Halford & Brough in the Morning - Can Team Canada Keep Things Going Today Versus The Swiss?

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

In hour two, Mike & Jason do some Ask Us Anythings (3:00), plus they preview today's Men's hockey matchup featuring Canada and the Swiss with Olympic commentator Matt Cullen (26:18). 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.

7 o'clock on a Friday. Oh, yeah, it's Fiesta Friday here on the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. This is like Pink Panther meets Fiesta Friday. Maybe making music right here. Sure is, buddy. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have CRA debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut that debt by 80% with no upfront fees.

This is in today at Sands.com. We are now in hour two of the program. AJ from AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. I'm just going to join us in just a moment here. Hour 2 of this program is by Jason Homanock at Jason. If you love giving the banks more your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at jason.morgage.

We are coming to live from the Kintech Studio, New Year, New Opportunity for Comfort with Orthotics from Kintech. Howford, the 33rd Annual RBC JCC sports dinner is coming up on March 3rd, featuring one of your favorites. favorites, guest speaker Steve Nash. Love that guy. You can get in on the excitement, even if you can't attend. Enter the 50-50 raffle or the pick-your-perfect ride raffle, courtesy Doick Auto Group. Love them too.

Every ticket supports vital community programs at the JCC. For tickets and info, visit jccccsportsdinner.com. If you can't make that dinner, I got a place for you. AJ's Pete's on East Broadway. And now into us. AJ, the co-owner of AJ's pizza. Shout out to Teresa. joins us now on the Halford & Breath Show on SportsNet 650.

What up, AJ? What is going on? How's everybody? Everybody giddy over that big win? Yeah, man. I'll tell you what. You guys have taken the internet by storm. AJ's is everywhere.

All of the favorites. Daily Hive. Vancouver is awesome. 604 now, which I think might be a combination of those two. But anyway. AJ's Intrifice. to Watson at the water slides is sweeping the internet, man.

How's it going out there? It's good. It was great. I mean, as I said, I'm not that smart to be human, so opening up on Super Bowl was fun, but it was great. It was awesome. It's been, it's been well-received. You know, there's always some bumps

in the road, but yeah, we were open Wednesday. We were open last night and we're open for take-out and delivery all weekend. I think today starts at four, ends at nine, and then Saturday, Sunday, started 11. So, yeah, it's good.

You know, you've got to take some, you've got to take some punches. You know, you're in a, it's a long fight. Yeah. But it's great. It's great. It's awesome.

So just to confirm, the restaurant is fully open and operational. And to remind everyone, you don't have to go to Big Splash and get a ticket to ride the water slides to go to AJ's, correct? Because it would be very difficult to do in February. The restaurant is not open yet.

It just take out, it just take out to go. The restaurant, I'm going to probably do a beautiful friends and family. Maybe you can even invite some how broke folks, probably the end of the month, beginning to March, and then once that happens, we'll rock and roll with the full restaurant and then announce the hours. So yeah, yeah, it's been great.

Beautiful. Okay, I will remind everybody, Canada plays today at 1210, a perfect opportunity to go to AJ's 325 and 327 East Broadway, get some lunch, get some pizza, drink some beer, and watch Canada, take care of business today. AJ, thank you very much for doing this today, bud. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Enjoy the weekend.

Enjoy the weekend. Sounds great, and it looks like it's going to be a collision course of gold, isn't there? We'll do this next week. I'm just throwing it out. We'll do this next week. Thanks, buddy. Everybody enjoy. Take care.

Have a good one. Bye. AJ from AJ's pizza on East Broadway. Having moved here from the beautiful US of A, AJ's allegiances are somewhat torn. Right. We're trying to convert them before the gold medal game. We'll see what happens there. John Schneider is converted.

I was going to say that. John Schneider's converted. He's cheering for Canada. If Schneider can do it, AJ can do it. Okay. Call AJ back. AJ's been in Vancouver longer than Schneider was. We got him on the phone.

Yeah, that's true, actually. Schneider was here for a cup of coffee. That's right. A reminder, in light of AJ being on the show, it is Ask Us Anything Friday here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet, 650. Same routine as always. The best Ask Us Anything wins a $100 gift card to the best pizza place in Vancouver. And now, of course, into Watson.

Dunbar Lumber Textline 650, 650. Hashtag at AUA and get them in. Jason, do you have one at the ready? Yeah, there's lots. Jay with an Ask Us Anything. How are you going to feel if Tom? Wilson pancakes Quinn Hughes in the metal round. Great.

Feel great. Yeah, I think the word is fantastic. As long as there's no penalty on the play. Two minutes for pancakeing. That's tough. We're five in a game, I guess. You could get international rules. That's going to be the game plan.

Well, part of the game plan is going to be getting on those American defensemen who are very, very good. And it's probably, frankly, it's going to be the American game plan with the Canadian defensemen as well. Quinn Hughes got a goal wiped off the board yesterday against Latvia. One of the many goals, one of the many goals wiped off the boards. The Latvians were hanging in there with challenges. They were like, you know those posters at winners when you go and it's like hang in there and it's a cat dangling from a piece of string? That was Latvia yesterday after the first period.

Because on paper, after 20 minutes, one won, you'd be like, yeah, Latvia's pretty happy about this, but they were under siege. Is it two disallowed goals, a post and Latvia scored the equalizer after the U.S. went up on a Brady Kachuk goal. Is there any way the Canadians just, roll through this tournament. Same way the U.S. might. US has the easiest group, without question. I'm talking about the tournament.

