Halford & Brough in the Morning - Ben Steiner On The Canada Drone Scandal + What We Learned

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

In hour three, Mike & Jason talk the Canada Soccer drone cheating scandal with CBC Olympics reporter Ben Steiner (2:10), plus the boys tell us what they learned (27:00). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

🎵 8.02 on a Thursday. The only thing I think when I hear this song is when Marge is chastising Homer. Homer, that's your solution to everything. Live under the sea. It's not going to happen. Not with that attitude.

I think this is the song that would get played if Halford or I said something really controversial and they just cut the feed. What do we do? What do we do? Play the under the seat music. It's just like technical difficulties. We've been playing this for eight hours now. What happened?

Don't worry, we have a contingency plan. It's the under the seat music. 802 on the Halford and Brough show will be right back. The Halford and Brough show will be right back. We've been doing this for 16 consecutive hours. You are listening to the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough Show will be right back. We've been doing this for 16 consecutive hours. You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver's premier multilingual Honda dealership.

Visit them online at VancouverHonda.com. We are also in our three of the program. Ben Steiner is going to join us for some Olympic talk. And while that's going on, Canada is now underway against New Zealand. A very, very controversial match here. The opener at the Paris Olympics. So this is all kicking off Hour 3. Hour 3 is brought to you by Campbell & Pound Real Estate Appraisers.

Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at campbell-pound.com today. What do you think they're saying to each other out there? Probably nothing. I bet the Kiwis have a few words for the Canadians. Someone should start releasing a bunch of drones and just see what happens. What do you think if New Zealand scores,

they do the drone celly? Oh, that would be amazing. There's no drone celly. You just do the wings. You fly around. The wings. Yeah. Is that an airplane?

We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sorphe, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. To the phone lines we go. Our Olympic reporter, Ben Steiner, joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

Morning, Ben. How are you? Morning. Certainly exciting in terms of the Olympic space and glad to be back on with you guys. Where do we even begin here? Because the match is underway. They're still playing it. Canada hasn't been removed from the tournament, and points are still up for grabs,

although the Kiwis kind of want them not to be up for grabs. What's it been like covering this story over the last 24 hours, Ben? Because there's a lot to unpack here. It's been wild. I planned my Olympic schedule out for the next 18 days, you know, scheduling when I have to be at a laptop, on my phone, on the radio, on TV. And then it starts on day minus two with this chaos.

It's the story that you don't want to be, right? There's always a story a couple of days before the Olympics. You think back, you know, in Vancouver, it was the snow and Sochi was the bathrooms without the doors. There's always that big story. And you never want to be that story and Canada's women's soccer team found a way to be that story so it's been a crazy 24 hours or so uh if you had to predict right now does Bev Priestman coach another game for Canada at this tourney or beyond at this tourney I think yes um you know making a switch like that under the pressures of Olympic Games

when you're playing potentially six games in 18 days is a tough situation to find yourself in. So I do think that she gets through this tournament. If I had to place a bet on it, I wouldn't say that she's the coach after this tournament. I think they'll probably move on. And I kind of thought that anyways, unless they win the gold medal again,

I don't necessarily see her continuing. There's a FIFA investigation though. Could there be sanctions against Bev Priestman that aren't COC sanctions? Because it's basically been Canada punishing itself. That's why Bev Priestman isn't coaching against New Zealand today. Could there be further sanctions that rule

her out of the tournament or even punish Canada by taking away points or ADOG even suggested that Canada be disqualified from this tournament? I mean, all of those are potential things. I think the disqualification is probably not on the

table anymore considering I've got the Game 1 right in front of me, and they're playing the Game 1 games already. That was certainly a question throughout the processes yesterday, but FIFA and the IOC are looking at it. Canada Soccer is going to take an independent investigation as well

to take a look at the situation, because it potentially happened with the men's team when it was under Herdman as well. There were some potential drone issues in 2021 in a World Cup qualifier against Honduras, and it was all kind of shrugged off. Nobody looked too far into it. But now, you know, looking back, there's potentially something there

that this is probably not the first time that the Canadian women or even the Canadian men have used drones or some sort of spying on on other national teams and so there will be an investigation from FIFA the IOC and the independent investigator at Canada Soccer that I would imagine that we'll probably be hearing more repercussions from this I don't know whether that impacts the Olympic tournament but could we see Canada you know face a points deduction at a, you know, Women's Champions Cup, like potentially. But kind of who knows?

