Sometimes you need to put a Cherry on top of the cake to make things taste better. And now, ironically, for a less controversial move on what to call the arena in Mississauga.
Just call it Don Cherry Gardens!
It doesn't get any more Mississauga than that. And with an election soon happening for that city's mayor and council, people who like this idea can get to work on it. This opening for what the arena will be named made the news in a very public tussle between Paramount Foods founder and CEO Mohamad Fakih and the City of Mississauga and Mayor Carolyn Parrish.
Fakih took to social media saying after ten years Paramount had decided to move on from its naming rights agreement calling it the Paramount Fine Foods Centre, while the Mayor says Paramount owes the city $1.6 million and they will go to court to get it. It's a hot mess.
Glory days for Mississauga's arena
As of June 1, the 5,400-seat arena that hosts the Raptors 905 G-League basketball club will be temporarily called the safe but boring Mississauga Sports and Entertainment Centre while they find a new sponsor. When it opened in 1998, it was called The Hershey Centre and those were some glory days. The main team was the Ontario Hockey League's Mississauga Ice Dogs, which were partially owned by the star of Hockey Night in Canada's Coach's Corner and former coach of the Boston Bruins, Donald S. Cherry.
Grapes always teased his good friend, former iconic mayor Hazel McCallion, saying they built the arena for Cherry's team but what she really wanted was the women's hockey world championships – something the great ice barn did host in the year 2000 with a dramatic Team Canada gold medal win. The Tragically Hip played there and so did comic legend Russell Peters. The place has hosted Toronto Thunderbirds indoor soccer, the Harlem Globetrotters and top Skate Canada figure skating championships, as well as McCallion's funeral service in 2023 with then-prime minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Doug Ford in attendance.
It was an amazing love in at the beginning. They even named the roadway going into the barn Rose Cherry Place – in tribute to Don's late great and much-loved wife Rose who died of cancer in 1997. It was a perfect arrangement. But business is not perfect. The Ice Dogs didn't stay there, nor did Hershey. The next big iteration was seeing the Mississauga Steelheads arrive and the Paramount naming rights – neither of which worked. The Steelheads moved to Brampton in 2024 and thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and arguably Fakih's weighing into the Israel/Gaza war, what should have been a perfect marriage has become a nasty divorce.
Don Cherry Gardens would be a beauty
But with trouble sometimes there comes opportunity and Mississauga has that now. Centrally located with free parking, that arena is a beauty, just like Grapes is. And there is potential for it to flourish if the right decisions are made. Mississauga should forget about a big corporate sponsorship and admit that it is a community arena, with four sheets of ice for minor hockey and basketball and soccer, and treat it like that. They can have sponsors and try to get big attractions, but the focus should be on local success.
It doesn't get any more local than Don Cherry – arguably Mississauga's most famous resident who unabashedly promotes the great city every chance he gets. He moved to the mighty Miss after his coaching career came to an end 46 years ago and he loves it. At 92, Grapes does not get out to local rinks like he once did, but Mississauga and minor hockey and youth sports remain close to his heart. With the Don Cherry Gardens, why not give the OHL another try? Or perhaps a PWHL expansion team? And with today's social media capacity, encourage some industrious young people to broadcast the games to help spur on local interest like you see in places like Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor and London.
It would also be a cool idea of put the Mississauga Hall of Fame inside of the building and also add a cool hotel complex with a wave pool and waterslides on the property to make it perfect for hockey, soccer and basketball tournaments, conventions, concerts and big events that could make the place busy year round. Think outside the box. Ironically, Cherry's 2019 controversy over the "you people" should wear a poppy on Remembrance Day, was a torqued up situation in a hypersensitive time of political correctness and most people now see it was a mistake to treat Grapes that way. It was an extreme overreaction and witch hunt. But things are different now and many want to make this right. This is a chance to do just that.
There are efforts, even from critics, to see Cherry's name be added to the Hockey Hall of Fame's broadcast division. And following him receiving the Order of Ontario, there are efforts to get him invested into the Order of Canada to join Fakih who is already a member. Regardless, there would be no bigger legacy tribute to Cherry than to name this rink after him. Don Cherry Gardens on Rose Cherry Place is an appropriate and perfect fit. Who says life in Mississauga can't be a bowl of cherries once again?