I know. So think about it right now. I do not see, after what they did to Chequia, I do not see a more difficult game on the horizon for the Canadians. In the group stage. In the group stage.

They got Switzerland today and then France on Sunday. Can't see either. So they're good against you. But I'm not talking about the group stage. I'm talking about, you, I mean, defensively in Sochi.

Defense, they were incredible. Yep. And, you know, you could say that they dominated that tournament, but it was more like people like Canada suffocated everyone. What happens in this tournament occasionally? But what I'm asking you is could the Canadians roll through this tournament in a different way than Sochi in a way that they're just like, I don't want to say running and gunning,

but whatever we saw yesterday, which was domination from not only a defensive performance, but more like offensive. of skill. The only hiccup I could see is if one of the perennial power, right now I'm looking at Sweden, is if Sweden falls into not getting an automatic buy into the quarters and is in the qualification, it isn't seated low, and then they would play Canada in the quarters earlier than normal. I think that would probably interrupt this run of what you're saying like steamrolling. I mean, just in terms of talent, Jason, just in terms of the most talented opponents, Sweden would still possess it. They'd still have quality net mining in a very good blue.

line and some dynamic guys up front. Are they underperforming right now? Yes. Is the team a mess? I mean, I've done a lot of Google translation of Swedish news outlets this morning and they are very displeased with how this team has performed through two games. There were hints that there was

going to be issues heading into this tournament. I don't like I don't think Neelander's 100% again, Leo Carlson missing Zabana Jed and PD not peak form like up front Sam-Lam is clearly trying to find something that work. and he's looking around and he's going like,

are any of you guys going for me? Because I can't play Joel Erickson-Eck much more. There are a lot of complaints about the job that Sam Halam. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. I mean, Pedersen's not on any of the power plays, not on the first unit power play, not on the second unit power play.

I think he got a sniff on the second power play unit today, but it was also with the goalie pulled. But I think this is what happened at the Four Nations, right? Yes. I mean, Sam Halam did play Pedersen in the first game and played him, and then Pederson didn't play. And then you have to work. work your way back into the coach's good books.

And Pedersen, even if you can say, like, he hasn't been dreadful, he hasn't been dominant either. He hasn't been, he hasn't had the type, I mean, had a good third period against Italy. You know, Italy was out of gas. They were done, right? And it wasn't that great. It wasn't, it didn't score.

Sure. It wasn't, he set a nice screen on a goal, you know, hit the post. And you got to do more. you ought to do more to earn your coach's stress but it's not just Pedersen yeah like this whole team if if we were if this was Canada

we'd be going up and down the lineup and being like what's this guy bringing what's this guy bringing no it's true uh this isn't ask us anything from Sadie what would be more difficult and uh spoiler alert the dogs and I talked about this prior to the show playing hockey and figure skates or figure skating in hockey skates so we're going to set some parameters here

you would have to be at the highest level of your competition. By that I mean, you would have to do all the things that a figure skater and or a hockey player would do at the highest level. So let's take the Olympics, for example. Now, my first thought was just you could not do the jumps required for figure skating in hockey skates. You don't have the toe pick to push off on, right? You could do some of them.

You can attempt it, but it would be it. I find trying to hit a quad in hockey skates seems like it would be a real challenge. A figure skaters repertoire would be very, very limited with hockey skates whereas a hockey skater in figure skates all the awkward but you couldn't make tight cuts yeah but you'd at least be able to stay up

you'd be falling down a lot you'd be falling down and you catch that toe pick a couple times figure skating or hockey mean if you're playing hockey yeah yeah it would be extremely difficult I believe if I'm not mistaken our point of reference for this was the movie Goon in which Goon showed up

for his first practice Mighty Ducks too has a He was still able to fight I will say that he was very good at fighting still. The toe pick helped him fight. I think it'd be equally disastrous. I think so. But I think with figure skating, like it's ruined. You're not competing. Yeah, figure skating I think I don't know if you're getting in the game with the figure skates either. Unless you're just, I'll just run this off the half wall. Yeah. It's a really great. You could participate. I feel like you you wouldn't even be able to participate. I think they should explore this. I think they should

strap Connor McDavid on some strap some figure skates on Connor McDavid and make him skate around for a while. Have you guys seen the video and actually retweeted it the other day? Have you seen the video of Nathan McKinnon racing a speed skater? Yes. And it's obviously not a full race. It's an acceleration race. Yeah. Nate wins.

Yeah. Not by much. Not by much. And, look, I mean, if the speed skater gets going up to speed, he's going to, because it's so much easier to glide on the speed skates. But go watch the acceleration that McKinnon has. Just Google it up. Nathan McKinnon versus speed skater.

find it really quickly and how he cuts into the ice with his skates and the power that's involved in there. It's almost like sprinting. It is it, it's incredible. The speed skier actually comment is that the sound made you were making was terrifying. It was distracting him because it was so noisy. The crunching into the ice. Yeah. It's a, I mean, we all know that I love Nathan McKinnon. Like that guy is a hockey player. Okay, another ask us anything. This one's for you, Laddie. It's from Sunny. Would Jordan Bennington go to the Hall of Fame if he wins gold?