It is a FIFA-run tournament, so, you know, repercussions can be at any FIFA tournament. How have the players responded to all of this? Because for the longest time, the women's national team was the lone good thing that Canada soccer had across the entire program, and they almost seemed to succeed despite the organization. And now this has nothing to do with the players, and they're yet again forced to deal with some off-field issues,

not unlike what they had to deal with prior to last year's World Cup, where Canada soccer issues sort of plagued their preparation for the tournament. How are the players dealing with this latest controversy? I mean, that's kind of the thing that comes to mind, right, is they've faced adversity before. You think back to the World Cup last year when all the labor issues were really taking center stage and they didn't quite raise to the levels that they needed to at the World Cup. That was an embarrassing World Cup in a lot of ways in terms of on-field performance. And they don't want that at the Olympics. The Olympics is Canada's tournament. This is where, you know, the Canada's Women's National Team has found their success through the last three Olympic Games. And, you know,

even Beijing 2008, it wasn't a great Games, but they started to settle into sort of that rhythm of the Olympics being their event. And the World Cup has never quite been that for Canada. It's a tough tournament. But I do think the players probably have the experience, you know, a lot of them won gold four years ago or three years ago, that they can probably come into this tournament and not be too flustered by it. But it's just another distraction that you don't want for a team that, you know, has the potential to be one of the best in the world. But it just seems like around every corner, there's that one thing. And that's why, you know, personally, I see that it kind of needs a little bit of a refreshing in the world, but it just seems like around every corner, there's that one thing. And that's why, you know,

personally, I see that it kind of needs a little, little bit of a refreshing take on it. Like we saw that refreshing take with the men's team and, and look what they did this summer. Right. So I think that Priestman has, has been a strong coach.

I mean, Olympic champions, it doesn't get much better than that. But that's why I kind of had my doubts if she doesn't win gold with this Canadian team at these games uh has there been any answer to the question why they felt the need to spy on two training sessions of the 28th ranked team in the world when they came in as the defending gold medalists there's not been anything solid um all i can kind of assume at this point based on you

know the reports that have come in, the various statements and press conferences, yesterday was seemingly everybody had a press conference and a statement to get their opinion out there and their point of view. But it's clear that this isn't the first time. And so this might be standard operating procedure for Canada, which isn't exactly great. You don't want to cheat at the Olympic Games, especially when they've spent over $4 billion on security and a drone flying over a training session is probably going to be caught. But yeah, I think this is not the first time this has happened, and we'll see whether it's the first time it's happened on these investigations that go through the next little while.

Has Bev Priestman actually had a big press conference yet where all the reporters get to fire questions at her? That's the confusing thing about women's soccer at the Olympics and soccer in general at the Olympics is it's not, for the most part, in the main city. And so the major assembled press, you know, at the Eastern Canadian Press Corps, which is in Paris, has not had the chance to speak to Bev Priestman. She did her standard media session before.

But in terms of the Olympic space, there's not a Zoom media session, so all the Canadian reporters couldn't log on as they could have with Jesse Marsh at the Copa America. So it was just Christine Roger from CBC Radio Canada that did about a 10-minute interview with her and asked some pointed questions. That interview is posted across online. But she hasn't been able to be grilled

by the greater Canadian media core. Has she, I mean, she was asked, did you know about this? Has she, is there any like audio clip of her out there saying like, I did not know about this because correct me if I'm wrong here, but she kind of sidestepped the question from Radio Canada and the denial came through the COC, correct?

Yes, she didn't quite deny it and she didn't accept it either. She just kind of danced around the question a little bit when she was asked by Christine Roger. So there's potential. I think she knew, right? Like she is taking the ultimate responsibility of stepping away. She treated the questioning as sort of a chance to take ownership and try and turn this into a bit of a leadership moment.

She almost grandstand um saying that she almost grandstanded like she almost took like a gallant tone to it and that kind of irked me a little bit like she almost she almost felt like she she she used the situation to make herself look like the greatest you know the the most sportsmanlike person of all time and i was kind of like well wait a minute like you you can't use this opportunity to make yourself look better that was kind of my thinking too like she was you know portraying the the values and saying the values of herself and the canadian women's national team um and it was good stuff to hear um but when you're talking about cheating at the

olympic games in terms of spying on other training sessions um you know it just it falls on on deaf ears a lot of the time um that i think there should have been potentially more ownership of it um admitting that she knew whether she it was her. Who knows, given that it potentially happened with Herdman and the men's team as well at one point. But, you know, we'll see where this goes. I doubt that she didn't know. She's taking responsibility for the actions of her staff, and that is responsible. That shows something. But, you know, Canada soccer and Bev Priestman are kind of trying to save face and saying, you know, we punished ourselves. We don't necessarily need further punishment from FIFA or the

IFC. It's a tough start for Canada already. They've just fallen behind 1-0 to the Kiwis who have scored in the 13th minute. Actually, a great shot off the crossbar and in. Canada down 1-0. It was a tough start to the tournament for the Canadian women's national

team and it just got tougher in the early stages of their opener against New Zealand. Hey, Ben, thanks for taking the time to do this today. We really appreciate it. I'm sure we'll be checking in again as the Olympics roll on. Enjoy the tournament. It should be interesting. It should be interesting, to say the least, in the Olympics fully. Get underway tomorrow at the opening ceremony.

Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it. Ben Steiner, our Olympic reporter here on the Health and Breath Show on Sportsnet 650. Spoiler alert. Some people might be PVRing the game. I have no time for PVR people. Yeah, look. These are the rules with sports radio.

