Suspected and self-admitted cenotaph vandal arrested by Toronto police 

“You people” were supposed to be Cherry’s last words but they weren’t.

Once again, cancel culture missed the mark.

Mainstream media still hasn’t gotten the memo that podcasting will eventually be their demise. If you got fired for something you said on a network twenty years ago you were pretty much out of options for reaching the public on a mass scale after that.

Twenty years ago, people weren’t getting fired for misspeaking or a controversial opinion so it wasn’t a big issue. These days, everybody on a network starts out on thin ice and there they stay. What is interesting, however, is that as the networks continue to tighten up their leashes the technology for an open and honest dialogue is expanding. Anybody can start a professional sounding podcast for no more than a couple hundred dollars. It’s a one time fee and you’re set for life.

So it’s no surprise that the canning of Cherry from Sportsnet won’t be the last time his fans will get to hear from him. The downside of Cherry’s new podcast is that there is no video to see him in his flambuoyant suits and it’s missing his once-loyal sidekick, Ron MacLean.

That being said, the podcast feels like you are in the living room with Grapes. So at a moment in time when the mainstream media would have you believe that Cherry is just a loud, obnoxious one-trick pony, listeners are actually now getting a calm, lucid and sentimental Don. He talks with his son and daughter on the podcast about all things hockey.

The first podcast saw Cherry briefly address the firing but he didn’t seem bitter about it, “when one door closes, another opens,” he said. Then it was back to hockey. Cherry shared an old interview between himself and the man of hockey folklore – Maurice “The Rocket” Richard.

In another episode, Cherry recounts his dog, Blue, getting into it with a skunk and having to wash out the stench with baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, then it was back to discussing hockey.

One can only suspect that Cherry, 85, is going to put more money into the podcast and get a small studio up and running. There’s no shortage of legendary players both past and present who would want to be guests on Grapevine 2.0.

If Ron MacLean remains a good boy perhaps Sportsnet will even let him go on as a guest one of these days. And why wouldn’t they? Grapevine 2.0 was the number one podcast in the country two weeks ago, beating out the Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan’s podcast averages approximately a billion downloads annually so it’s no small feat to top him in Canada, if only momentarily.

Grapevine 2.0 has remained in the top ten streamed podcasts in Canada since its inception.  I guess some people still really like Cherry after all.

Unpredictable weather is in store for Ontarians this week.  There will be a little bit of everything coming down the line, snow, rain, freezing rain and a couple mild days as well.

This snow is rapidly melting throughout Toronto and southern parts of Ontario have anywhere between 5-15 millimetres of rain en route for Monday.

That won’t last long however according to the Weather Network. Tuesday will see snow hitting The Big Smoke and the temperature will drop below freezing in the days following. 

Wednesday will feel like -10 C in Toronto, as opposed to today’s feels like 7 C.  

Northern Ontario has a freezing rain warning issued Environment Canada.  North Eastern Ontario is expecting 5 to 20 centimetres of snow throughout Monday.

It’s also supposed to rain again on Saturday in Toronto so the falling snow is bound to melt. Snow squalls will be travelling from the north down to Southern Ontario over Tuesday and Wednesday.  

What’s more surprising still is that trend of freezing rain and snow is supposed to continue for about the next three months, making for one slushy season.

A Toronto busker at the King Street subway station was given the show of a lifetime.

While performing, in a matter of minutes, his guitar case piled up with hundreds of dollars in donations.

Mo Guzman, a full-time busker with the TTC Subway Music Program was in the middle of a “random act of kindness” orchestrated by marketing company Zulu Alpha Kilo, according to CTV News.

A video of the “cash mob” posted on YouTube by Kindness is Contagious on December 6 has since racked up more than 47,000 views.

In response to the outpouring of donations, Guzman stated, “I just recently had my daughter, she’s like three months old. Just doing my thing as a first-time dad and honestly, thank you. I’m at a loss for words, I’ve never had an experience like this. I feel truly blessed,”

A family who emigrated to Canada 50 years ago with only $48 in their pocket has made the largest single donation in the history of the Scarborough Health Network’s history, according to CTV News. 

Moving to Canada in 1972, Deepa and Narinder Lal worked numerous odd jobs, before saving up enough money to found a company called Metro Label from their basement. Metro Label managed to become one of North America’s largest label making companies. 

Speaking to CTV News, the Deepa and Narinder Lal’s children said that they hoped that “this will start a trend of other people donating to Scarborough institutions.” 

They went on to say that “there are a lot of immigrants in the Scarborough area and many of them did well and we are hoping that we can provide some leadership for these people to donate.”

Despite donating a vast sum of money, the Lal’s have requested that the precise amount of their multi-million dollar donation be hidden from public knowledge. 

In response to their donation, the Scarborough Health Network General hospital renamed their emergency room, the Deepa & Narinder Lal Emergency.