You'd have a Stanley Cup, you'd have Four Nations, and you'd have Olympic gold. There's not many goalies, not many goalies that can say that. I'll answer this one. Okay, you answer, you handle this. It's a no because he has no individual accolades. None. It's like a Chris Osgood scenario. He's got good.

He's got good numbers still. He's got a ton of cups, and he still's not in there because he wasn't the reason they won those cups. Everybody knows this. The only thing that separates him. Bittington was a big reason why the Blues won the cup. Yeah, but back to Halford's point, he doesn't have the numbers that Osgood had throughout his career. The only difference between him and Osgood is that when it came time to pick the best goal that to represent your country, Canada never came knocking for Osgood. And Canada did come knocking for Binnington.

Different eras. So he's got that. He's got that on. If Chris Osgood was in the United States, he did. NHL right now, he would probably be team Canada's goal tend. No. No. Yes. No. No way. The starting goalie

for the Detroit Red Wings would not start for Canada. Everyone had the same knock on Osgood. And he had no body of reference. Versus this group of goalies in the NHL right now. Also, Osgood was tiny even by the standard of the day. I was just talking about, yeah. I don't think they would. I think that they would

probably go with quite frankly the three that they have. You got to remember like Ozgood, he lost that net several times for the Red Wings. They tried to find his replacement. He might be losing his net in St. Louis. Yeah, well, all I'm saying is that that comp is fine in terms of like their career

what they've won and it's more team accolades than individual. You'd be hard pressed to go in to the Hall of Fame as a goal if you had never won a Vesna, never been in consideration for a heart trip. Hard for any player to get in without the individual accolades. Yeah, you know what I mean? But I'm not going to lie. When I first saw that ask us anything, I was like, this is a crazy. easy question and the more I thought about it. It's not

crazy. The conversation is somewhat legit. I have a question for you and I'm hoping you did a little research on it. I don't know if you did though. All right. What's going on with Josh Morrissey? Oh, we don't have any update yet. Okay. By the way, that's a potentially big loss. Yeah, the updates coming out of the Olympics are very difficult to get a handle on.

Yeah, because they do the media so differently over there. The rights holders get access to the mix zone. There's also no insiders. There's not. It's hard. It's hard. Because your sources are really only the guys that are in the Team Canada Brain Trust as opposed to, I think, other instances where you've got people that work for the team or you know somebody that knows someone, or maybe you're talking to the agents. The Morrissey thing, he got hurt against Chequia.

He exited the game. Cooper had no update after the game. I would not be surprised. It makes no sense to play him today, even if he's healthy. No. You just give him arrest and you put Sandheim in and you move Theodore up from the seven spot to the six spot. You just go from there. You're playing the Swiss. You should be fine. You don't want Morrissey to be out beyond the group stage, obviously, because he was your second pairing guy

alongside Colton Pereko. I bet Seth Jarvis gets in today too. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised if Bittington just gets a rest entirely and they go with Thompson and Kemper. Thompson is the starter and Kemper is the backup. Well, remember, I mean, we're talking 2010. Or conversely you arrest them whatever, like on sound. So in 2010, Their first game was against Norway. And you mentioned that Marty Burdur, who was the number one heading into the game. He didn't even dress. No, as long as the start of Flurry was the backup.

So I was thinking about this actually yesterday. Do we have any indication who's starting a goal for Canada today? Is there anything coming out? Because I was thinking, and I said this yesterday, I was like, okay, well, Thompson backed up yesterday, right? Thompson was the backup. Correct. And I was like, oh, okay, well, that probably means that Kemper's the number three. maybe not.

Maybe not. Maybe not based on that, right? Maybe they just didn't even want the other potential number one, even on the bench and just give him plenty of rest. Laddie, how would you run that? I want to get Thompson in there as soon as possible because I think he should be the number one. But do you think it's possible that Thompson being the backup

was an indication that he's actually the number three? No. No, I think they want him in there because he's the next in line. I think Kemper is the clear number three. I like how Kemper is a bit of a combination of Bennington and Logan Thompson. Like, okay, I got to explain this. So Bennington is the quote unquote big game goalie with the bad stats. Logan Thompson is the guy who hasn't really played.

Has he played in a huge game? I think he's played. You're on the scene kind of guy. Yeah. But his stats are really good. And then Kemper's a bit of both because his stats are between Bittington and Thompson. And he has played in big games, but he doesn't get as much credit for Binnington because that Aves team was so good that didn't, I mean, I don't even remember his play

in the Stanley Cup finals. He was fine. But he was fine, right? We had that conversation about Bennington getting into the Hall of Fame. If Kemper takes over wins gold, does he get in the Hall of Fame? Because he would have a cup. He would have a gold medal. And he has really, really good career numbers.

He's played a long time in the NHL. I think he might. So here's what we know right now. All three goalies participated in practice for Team Canada today. No scratches came out to work with the goalies. So some are suggesting that means Jarvis could get in after being a scratch last game. I would not be surprised if these next two games, not exactly breaking news here,

but this is when they rotate everybody in. I think there was some trepidation going into the Chequia game that that was going to be a pretty stern test, and they wanted to be on the front foot as it was with, this is what our lineup's going to look like at go time, this is what the 12 and 6 are going to look like, and this is where starter is going to be. And then they ran away with it in the second and third periods,

easily setting up an opportunity to play some other guys. I mean, there is a sentiment of you want everyone involved with this at some point during the proceedings. And games against Switzerland and France would certainly give you that opportunity. So does Jarvis get in? Yeah. Do you sit Morrissey and, you know, bring Sanheim in probably? Do you give your other goleys a look? This would be the time to do it.