Yeah. If there is a live event happening during the event, during the show rather, and you want to watch it, just know the host might mention it from time to time because this is a live sports radio show. It's going to happen a lot during the Olympics. You just got to make your peace watch it. Just know the host might mention it from time to time because this is a live sports radio show. It's going to happen a lot during the Olympics. You just got to make your peace with it. I will not be calling the game like I did. Man, that New Zealand striker, though, she really spied that top corner

and just nailed it. Got it home. Nothing like watching a live sporting event, especially a goal like that. I pity anyone who missed this. Watching it back on replay will never be the same. If only we had some sort of overhead view of the game. They didn't see that one coming.

Alright, laddie, enough. I'm workshopping here. I'm workshopping here. I've got six drone-related puns I need to work on. I think CBC did have a drone camera angle utilized. Here's what they would have said. Some guy in the back going, no, no, this is bad. Don't do it.

No, don't do it. I'm going to do what we learned to stop the laddie puns. Sure. I learned that Canada picked its flag bearers for tomorrow's opening ceremony for the Paris Games. Yeah, the Olympics are kind of

underway, but they're also kind of not underway yet because they haven't even had the opening ceremonies, but tomorrow sprinter Andre de Grasse and weightlifter Mod Charon, uh, will carry the flags that both of them are, uh, former gold medal winners. Um, I was reading a little bit about Andre de Grasse coming into these Olympics and he's

not really expected to be a medal contender individually. You know, I imagine it's hard to stay at the top of the game in the sprinting game. And he's had a few injuries in the last couple of years that he's had to deal with. And then his form just hasn't been terrific, uh you never know and he said listen like i've done this before at the highest level and when the pressure's on so maybe i can do it again um because i think one of the most impressive things about the olympics are is the fact that it's every four years and you have to perform on that day. Like that is that you've got, you know, in the case of you're a sprinter, let's say you get to the final event, you know, you got what, 10 seconds? And some stuff could go wrong. Sure.

I remember watching a 100 meter final. I think Linford Christie, do you remember him didn't he false start yeah he like eliminated himself yeah right christie god yeah blast from the past he had two false starts i think you have two false starts in your out yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah like i mean can you imagine that happens you you're like oh well i was quick off the blocks, I guess. Yeah. I mean, this is the, this is sort of part and parcel with what the Olympics represent is you put in four years of a lot of hard work and dedication and everything is solely focused on that one moment, be it 10 seconds on the track or in the case of the Canadian women, like a handful of games in the group, you could be done, right?

It could be over really fast. It's why there's such a level of importance. It's why when you, that's why winning a gold medal, like everyone's like, oh, gold medal at the Olympics. But it's like, you were able to capture that very, very pressure-packed moment where everything's on the line. And if you screw it up, like Linford Christie or something. Yeah, it's not like a best of seven.

You don't get to go do it again. You also have to wait another four years to do it again. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of pressure involved, which is why part of it when I was asking Ben about how this might have happened with the Canadian women's team, like Bev Priestman was probably under,

and this is not meant to lighten the critique or to try and contextualize it because cheating is cheating and spying is spying but um i imagine that there was an intense amount of pressure that she felt both in terms of her job security and in terms of defending the gold medal and in terms of trying to get a good result at a tournament after a embarrassing result at the world cup, all of that probably led to this, right? This culture of we're going to go to the lengths of, again,

spying on the 28th ranked team in the world. Like this is not an international power that they're playing in New Zealand here. Right. Were you a cheater in school? Um, like now with, I mean, I, I'm sure I cheated on like a test or something on occasion, but not with any great regularity.

Right. You weren't like known for it. No, I didn't have like, I wasn't like digging deep. I mean, if Halford had drone access back then. Right. Were you a dog? I wasn't. I wasn't.

I was a good kid. What about you? To my detriment. I got bad grades. Maybe I should have. Laddie wasn't a cheater. I mean, you look over someone's shoulder in Hamilton, and the answer is probably even worse. I was the perfect attendance.

Far more incorrect than I thought it was going to be. I used to enjoy the challenge. He got the perfect attendance award, didn't he? I got the perfect attendance. That's right. He was that kid. We're getting off topic. Amazing.

I lived like five minutes from the school. I had no excuse. Now we're really getting off topic. Amazing. I lived like five minutes from the school. I had no excuse. Now we're really getting off topic. The DiCaprio movie, Catch Me If You Can, where he's just like a con artist and a thief. He likes the game. He likes the game. It's not even about- I like the game of it in high school.

It's not even about the end result of like, oh, I'm going to do well on the test. It's like, can I cheat on this test? Can I unlock that thing? I like that moment when you'd lock eyes with the teacher and he knew you were trying to cheat. You knew you were trying to cheat, but you had no proof of it yet. You can't catch me.

That's the name of the movie. The amount of cheating that goes on right now. Uh, yeah. At the university level. Mm-hmm. Um. The amount of resources that have to go into

catching the cheats too. And. Because you spend a lot of time doing it. And do you know they don't just get like automatically thrown out for like blatant cheating? I know this directly. Yeah. That they don't like.

