Advertisement

CBC’s Glenn Healy humbled by John Tortorella, Elliotte Friedman over Canucks comments (Video)

When it comes to provoking the Vancouver Canucks, CBC’s “Hockey Night In Canada” is like the sports television equivalent of Brad Marchand.

There was the Ron MacLean/Alex Burrows affair, which ended with a surreal apology from the CBC host in 2011. This weekend, it was Glenn Healy laying into Canucks coach John Tortorella for yelling at Edmonton Oilers assistant Keith Acton following a fight between Acton’s son, Will, and Ryan Kesler.

In fact, Healy said Tortorella should “suck it up and shut up.”

Ah, but here’s the rub: Torts said he was actually yelling at Acton because Acton was yelling at one of the Canucks’ players. And as you know, coaches chastising opposing players from the bench is a serious no-no unless you’re Patrick Roy.

So Tortorella responded to Healy’s missive after the Edmonton game on Saturday night, saying: “I don’t care what CBC says, or what anyone says quite honestly. They don’t know what happened. I don’t really give a [crap] what they say.”

Watch Torts fire and Healy flinch (WARNING: One NSFW word.)

(Sidenote: Who the hell was screaming “ALRIGHT!” after Tortorella’s PG-13 retort? Some ink-drenched scribe who finally found his lede? A janitor who used to tune out Alain Vigneault? Francesco Aquilini?)

As you saw at the end of that clip, Healy attempted to escalate the feud by claiming that if Tortorella had heard what his players were saying in New York that “he’d still be coaching there.” This earned a backhand across the face from the venerable Elliotte Friedman, who said to Healy:

“We had our say. Let’em have his say. Let’s not be 14 year olds.”

Cue Glenn Healy death stare:

Wow. If Elliotte Friedman had anymore gravitas on that panel, he’d be narrated by Morgan Freeman.