You don't want Biddington sitting on ice too long. Perverbabilal ice, not the actual physical ice. But you don't want him sitting away from the game. You probably want to give him one of these two final. on games just so he's fresh and he keeps going. But the group stage, again, I hate putting too much emphasis on what a breeze this is going to be, but that was supposed to be the test yesterday. And they were way too dominant for Cheki in the second and third periods yesterday.

He was 5-0. And if that game had gone another 20 minutes, that score would have really got out of hand. That's the relentlessness that they play with. And you brought this up earlier in the show. You can hang with a team for a while on guts and. momentum and energy. Work great. Yeah.

And, you know, the adrenaline coursing through your veins. That's exhausting. That can carry you for 20 minutes. Yeah. But the relentlessness wears you down after a while.

Because these teams are rolling four lines of NHL All-Stars. So just when you think you're getting a break, the U.S. is flipping Jack Hughes over the boards. And just when you're getting a break against Canada, it's like Horvac comes out and scores a worldly. And all of a sudden you're looking at it. And you're like, we don't get a rest during this game.

This is why. Did you see how tired? Ladfia looked when was it Nelson's second goal? Yeah. When they were just passing the puck around and the Hughes boys were involved in that. I think the third goal was the one

was Mers Lickens was on his hands and knees and just stayed in that position for a couple of minutes. He's like, this is a lot right now. They were just exhausted. We're getting outshot thoroughly here. If you make the team, I mean, it's easy to, not easy, but it's easy to just stand there and block shots.

So some people say like if you're, if you're, You know, if you're playing a team that's just pack in the middle of the ice, we'll just wail away and shoot and, you know, some pucks will get through or maybe hurt some of the guys. And, like, there's something to be said for that, sure. But what you really want to do is make them skate, make them go back and forth and quick puck movement.

That's exhausting. You know, standing there on blocking shots might be painful, but it's not particularly tiring. And I think that's what the Americans really did to Latvia. And that's what you can do. when you've got the skill of Canada and you've got the skating that's going to make you move and react, and you've got the East West passing that's going to make you move and react. And, you know, I feel like you didn't quite understand my question about Canada.

Could they just roll through this entire tournament? That includes potentially rolling through the Americans in the gold medal game. Is that asking for too much? Like I don't want to jinx anything, and I don't believe in jinxes anyway, but what we saw yesterday from the Canadians is actually quite different from other versions of Canada

that we've seen at Olympics, where most of the time the first games, you're like, eh, they look a little janky out there. Yeah, I do. You know? And it was like, and then by the second period yesterday,

it was like, oh my God. These guys are dominant, and they've been waiting for so long to do this. And I know the Americans have too, but the amount of high-end elite, you know, top 10 players of all time that are on the Canadian team, it's an incredible forward group. Yep. An incredible forward group. Well, okay, Laddy's got a goalie update. Yeah, thank you to Tatiana who's been texting it. Apparently, Friedman did mention during one of the intermissions this morning

that he thinks it is going to be Thompson tonight. Thompson was the first skater onto the ice for Team Canada practice this morning. Okay, good update. There you go. And then back to your point. Yeah, I kind of got what you were saying about could they potentially roll through right now. Like, I think they'd roll Sweden now. See, Finland, I'd be a little worried about it just because they're Finland.

Here's where I'm hesitant. You don't get a true sense of where a team is at until they're desperate or their lives are on the line. and they're playing with a desperation. Like, you can't tell me that the Swedish team as compiled is playing as well as it could right now.

They were bad at the four nations, though. Yeah. Like, I think there's something going on with that program that there's something off. Right now, all signs,

underline all, capital ALL, all signs point to the U.S. and Canada being the class of this tournament and kind of bullying their way to the final. And crazy things can happen. Mm-hmm.

I mean, what we're doing in some ways is just sending up the narrative in case Canada does roll through the tournament or in case they get tripped up. Then we'd be like, wow, where did that come from? For example, Finland has a disappointing start against Slovakia. I think today, the biggest story is that Finland, knowing that they're not going to want to drop two games in a row, and especially the second to their bit of rival Sweden, come home, put forth a really good performance and they beat Sweden 4-1. and you want to talk about how goaltending can tilt things in this tournament. UC Soros was brilliant for them today after having a shaky first one. So you look at that and you're like, do you now catch Canada or the U.S.

in a game where they're not as razor sharp as they were in their first games and they're not as high-powered and high-flying? And maybe they're not passing a shooting with the crispness that they were. And then they go against a better goalie, like a Saros. That's where you all of a sudden say it's not a steamroll anymore. Those are the exceptions I'm trying to lay out here because we have done this before in Olympic tournaments. I remember in 2014 watching the US jump out

and I'm like, well, they're going to coast to the gold medal game with the way that they're scoring. Yeah. They were elite and they were moving the puck freely and confidently until it got to the knockout stage and then things tightened up a little bit, right? Americans has always been their center depth. Even at that tournament, their center depth

really couldn't match up. Americans always had good wingers and they would sometimes carry them in some of those group stage games but then they came up against the Canadians and I don't know if it was the personnel on the ice I don't know if it was psychological they just did not look like the same team

when they played the Canadians. We got more Olympic hockey coverage on the horizon. Matt Cullen, play by play for the men's Olympic hockey and snowboard cross is going to join us next. We'll talk about everything that's already happened in the tournament and what's on tap today. There's still a couple more games as we wrap up Friday from Milan. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650.

Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Strance. Get your daily dose of Canucks talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on SportsNet 650 or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. Funny Friday, sweet, sweet Friday. Happy Friday, everybody. It's a Pista Friday here on the Halford and Brough show on SportsNet 650. Halfford and Brub of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Do you have credit card debt? If you do, Sands and Associates

could cut your debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands dash trustee.com. We are still in our two of the program with the midway point of the show. Matt Cullen,

men's hockey, Olympic play-by-playman, is going to join us in just a moment here. Our two of this program is brought to by Jason hominock at Jason.morgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around

to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at jason. com. To the phone lines, we go. Matt Cullen, men's Olympic Play-by-Playman, and Snowboard Cross Play-by-Play as well. joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650.

Morning, Matt, how are you? Morning, guys, doing great. How are you? How are well? Thanks for taking the time to do this. We're now a handful of games into the tournament, so big picture, not just the Canadian team and the U.S. team who got off to flying starts. Early impressions of the quality of play,

the caliber of play from this men's Olympic tournament so far. Yeah, it's been pretty entertaining. I mean, I can't really put my finger on a blowout game or a bad game or a boring game, let's say. I've been doing some of the international games and did the game between Italy and Slovakia this morning. And, you know, we were kind of wondering, well, you know, did Italy kind of use all of its good luck up in one game and keep it close with Sweden. But they, again, played a pretty competitive game against some everyday NHLs like Uri Slavkovsky, et cetera, and held Slovakia to a three-two score. So we'll see how the tournament plays out.

but I think that so far with NHL players being back, it's been a lot of fun. We were talking about Sweden being probably the biggest disappointment of the tournament thus far, and Slovakia maybe being the biggest surprise. I guess we should spare a moment here to talk about the surprise that Italy has put forth, although they haven't won a game yet,

I think a lot of people would say that if they could have gone their first two games and only had a minus four goal differential, hanging around with both the Swedes and the Slobeks, that's a pretty impressive performance from this Italian team so far? Yeah, some really great stories. I mean, a lot of the untold

stories with the Italian team, right? They only have really one active NHL prospect, and that's the goalie with Damien Clara, who's a second rounder with the Ducks, and he played really well against Sweden before he left with a growing injury, and surprisingly came back in for relief duty today when the other goaltender,

David Fandani went out with what seemed like an injury or equipment problems. So the rest of them, there's a lot, there's a ton of Canadian connections on that Italian side, there's the eight Canadian-born players, a couple from Vancouver. Matt Bradley, his brother plays for UBC, he scored a nice goal

today on the power play. He's got a couple in the tournament. So really stories like that, we're really having a lot of fun with, and a lot of guys that have left North America to pursue their dream and playing high-level hockey, professional hockey, and, you know, you don't see guys that are just parachuting in for the tournament here and then going back and playing in the American League

of the ECHL or something. These guys are full-time players a good chunk of them in the Italian leagues or other leagues across Europe. So really impressive to see what they've done so far. I mean, if you had a tie game with Sweden on your bingo card after 35 minutes, hats off to you because I didn't have that one going on. And then again, you know, you kind of thought, well, you know, against Slovakia, they had a really big game against Finland and how do you see fit in? And again, they, you know, kept it pretty close and kept competitive and you know obviously they're going to be the easiest team on the on the card when it comes to a quarter-final or a qualification game but yeah so far there's a lot of fun stories

with some pretty pretty interesting Canadian connections let's say what have you thought of the Swedes so far yeah there there I mean they've I mean look at the the roster they have they have tons of talent but it just hasn't it hasn't quite manifested so far I mean obviously phil Augustin probably wouldn't have liked his game too much he's had a terrific year with the Minnesota Wild, but obviously two goals that he probably wants back. I think it was two goals on four shots at one point before he sort of settled in and made some stops in the third period against Italy. But yeah, the game against Finland was a surprise.

And usually, you know, that's a great rivalry, the Scandinavian battle. But usually you see Sweden jump ahead on that, just, you know, with the depth that they have, the goal tend that they have, but not today. Finland scored a rare 4-1-4-1 victory. Now, the interesting thing about this tournament, though, is that 12 teams, everybody's going to have a shot to play in the medal on, no matter how well or how poorly the pool play goes. So I think that, you know, Sweden still has an opportunity because if this is a standard tournament, they might be kind of on the outs or out the door perhaps by now.

But they're going to have to play their way into a quarterfinal. and I still think that they'll have a chance to have a solid tournament. But yeah, yeah, if I'm sweet, if I'm a Sweden fan, yeah, just not a lot of cohesiveness so far. Goaltending has been, usually they've been second best in terms of both the games they've played so far. So pretty uncharacteristic with the roster that they have. So it's going to be very difficult for Sweden now. They get their first, like, I don't want to say do or die, because as you mentioned, everyone advances, but Sweden up against Slovakia now

because Slovakia has its chance to control its own destiny at top Group B. All they need is a single point against the Swedes in this final game of the group stage to clinch the group which I don't think a lot of people saw coming Slovakia potentially winning Group B. What did you make and what did you think

of what the Slovaks did today and what you've seen from them through the first two games? Yeah, opportunistic team. I like their game and I think that Uri Slavkovsky has really started to come into his own. He played in the Beijing Olympics as a 17-year-old and scored seven goals. So he's up to, he added a point today, but he scored two in the opener.