Because we live in a soft society now, Jason. Like reports will come in that are clearly, like there's programs that run, you know, plagiarism or now there's programs that show, you know, if you've used AI. Yeah. To write your reports and then like when i was at university if if you did that like blatantly plagiarized you might get one warning but you'd be in big trouble now it's just kind of like

yeah you get a zero yeah i remember when i was in it was like second year uh post-secondary and i can't remember what school i was at um but i remember a buddy of mine got a zero on a paper for unintentional plagiarism like the guy the professor was very very nice about it and he was like look i think what's unintentional plagiarism he It was awful citation. Oh, okay, yeah. And in his defense, he was a second year university student, so he should have known better, but you could tell it was like

he had taken too many of the ideas that he had read and then tried to not pass them off as his own, but didn't interpret them, just relayed them. Like when an artist writes a song and the chorus is just straight ripped off from another song, and they're not doing it on purpose, it's just that's how it works so and and the i remember the prof wrote at the top of the paper zero for plagiarism then he wrote

scary isn't it and that was sort of the shot across the bow which was like you failed this exam the consequences could have been far more dire but i'm not gonna go there i think now that would be like you get a hundred percent because you didn't actually copy it word for word. Right. And you didn't have a brilliant and AI didn't do it for you. Yeah. Patsy on the head.

He's like, you little scamp, get out of here. Anyway, I don't know how this all started, but mook out it. It wasn't what we learned. How did we start that?

What was your actual, what we learned? No. Oh my, what we learned was about the flag bearers for Canada. I'm a long way. I'm always curious how we get the flag. One texter I like is suggesting that Canada should forego having a person be the flag bearer

and the flag should be carried out by a bunch of drones. We said that yesterday. They should just totally lean into it. And the flag attached to it. I don't think that we should lean into the drone thing. No, you should. Just go for it at this point. I don't know. a drone nation now michael i really did we're a nation of drones i don't know how this is gonna end up when ben his first reply was he thinks that priestman's gonna come back and coach in this tournament and

finish the tournament as the coach and i was like well that seems crazy to me but he's far more dialed into what's going on with this Olympic team than I am, so I'm going to defer to him as the guy that knows. It's always so confusing to know who has final authority on all this stuff. It's like, is it the IOC? Is it FIFA?

The Canadian Olympic Committee is the one that's handed out the punishments. Like, no, right? No, because the other two haven't done their investigation yet. Right. The COC felt like they were getting out in front of it. But when is FIFA actually going to announce?

I mean, they're playing a game right now. That's the thing. Isn't that just hanging over everything right now? When we came on the air at 6 a.m., I said, there's two hours to kick off. Let's see what happens between now and then. Because I'm just thinking, like, if you're doing an investigation and the team's about to play, you might want to speed things up.

But there's three. I think this is part of the bureaucratic nature of it. There's the Canadian Olympic Committee, there's the International Olympic Committee, and there's FIFA. And they've all got different end games. And that's a big part of it, right? I mean, FIFA theoretically could take their time and then in a couple days time just be like yeah the canadians are guilty we're wiping out whatever

result they got against the kiwis right they could yeah it's their tournament they can do whatever they want that's kind of where i saw it going because honestly it's a little wild if they don't well kind of nuts considering i just think that now that everything's out there, you're left with some... The Canadian Olympic Committee was like, well, we heard that we didn't even get to really use the drone footage, so... Well, I mean, it's not helping them right now. I'll tell you that. New Zealand's... And by the way, for the one person that texted in with the spoiler, they're very upset that I didn't provide a spoiler alert.

I don't know, man. I don't know what to tell you. If a live sport is happening during a sports show, you just got to- Well, just say spoiler alert. You just got to expect it's going to happen. Just say turn it down. Turn down the radio. I'm kind of with the texter.

Okay. No, don't. Don't. You're starting to anger us in the studio. Are you upset too? Yeah. It's the Olympics, man. It's on while we are on the air.

It's going to happen. You have to know that. Yeah. Some people have difficult jobs and they go to work and they want to come home from work and they're all excited they've got the game on the pvr you don't have to do that because you go home and nap for eight hours but some people work real hard jobs and they don't want spoiler alerts so do we have to do spoiler ahead of every yes every day for a goal for a goal in a game. For sure.

Mark and Richmond. What's so hard about it? Mark and Richmond is threatening to not listen to the program for the next two weeks, which is actually fine because I'm not here. You're listening to the Alfred and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. Good for you, lass. I got me a zero once and my life turned out just fine. Oh, that's a nasty clog oh you've got yourself a partner have

you yeah now for my favorite part of the show what'd i say talk to the audience. Oh, God. This is always dead. It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. On the show. 831 on a Thursday.

Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier multilingual destination for Honda customers. Visit them online at VancouverHonda.com. We are in Hour 3 of the program.

