unmatched vigour.

For one, he really was a coach in the NHL, and a pretty darn good one. And two, when he was a defenceman in the American Hockey League before then, he played the same rough-’em-up style that he advocates today, so he’s walked the walk.

These early and middle parts of his career are on display in Keep Your Head Up, Kid, a two-part, four-hour miniseries from CBC.

The on-ice hockey scenes, which were shot in Winnipeg, are excellent and convincing. The camerawork is frenetic but doesn’t cause nausea, and microphones pick up all the chip-chop noise that should fill a hockey rink. It feels like hockey, and, when necessary, the series doesn’t shy away from bloody violence. Kudos to the producers for that choice, because you can’t tell “the Don Cherry story” properly without going all the way.

I had no trouble believing that this was a period piece, and the sets and costumes are another strength. The clothing is well cut and some ’70s rec rooms are recreated to a tee, including a pair of mesmerizingly ugly chesterfields. On that note, it’s very satisfying to watch Cherry’s suits get more flamboyant over time, and there might be a good drinking game in there.

Jared Keeso has the jaw, build, and gum-chewing skills to play Grapes, but he seems a little starved for dialogue at times, and in more ways than one. Keeso, in character, narrates the miniseries, so a fictional Cherry reflects on his fictional life. The choice to tell the story this way is a little heavy-handed, as is some of the dialogue, but it’s also a wasted opportunity. The effectiveness of the voiceover is restricted by the vocabulary of Cherry’s persona; we get the same boiled cabbage of clichés that we’re used to, so there isn’t much insight or perspective given. Objective narration could have provided more context and been more interesting.

Love him or hate him, Cherry’s rise to prominence has been an unlikely one. Keep Your Head Up, Kid, aside from telling his story, will introduce casual hockey fans to the reality of NHL politics and to one the the league’s best rivalries, between the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens. No rants about Europeans included.

ORGINAL ARTICLE

ORIGINAL ARTICLE