So he's up to nine Olympic goals, which is the most amongst any active NHL player. I mean, Crosby has four, and Slavosky has nine, which is pretty mind-bending to think about. But yeah, that game against the Slobaks is going to be a tough one. The depth, obviously, like, is that the game where it shows? Is that where Sweden kind of puts his foot down and says, okay, enough is enough, like let's get a comprehensive, let's get a 6-2 win, let's get a 5-1 win and get back on track. That's going to be a great question because the issue that the Slovaks had and hasn't reared its head so far, but they don't have any NHL goaltending.

And if you look at Sweden, they have three. They have three goaltenders on their roster. Any of them could play. So maybe they make the move and they go to the wall of St. Paul with Jesper Valstead. We'll have to see about that because the goaltending has been about. bit shaky so far, I've thought. But, you know, I do think this little bit acts kind of like Germany where they have a lot of really premier top, top end talent.

And if you get on a power play and you get a couple of goals and, you know, Thomas Tatar, who played for 14 seasons in the NHL, if he gets going, we've talked about a, talked about Slavkowski and just the run that he's on. I really think he's really grown into himself. And the other one I'm thinking of here, Shimon Nimich, really good player, number two overall pick from the 2022 draft. Dvorski's got some talent as well. So get those guys on a power play and

you know, maybe a big goal or two down the road or an elimination game. I could see the slowbacks make it some noise. Have you been able to get a read on the officiating in the men's tournament so far? It seemed early on like, oh, they're letting

them play, but correct me if I'm wrong here. It was a little early for me. I didn't wake up and watch the entire game, but quite a few penalties in Finland, Sweden today. Yeah. Yeah. No, that game, I haven't seen all that as well. I was doing the game on at the same time. But from what I could tell, it's more of a let them play much more than in past Olympics or any sort of international hockey. That's for sure. I mean, we're seeing scrums at the end of every whistle right now. And, you know, a lot of NHL referees would pick a guy and say, okay, you know what?

You're sitting for two. Next time around, it's maybe the other team just to try and and balance that out a little bit, try and discourage that. But the game that I did, the talent and the slowbacks, it got nasty. It got some, we had a hit to the head,

a number of penalties, a couple of guys got bloodied up. And, you know, I think we probably had eight combined power plays in the game. So, yeah, maybe they're starting to tighten it up a little bit, but I especially thought that opening day, yeah,

was pretty surprising for international standards. But there was a movement to, to make, this a little bit different, right? NHL players are back. The rules are obviously a little bit different. You have some NHL referees including a couple of Canadians that are over in Milano-Cortina, so that

can make a difference as well. And the other thing is a small ice. I just think that now contact is inevitable. There's going to be contact, there's going to be clutching and grabbing on every play. There's going to be big hits. We've seen a lot of those, like just less space, big bodies, fast-moving players. It's going to make for some

different types of, since that maybe the international game isn't used to so far. So to answer your question, that was a long way to answer. I haven't quite had my finger quite on the pulse of what's a penalty and what's not. But I think overall my gut feeling is it's more of a, you know, let the guys play. Yeah, I think you're probably right on that one. And I think that's probably what everyone wants as well. Aside from the Josh Morrissey injury, could you imagine up?

Could you draw up a better start for the Canadian men? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's, that was obviously a great start, just so much anticipation for that. And, you know, we were talking amongst a couple of other broadcasters, like, well, you know, the checks have provided a little bit of heartbreak for Canada on the international scene with the world juniors over the last couple of tournaments. And could this be another, could this be another one? And, you know, pretty quickly it was, it was, it was, that was put to rest. And the big thing is like, how do you, how do you stop that power play? Right? Like, ha, like, there's just no way. for a five on four or five on three to defend everybody in the way if everybody's flying on full cylinders there. And I think that one of the big questions was answered was Annette. That was like the whole lead up for 12 months. So we talked about from the Four Nations, is Jordan Biddington

going to be the guy? He was great in the Four Nations face off. And then, you know, this year happened and he's got like an 868 percentage with the St. Louis Blues and basically playing backup duties to Joel Hofer. So that was a major concern. And I thought that he looked comfortable. He look calm. He's obviously got a great structure of players in front of them. But it is just one game. And I think that we've seen a lot of competitive games across the tournament. I did the Swiss France game the other day as well. So I've got a pretty good look at Switzerland. And they've got some players. Obviously not on the same line as Canada. But you know, as we've seen, you get a balance, you get a power play, you get a great goal-tending

performance. You know, who knows what can happen. And, you know, obviously France, which is the one NHL player with Alex Texier, the Montreal-Canadian. you know, that's going to be the layup game for the Canadians, where you might see one of those big score lines. But, yeah, all signs pointing to a spot for Canada, a direct birth into the quarterfinal. And then, of course, that's where the rubber's going to start to meet the road after that. You know, I thought the checks would provide a bit more of a test.