It is what we learn time. Hour 3 is brought to you by Campbell & Pound, real estate appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at campbell-pound.com today. Okay, we're going to extend the What We Learned competition

for tickets to go see Billy Idol and Platinum Blonde for about five more minutes because we didn't really give the heads up on the show today and we apologize for that. more minutes because we didn't really give the heads up on the show today and apologize for that so if you want to send in a last minute what we learned uh use the ticket emoji and there are tickets uh to billy idol and platinum blonde on july 30th rogers arena on the line uh so we'll do some what we learned now and and we'll wait for a few more entries to come in.

And I need to extend an apology as well. I'm sorry to everyone that wanted spoiler alerts that I did not provide from the Canada-New Zealand match at any live sporting events that happened during the Halford & Brough show. Jason was very disappointed in me, and he was collaborating with some of the listeners in the dunbar i'm collaborating with them alone i wasn't talking i wasn't didn't text to them at all no one i thought i thought it was cavalier the way you treated the listeners halford he's he's

collaborating with them again it was very cavalier and there there are people who like to pvr things they don't all have easy jobs like we do. And they want to come home from those jobs and they want to sit down and watch a match and not have it spoiled. And for you to, for you to dismiss those concerns, uh, showed a lack of empathy. And then I showed a lack of empathy and I was cavalier about it.

So I do genuinely. And you will be entered. You will now have to go through ethics training with the Canadian women's soccer team. To Mark in Richmond, I'm very sorry. I made him swear. He got very upset. And it's my fault.

I made a boo-boo on the air. And then I doubled down on it by being cavalier about that boo-boo. And I am being very sincere in my apology. Moo-cokowit. I did learn, as I get more and more amped for the men's basketball at the Olympics, that the U.S. head coach, Steve Kerr, he's getting a little concerned

about his team going into the start of the tournament. So much so, that he had what ESPN called a, quote, sobering film session this morning that showed clips of their lackadaisical play, specifically in the narrow victories against South Sudan and Germany. They did show some of the good clips. God, I hope they choke. Yeah, I do too. That's kind of my takeaway from this is When I watched them play Canada in Vegas,

I didn't go to Vegas, in the early stages of the pre-Olympic tournament, I remember thinking, ooh, this team looks pretty deadly. More deadly than I thought they were going to be. But Canada didn't shoot the ball well, did they? No, and the U.S. got off to a slow start. But it was almost like when they wanted to flip the switch, you you're reminded that oh they've got lebron and staff and it's just

a it's one of the most talented basketball rosters ever assembled and then they went and they handled serbia pretty well in one of their tournament games and i think that they felt that they had figured it out because they shot it pretty well from distance they smashed serbia who's going to be one of they're a metal contender as well this tournament and then they had the stunner against south sudan and then a very sort of erratic performance where they needed lebron james's heroics to beat germany so now i am fully aboard that the america my narrative here is the americans are the runaway gold medal favorites. They're the evil empire of basketball and all these other minnows,

even though it's the most competitive international tournament they've ever had at the Olympics. How would they lose, though? What would it look like? They would come up against a team that was more cohesive than them? In the ugly games against germany and south sudan they were outscored by 21 plus points in each game from beyond the arc so to answer your question just go cold shooting yeah it would be that they would try and shoot their

way back into a game stupid looking basketball too many stripes too many panels too many colors um that's been the that's been the key to the opposition teams is like how are we going to beat this behemoth of a squad well we're going to try and out shoot them from beyond the arc and it almost worked in those two instances the problem the problem with it is that lebron sort of just took the game over in the crunch and that's where you don't have an answer if you're i mean whatever, whatever, South Sudan, Germany, Serbia, any of the teams. They just don't have the raw physicality to match up. Like, that's what's going to happen probably in a tight game.

They've already identified LeBron as being the go-to guy. I mean, he's the flag bearer and what have you. So I think that could be how the tournament plays out as well. And then, by the way, I mentioned this earlier, but I'll mention it again. Canada kicks off their tournament against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Greeks on Saturday. I believe it's a noon tip off our time. Mukau that. A lot of people asking in the Dunbar Lumber text line if you should suspend yourself for a show.

But I don't want you to do that because then I would have to work by myself tomorrow. And then you're on vacation for two weeks. Alfred's like, please. Lots of time for suspension. Uh, so what else did the people in the inbox say? Are they happy now?

Uh, well then of course, now we get the predictable, um, uh, pushback to the pushback leaf texting. And we don't need spoiler alerts, harden up people.

Yeah. So, uh, then it just, we don't need spoiler alerts. Harden up, people. So then it just turned agreed. The world's become soft. Agreed. I'm with Leaf. Harden up, people. Come on. It's a live sports show.

What do you expect? Get it together. Spoilers. We're doing spoilers now. Mark in Richmond has changed my mind. But the issue is it's not difficult to just be like, hey, here's a spoiler alert. Every time we're talking about an Olympic event, it's soccer. There's like three goals scored in, hey, here's a spoiler alert. So every time we're talking about

an Olympic event as it happens. It's soccer. There's like three goals scored in the tournament. That's a good point. Right? We got Mark back.

