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In his new book, Don Cherry's Hockey Stories and Stuff, Grapes spins tales from his career as NHL coach and dean of Coach's Corner, the entertaining and oft-controversial Hockey Night in Canada segment. The Globe and Mail will publish five more excerpts next week, Monday through Friday.

I've been in trouble a lot.

There was the one about the French and the visors. There was the one in the Olympics when Suzanne Tremblay said that the French-Canadians didn't like the Canadian flags all over the place and I said, "Well, we're payin' for it; if you don't like it, don't go," or somethin'.

Then there was the Iraq War, when Canada didn't back the United States.

Ron MacLean and I got goin' on that, and he wouldn't stop. The reason he wouldn't stop was that they were tellin' him to stop. And when you tell him to stop, that's just like a red flag in front of a bull and he wouldn't stop.

I really didn't want to get that deep into it, because I knew we were gettin' into trouble. But he wanted to keep goin', so I says, "Oh, okay, if you want to keep goin', let's go, and we'll all go down in flames."

It was back and forth, back and forth. I said, "We should back the United States. They backed us in two world wars."

I said, "It's like bein' in a bar with a friend. Even though you know your friend is wrong, when he gets in a fight, what are you going to do? Walk out and leave him and say he's wrong?"

It went on and on like that.

When that episode was over, everybody had left the studio. We were alone. And nobody said anything for two minutes.

Finally I turned to him and I said, "Did you really mean that BS?"

He says, "Yeah." I just shook my head because I figured we were both done there. I mean, really, I thought we were done. So did he.

* * *

But the most trouble I got into was when the Persian Gulf War was on, and we were in Chicago Stadium. They were singin' the anthem and they had the sparklers goin', and back in Canada, they were burnin' the American flag.

I had taken an eight-foot Canadian flag to Chicago and I had put it up in back of us while we were doin' "Coach's Corner". I covered up the Hockey Night in Canada logo while I was doin' "Coach's Corner".

And what I said that really upset them was, "How come these kooks that burn the American flag are out there doin' it in the afternoon? Don't those creeps ever work?"

They just went nuts over that one back at the CBC. I guess they liked creeps. They just went crazy.

Alan Clark was the head of CBC Sports at the time. He come out and he was really upset. He says, "Just tell me! Tell me it wasn't premeditated!"

I says, "Oh no, Alan. I always carry an eight- foot Canadian flag in my pocket."

* * *

When I first started to do "Coach's Corner" at Maple Leaf Gardens, I'd be tryin' to do somethin' serious and there'd be a guy pouring coffee for the makeup lady. I remember the one guy, he was a lighting guy or somethin', and he was tryin' to put the make on her and I'm tryin' to do somethin' serious.

Guys were walkin' around eating ice cream cones, hotdogs, you name it, and nobody cared.

The final payoff come one night in Montreal. I'm trying to do somethin' serious and some guy is walkin' around eatin' an ice cream cone. I said, "That's it!"

Now, what I do is, I don't have a floor director. Poor MacLean has got to run everything through his ear, which is tough.

He doesn't know how much time is left — he can't see. The guy's not givin' him hand signals. They've got to give it to him through his earpiece.

What I'm doin', I'm talkin' and he's got to listen to the people in the truck. Well, this is pretty tough. That's distracting and I'm goin' on at ninety miles an hour.

I can tell when he's listening to the truck and not to me.

One night in Montreal, they were talkin' to him quite a lot and he couldn't be listenin' to me. The week before, somebody had cut the head off the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald.

So I know MacLean is not paying attention to me and I'm goin' on, "Can you imagine cuttin' off a good Kingston boy's head?"

Now he comes back and he had only heard the last bit and he says, "Well, folks, I'm sure you know what he's talking about is Sir John A. Macdonald."

I says, "Well, who did you think I was talkin' about — Kirk Muller?"

* * *

When I first started doing "Coach's Corner," they had two cameras. When the camera is on, the red light comes on. So they'd put the red light on one, and I'd start talkin'. Then they'd put the red light on over there. Then they'd go back to over here. Then they'd put the camera on Ron. They kept goin' back and forth.

For a year, I kept fightin' this, then I finally said, "I only want one camera."

They said, "There's nobody in television has one camera. Nobody. You have to have two."

I said, "I'm not havin' two. I can't be talkin', then all of a sudden, you're gonna put the light on over here. I want one camera."

This was after Hodge left and MacLean come. I used to do as I was told back in the Hodge days.

I said, "I want one camera and that's it, or I'm not doin' it."

What happened was, it worked out so much better. MacLean had to get so much closer to me, and people were tellin' me he was makin' faces and changin' expressions, and they were gettin' a bigger kick out of that than out of me sometimes.

That's why we're the only ones in television that only has one camera.

* * *

This was the very first time I did a show with Dan Kelly. I asked Harry Sinden if I could go and do colour on a game with Dan Kelly on Hockey Night in Canada while I was coachin' the Bruins. He said I could, and they put that thing in my ear.

So while I was trying to answer the question Dan gave me — "Don, what do you think of Philadelphia?" or something — some guy was talking in my ear.

So I said, "I'll tell you, Dan, if this guy would quit talkin' in my ear."

* * *

So then, when I started to do colour for serious and they had that thing in my ear, I'd just turn it down. I'd just start talkin' and they'd say "Commercial" and I'd stop.

So the producer come to me and said, "You've got to start finishin' your sentences."

I said, "But as soon as I hear 'Commercial,' I stop. I didn't go on any further once you said 'Commercial.'"

After a while, I just turned it off and they had to just work around me.

One time we had a new floor director. We didn't get to him to tell him not to count down. So he did it and he pointed. I said on television, "Yeah, I know what you're tellin' me. It's a television camera. You don't have to point at us."

* * *

I realize how tough it is to work with me, because we'll have it all planned a little bit. We sort of have an idea what we're gonna talk about, then all of a sudden, I'll get off on a tangent and I know for a fact they've got sponsors and everything and they want to go to commercials and they're yellin' at Ron, "Quit!" and I won't quit.

They're yellin' at him, "Quit! Quit! Get him off!"

How's he gonna stop me? It's live and I won't stop. And he gets blamed.

Unfortunately for him, when I go on something that I shouldn't have, he gets the blame, because they say, "You should have controlled him," and it happens all the time.

People think that it's easy to do stuff live, but it isn't.

One time in the playoffs, he got me mad about something and he kept going at me. We had three and a half minutes to go and I said, "I'm not speakin' anymore."

He said, "Well, no, we've still got time." And he says, "What about the water bottles?"

And I said, "No. I'm not speakin'. You ruined the story."

They're goin' nuts. What are they gonna do for three and a half minutes?

I says, "No, I'm not speakin'."

They didn't know what to do. And he kept arguing with me.

So they cut it short.

Excerpted from Don Cherry's Hockey Stories and Stuff by Don Cherry as told to Al Strachan. Copyright © 2008 Don Cherry. Published by Doubleday Canada. All rights reserved. Books in stores Oct. 28.