But, you know, if Canada does end up in the inevitable matchup against the United States, feels like that's a matter of time, perhaps in the semis or in the gold medal game, you know, that's going to be a real game. So one game in, obviously things went well. Obviously, it's tough to hear about Morrissey because the blue line is a huge part of protecting the net and how Baintington can play and what happens.

If he lets him a goal or two, does the mentality weaken? I mean, I don't think so. He was terrific in the gold medal game. He's a Stanley Cup winning goaltender when it goes back to game seven in the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs. So he's got it, but as we know, goaltenders can be a little bit shaky. And I say that as a junior B goaltender myself,

playing with the Grandview Steelers. My mentality just didn't have it. So that's why I went the broadcasting route. Well, let's talk a little bit about the mentality of some of the players on the Canadian team. It would surprise me if they let their foot off the gas in any of these games. It just doesn't seem like the group that's going to do it. They've got the experience of a guy like Sidney Crosby or another guy like Drew Dowdy, but they've also just got

hungry superstars. Nathan McKinnon and Connor McDavid. These guys want to win so badly and they've been waiting so long to get into the Olympics and show their stuff on the international stage. You know, is that something that's going to, like I almost

feel a little bit bad for France that has to play this Canadian team on Sunday? I just wonder what it's going to look like. Yeah, not thinking it could get ugly for sure. you know the French French held their own and a lot like you see

with some of the German teams or slowback teams of guys that are playing in the Czech league or you know in Sweden and Finland etc but obviously you know this is a this is a team that's just loaded up with talent and young talent too right I really like the way Macklin Celebrini has played I mean my goodness what a year is he's having and he looked to be he looked to fit right in with this group

and has already you know got an Olympic goal and he's not even 20 yet which is which is pretty impressive and, you know, I think that we didn't see much of Tom Wilson. That was a question as well, is how is his game going to be referee judged? How is it going to work out on the international stage? I thought, you know, obviously it's one game, but, you know, he's found himself a pretty good spot.

And, yeah, just the speed that they have, the intensity that they have. And I think there's the desire to play at the Olympics again, and this is the first time that NHL players have been back in 12 years going back to 2014. And Connor McDavid's been one of the biggest voices to play. Olympic hockey. He's okay with a condensed schedule and just cramming everything in. I don't think he's, I just don't see how he is not going to be so laser focused. Like what we saw in the Stanley Cup finals over the last couple of years, they just so locked in and so set on winning a gold medal for

Canada. I just don't think there's any, any room for distraction amongst this group. It's a really, it's a really good mix. And obviously there was some unfortunate entries that opened up the door to some other players. And, you know, obviously from a Canadian perspective, you hope it all works out. But, you know, overall, it's hard to find a weakness on this team, especially with the Bittington and the way he played with the 26 saves. We're speaking to Matt, Colin, Olympic hockey play-by-playman here on the Halford and Breff Show on Sportsnet 650.

I just wanted to circle back. You did mention that you were on the call for Switzerland already. Can you give us a little bit of more of a breakdown, maybe even a preview for Canada's next opponent, this Swiss team that you saw take care of the French for nothing? Yeah, the Swiss team, there's a lot. they're a hungry team and they've had some success at the world championships now take that with a grain of salt

because there's not a thought of best on best tournament but you know they've had some metal performances there and you know if you look at down their roster I mean Nico Hesher former number one overall pick regular NHLs a lot of them on the devils actually Timo Myers on that team

just looking down the list former devil with Nino Nita Ryder Fial is on that team but also a good mix of Europeans as well are former NHLers. Roman Yose's the captain. So I think they're a team

that does have some composure. But again, if you go man to man, line to line, deep pairing to de pairing, I think that Canada shouldn't have any trouble with the Swiss. I'm curious to know what they do in gold. They have Leonardo Giannone, who's a 38-year-old. They call him the Swiss legend.

He's a five-time Swiss championship. The Jacques-Pont trophies award to the best goaltender in Switzerland, and he's won that six times. in a 961 say percentage at the last Olympics in Beijing, not NHL players, of course. But he has like this international resume and obviously playing across Europe for 23 seasons. He has been the guy.

But also they have Akira Schmidt. He's been having a pretty good season with the Vegas Golden Knights. 29 games. It's the most he's ever played across the six NHL seasons or five. And so untested there, but again, the NHL quality goal tender there as well. And then some Vancouver fans might remember Redo Bear. from a couple years ago. He's the third stringer, I would think, on that team.

So, yeah, some names that, you know, obviously everyday NHL is check. They got that. Some guys that can score. Yep, some guys that can defend, for sure. But I think that they're going to be a team that will probably be pushing to try and get into a semifinal and try and, you know, make a surprise

or maybe get into a bronze medal game. I kind of put them in that sort of, I'd say that third tier of group, you know, if Canada and the United States is the favorites. If you look at Sweden, the Finns, maybe in that next group. And, you know, this is fluid here because I've been surprised by the slowback so far. So where do they fit in there?

But I imagine that the Swiss and the slowbacks are kind of in that sort of secondary third group of trying to make a surprise. It's a fun tournament. And there's a lot of hockey going on. We have six games across the slate today. So if you're a hockey fan on a Friday, it's a pretty good time to maybe put the work aside and just pull up on the couch here and enjoy some hockey. Well, the Canadian women are going to be in action tomorrow against Germany in the quarterfinals, and they bounced back nicely after that loss to the Americans,

and it was a demoralizing loss. Let's face it, I think we watched that game against the Americans, and we're like, oh, they're really going to have to go back to the drawing board, maybe a couple of drawing boards in order to get back to the gold medal game and then have a chance against the Americans. Do you think they need, do they need, I mean, obviously, any Mary Filippe Plam back, but even if she's back and she's good to go, do they need a new game plan in order to beat the Americans?