We got Mark back? Yeah. Mark's back? Yeah. He said, what I learned that you do listen and to take into account

your listeners, thank you. Then you put a ticket emoji and you're pushing your luck. Should we send him? Should we send him to see Billy Idol and platinum blonde pushing your luck. Should we send him? Should we send him to see Billy Idol and platinum blonde? All right. I'm making sessions already.

All right. Let's fire. Did we fire the dot matrix yet? Yeah, let's do it now. Because the dogs didn't bring anything to the table yet again. Colin and Tawasin hashtag WWL. What we learned salt lake city was formally awarded the 2034 winter olympics they were the only candidate how things have changed from when

there used to be several bidding cities putting forward multi-million dollar campaigns for the chance to host the olympics you remember in the lead up to 2010 yeah i don't remember what the rival countries now are but i remember it was like we were fighting. In your face, Sapporo, Japan. I hated Sapporo. I don't even know if they were. I remember watching the announcement, though. Yeah, it was a big deal. Yeah, it was a big deal.

And it was stiff competition to host the Olympics. But as many countries have found out, both between hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, it could ruin your country financially. And then very expensive. Well, yeah. So the 2030 went to the French Alps.

Right. I think just one of the, one of the mountains, I don't know, gets it. I'm not exactly sure how the other rounds are like, we can't afford this. Yeah.

But that was the one that Vancouver was thinking about bidding on. And they were like, nah, we had a good time in 2010 let's not try and let's not try and do it again yeah someone had the what we learned or and ask us anything while you were away and I'm asking would you prefer to have a second iteration of the winter olympics in Vancouver or the summer olympics so my gut my gut reaction was um the winter olympics are better than the summer olympics because my gut my gut reaction was um the winter olympics are better than the summer olympics because of hockey just i just think they're i like you like them on a personal

level i like curling is also there right um but then i started thinking a little bit more about it i'm like but we've done the winter olympics it wouldn't be interesting to try something new i mean it'd probably be a pretty good party as well. We have great weather here in the summer. It could be a lot of fun. But at the end of the day, I would take the Winter Olympics again. Has a country or event venue ever hosted a summer and a winter? Oh, summer and winter. Has it ever been done before?

Did Beijing? I don't know. Did Oslo at some point? They've hosted like five, right? I don't know. You know that thing in front of you? I'm going to have to go through all the different Olympics.

You just Google. Google doesn't work anymore. Honestly. Okay, Aaron and Langley is the winner of the tickets to see Billy Idol and Platinum Blonde with his What We Learned. I like this one.

This one's funny. What We Learned. I've learned Canada has finally become a footy nation when you are willing to risk jail just to get an upper hand on new zealand what are we willing to do to get a leg up on the u.s i'm here for it hashtag go canada there was a certain like oh they're doing everything they can they're pulling out all the stops very uncanadian you're not cheating you're not trying. By the way, quick update.

In 2022, Beijing became the first city to ever hold both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. You know, Jason Brough, just write again. You know, just constantly,

constantly write about stuff. Does he have a big ego? Possibly. He's writing about that too. Is it worth it? Yes. Did you say possibly? Possibly.

Gurjeet with a what we learned. Hashtag WWL what we learned. Perhaps he's keeping that. How dare you? How dare you? Gurjeet with a what we learned. This one's for Laddie. A pitcher on the Nationals, quote unquote,

threw a 33 mile an hour pitch against the Pirates. What a strategy though. We talked about this prior to the show. Details, please. It was the slowest pitch ever recorded in the stat cast era. And I believe it was hit to center field for a base hit, if I'm not mistaken. But it was, yeah, it was a slow pitch.

Does anyone remember the Pasquale ball? Pasquale Perez. Yeah. Do you remember he'd have a slow ball? They called it an Ephus pitch. The Ephus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was like beyond Ephus, though.

Ephuses sometimes get to like 50. Right. This was 33. So this was Ildemarro Vargas. It was like a slow ball they called it an ephesus yeah yeah this was like beyond ephesus though ephesus sometimes get to like 50 right 33 so this was ildemar vargas like a slow pitch right i remember there was one that pasquale threw and the guy um had time to first of all he looked like he was gonna swing and then check his watch yeah and then he was like oh wait a minute and he was able to kind of rear back again and he hit a home run at olympic stadium so then pasquale was like oh he was on that one pasquale was a pitcher by trade though yeah vargas he was awesome he's a utility man right he was a position player yeah and but he plays all over the infield and then uh so what are the rules to get a position player you have to be down by nine after the seventh inning down by nine or more.

Because they were down 12-3. Yeah. And they threw him in there. His first pitch came in at 41.8 miles an hour. That was a curveball. And then he very clearly was trying to throw the slowest pitch imaginable, coming in at 33. Which, by the way, I remember I was down in Nashville for a stag,

and they have the Oakland A's AAA team down there, the Sounds, which is an awesome ballpark. So in the outfield, they've got a guitar-shaped bar that has, like, Americans love cornhole. They love playing cornhole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Competitively. Competitive, yeah.

And they also had a radar gun so you could test how hard you threw. So all the guys on the stand were like, okay, here we go. Whoever throws the slowest has to go by around. So we all lined up. You all have rotator cuff injuries now. I threw like 49 miles an hour. It was so embarrassing.

I thought I could throw harder than that. Wait, you were trying to throw hard or you were trying to throw soft? I'm trying to. Who tries to throw soft in a radar gun? No. I thought you were trying to get the lowest score possible i i thought you're trying to get the lowest score possible no we were trying to get the highest score and i remember what was the highest that

someone threw uh it was 67 okay that's pretty good that's pretty good for an average human i just thought i could throw harder than that no i've seen you throw i wouldn't have said that but i i i had good form i slipped a little bit not that i'm baking excuses there's 10 miles an hour right there. There's 10 miles an hour. I didn't get to warm up, but I remember looking at it. I just walked to the bar. I don't even think I had the lowest score.

I'm like, I feel embarrassed. I'm going to go buy beers. You take for granted when you watch pitchers throw 99 on a regular basis. These are superhuman people. That's why when I saw the guy from the A's throw 103 at the All-Star game, that was my old man rant. I'm like, and the A's throw one Oh three at the all-star game, that was another, that was my old man rant. I'm like,

and now pitchers throw too fast. Right. TVs are too loud. Movies are too scary. I think I'm just a two 20 now around the league. Do you ever watch, do you ever watch us like on my Instagram? I'm such a,

a nerd with this stuff, but like, you know, I have a lot of golf and just to see people's golf swings and in slow motion, but also pitchers and, and football players throwing too. I just think it's incredible how fast pitchers can pitch.

And like the sound the ball makes when it smacks the mitt is just awesome. And I cannot imagine my body doing that. No. Well, cause that's the thing now is we, we had that report from ESPN out from Jeff Passon a couple months ago about all these young arms that are getting destroyed it doesn't matter how many innings you limit them to it doesn't seem to even there's two goals spin rate and velocity so you're trying I mean that's

why I think you're getting like back in the day when I was a kid anyone that any major league pitcher that could throw high 90s it was like like, wow, that's crazy. And now guys are routinely going 101, 102, 103 at the all-circuit. If you sit low 90s as a prospect coming up, it's like, we'll see. You better have good stuff. He may be picked up a few notches if he gets Tommy John.

I got one here from Stu in Yarrow. Ask us anything. He has a golf-related AUA for Bruff. That's you. With Liv being more of an international circuit, do you think it's possible they would ever bring their tour to Vancouver? That's an interesting one. We don't get any PGA events here anymore. Maybe.

I suppose. I suppose it's possible. I'm not sure. Does Trump have a course here? I feel like going to there. I can't think of a course right now that would be an obvious fit to host a live event. Well, what would be the two? What hosted the-

Well, I don't think Shaughnessy wants them. Right. Like maybe they could go to Northview, I suppose. Yeah, I don't know. It doesn't, I think that's the one thing about a PGA Tour event in Vancouver. Sorry, the GBO is at Northview, right? Yep.

Back in the day? Yeah, so there's two courses there. There's the Ridge and the Canal, and the Ridge is the one that hosted the Greater Vancouver, the Air Canada Open, or whatever it was. And then you look at the other courses, and with the private courses, a lot of them are like like i don't want to host that because first of all that's time that we can't play as members

and also it's a lot of work and you know some courses in in vancouver like one of the problems with shaughnessy great course amazing course um but it's not exactly built to have large crowds attend it, which I guess might make it perfect for live golf because there wouldn't be a large crowd there. There are never large crowds to go for live. Although I don't know if the members at Shaughnessy want everyone walking around in shorts and blasting rock music throughout there.

All those stupid hats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know. Vancouver doesn't come to mind as a super obvious pick for live golf for me. I'd sure like to get some more tournaments

out here, though. Basketball Phil with What We Learned. Hashtag WWW. What We Learned. Roundball Rock is returning now that the NBA is going back to NBC.

I hope they use it during their basketball coverage during the Olympics. You introduced Andy to Roundball Rock during the break. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-basketball. Had you never heard that song yet, Doug?

No. Really? That's awesome. God, every day is what we learn for years. You need to go look at the original of John Tesh playing it back in 1990. At Red Rocks. At Red Rocks on stage.

Yeah, yeah. One of the all-time great venues. Just everything about it is the quintessential 90s. The outfit that he's wearing his hair even the enthusiasm the fact is john tash yeah he was a big vest guy he was a big vest he looked like he was parking cars at a semi-fancy italian restaurant you know you have a big snooker game after this yes the video of those microsoft guys dancing on the stage it had that kind of like vibe to it that energy that kind of energy so um

yesterday when the nba essentially announced where their rights were going uh with regards to the upcoming television package nbc's back in the nba game and nbc sports kind of threw a roundball rock back out there almost as a teaser that they were going to use it in their broadcast but basketball phil brings up a good part they could use it at these olympic games and give everyone a taste it is the greatest theme song that's ever been recorded for a specific sport i know everyone's got their you know monday night football and sunday night football songs but round ball rock is a classic spoiler alert don't do it don't do it spoiler alert don't do it don't do it spoiler alert someone might be pvr-ing Well, this is why you have a spoiler alert.

Is it an Olympic spoiler alert? It's an Olympic spoiler alert. We need a sounder for this. Is it an Olympic soccer spoiler alert? Okay. Everyone got their radios down? Canada just tied it up. And it seemed like they were just a step ahead of the Kiwis out there.

You told me to stop. How did they know they would do that exact play at that exact time? And it seemed like they were just a step ahead of the Kiwis out there. You told me to stop. How did they know they would do that exact play at that exact time? It is. I don't want to drone on about this subject, but. It is the most informed player for the Canadian women's team over the last couple of years. The one that's been scoring the lion's share of the goals now that Christine Sinclair has gone.

Adrienne Leon in the fourth minute of added time in the first half. So Canada, after a sleepy start against the Kiwis, now dead even, just about going into the half, 1-1 Canada and New Zealand from the 2024 Paris Olympics, the opening match of the women's tournament. Rob and Suri, who's been a very avid texter this morning, and I did want to read one of his. What we learned, what I've learned is that rivalries are what makes sports as fun as they are. And it's great to see the Canucks have their first true rivalry with a team since what Oilers fans think of the rivalry because I think if you would ask Canucks fans right now,

you'd be like, okay, who's the Canucks number one rival? Or you ask Canucks fans, like, what team do you really want to see the Canucks beat if there's a regular season game? And I think the Oilers have just catapulted to the top. I guarantee you Oilers fans feel the exact same way. Yeah, but they've got the Battle of Alberta, right? But maybe that's nothing now?

No, this isn't a Canucks-Leafs situation where Toronto just doesn't think about us. We are in the Oilers fans' heads in the same way. It's funny it only took one year, though, right? It took one year of the Canucks dominating them in the regular season and then pushing them to the very limit in the playoffs. I mean, the regular season did set the tone for the postseason because the domination was so thorough in the early stages of the season. Right from the start, too.

Right from the start. And they played such a key role in getting Jay Woodcroft fired, right? I mean, that was a big part of it as well. And look, the way that this season shook out from a building rivalry perspective, it's hard to get much better because the drama really, you couldn't write a better script that, you know, the Oilers come into this season and they're ready to take the next step

in the playoffs, but then they get off to this horrific start, punctuated right at the beginning with an 8-1 loss, and then that leads to Woodcroft getting fired. But then they right the ship, and then they feel that they've gone through the dark times and they've gone through the adversity, and now they're ready to rebound from that. Then you have a very, very compelling second-round series that goes down to Game 7, and the final strokes of Game 7 as well.

Okay, my final what we learned is you people out there, there's nothing we can do. You're getting some flack. Yeah, now Leaf is texting in, that spoiler alert was useless based on Bruff's tone. I found the spoiler alert to be very spoilery based on how you said it. You showed your hand, Bruff. Peter and Cloverdale, I could tell the way you said spoiler alert that Canada had scored. Okay, you just spoiled it.

You just spoiled it. Is this why this is not going to work? It's not going to work. Bruff yells at me at the break because he's like, listen to the listeners. They know what they're talking about. What, the two guys there? Like, geez, come on. And now, look what has happened.

What am I going to have? Or are we going to have to just be like, okay, no emotion. Okay. Spoiler alert. It's like, oh my God, what? Spoiler alert. This is why you don't kowtow to anybody. Or just ask them.

Exquisitive. Spoiler alert. Spoiler just Exquisitive Spoiler alert Spoiler alert No Spoiler That sounded too negative That's a New Zealand discord Which didn't happen

Which didn't happen Because it's at halftime Is that a spoiler Just throw some misinformation That'll get people off the trail They'll never know What's a spoiler And what's not

Anyway You guys are all the worst Yeah And I'm back with Halford now Thank you We're back We're not doing spoiler alerts anymore Spoilers have been cancelled Spoiler and what's not. Anyway, you guys are all the worst. Yeah, right. And I'm back with Halford now. Thank you. We're back. Halford and Breshek. We're not doing spoiler alerts anymore.

Spoilers have been canceled. I'm sorry. Did my tone bother you there? We got one more show left in the week, possibly mercifully. But for now, we got to say goodbye. Don't forget to join us tomorrow. It's an Ask Us Anything Friday. It's the final giveaway of the week.

But we got two. We're giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway and a final pair of tickets to go see Billy Idol and Platinum Blonde on July 30th at Rogers Arena. For now, though, we gotta go. Signing off, I have been Mike Alford. He's been Jason Brough. He's been A-Dog, and he's been

Laddie. This has been the Alfred and Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Alright, two, three, four. Buh buh buh buh buh basketball. Gimme gimme gimme the ball because I'm gonna dunk it.