Yeah, that's a head scratcher. The Americans look good, they're young, they're fast, the next generation has arrived, and they looked mild ahead of Canada in that game, to be perfectly honest with you. I mean, I think the scoreline is pretty reflective of how that game went, to 5-0. I mean, the Canadians had 10 shots through 40 minutes. I mean, just you can't, no matter what level of hockey you're playing at, you're not going to have a lot of success doing that.

Unless, you know, you're Italy and you have a great goal-tending performance or something like that, like we saw against the Swedes there. But it's going to be, they needed that performance. Yeah, there would have been major cause for concern if that game was even close against Finland. So I thought they did well and generated that. And I think that, you know, despite some tough, losses. And it's not just a one-off here

against the Americans. When they played the rivalry series, the Americans won all four in a row. They outscored the Canadians pretty heavily. I think Canada only scored seven goals across those four games. So there was a double-digit game as well where the Americans won in double digits and, you know, that's never good

when you're putting up 10 plus goals on your team. So it's not just a one-off, that five-nothing game. So I do think that that team needs to really look in and say, and we've dominated the international scene. We've won a ton of gold medals at the Olympics.

Like how do we beat the Americans right now? And despite that loss, you know, a day or two later, if you look down the roster, particularly if Poulana is able to get back, she's not going to play in the next game, but did skate today was the first player on the ice. So that's some encouraging news for the Canadians. And I think you hopefully save her for the semifinal, if it's not a 100% situation or a gold medal game.

But I think that if the Canadians make it that far, of course, but I think that maybe you do need to play that American team a little bit differently and just recognize the talent that they have because all five goals scores under 24 years old and Canada just doesn't have that young talent right now. But I think in an elimination game, in a medal round game and a gold medal game, it's hard not to bet with the Mary-Silippe Poulin, Laura Stacey, Natalie Spooner, players that have been there, they've won it, and Renee DeBien, Nett. obviously she had a rough game and got pulled.

But I think that, you know, if you're going to lose one game against the Americans, make it the preliminary round, make it the round robin, and then try and get them back. We see that a lot. I mean, we saw that in the World Juniors with the checks and Canada beat the checks in the opener and everything's great. And then, you know, the checks come back in the semifinal and show Canada the door. So I think if you're going to pick one to win, that one's still going to come down the road wherever that that may find it. Matt, this was great.

This was awesome. Thanks for taking the time to do it. We appreciate it. Let's get caught up later on in the tournament. We'll do this again, hopefully, next week. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, enjoy the rest of the round robin and the big day over the next, well,

the big day today and the next couple of games. Yeah, you too. Thanks, Matt. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys. That's Matt Cullen, play-by-play voice for the men's hockey tournament and snowboard cross,

which we never got to ask them about, unfortunately, here on the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. And former Grandview Steeler. Well, we can admit this now. I looked up his stats, by the way, if you guys want to know what his numbers were. We'll have been,

sometimes the Halford and Brough show, we're not the brightest. Sometimes we had rock bottom make mistakes. We're not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Up until about 9.30 p.m. last night, we assumed that we had booked Matt Cullen, the three-time Stanley Cup champion, former NHLer.

Because we got a list of people that we could reach out to, at SportsNet. Yeah, former NHLRs at the Olympics. And there was a name on, there was a name that was Matt Cullen. And I was like, oh, you know, we all thought, well, we got him to provide commentary on the American team.

That's a good get. Further confusing things was that this Matt Cullen that we just spoke to calls Ottawa Senators games. Matt Cullen, the NHLer, played for the Ottawa Senators at one point during his illustrious career. So when I googled Matt Cullen, Ottawa,

I was like, I were good. Lo and behold. But like the former NHL or this Matt Cullen has also won three Stanley Cups. Amazingly so. Yeah. Amazingly so. That would have been incredible though.

We were very close. We were very close to. We were very close to going into that interview thinking that was American hockey player. Oh yeah, he had a bunch of calls light up. Ranked a goal calls? Yeah. I mean, we were going to be like,

so Matt Cullen won the Stanley Cup in Carolina where Jim Rutherford was in charge and he won two in Pittsburgh where Jim Rutherford was in charge we were just going to be like what do you remember about winning cups on those Jim Rutherford teams

you're like that would have been an all-timer for us I played for the Grandview Steelers has broken the tie that was a call from Granby that had a good crowd that day the goalie scored Did you win a Stanley Cup with the Grandview Steelers?

He played four games, by the way, two starts. Nice. Didn't get a win. You're digging deep there. Yeah, I got his whole stat line right here. Very good. Okay. We're up against our time.

We've got to go to a break. We got one final hour to go on the Halford and Breft Show on Sportsnet 615. If you listen to the show with any regularity, you know what the final hour of a Friday show entails. Rick Dollywall and whatever hijinks he's going to bring to the table. And then, of course, ask us anything Friday, which is always a good time. We have yet to reward and pick the winner for the $100 gift card to $8. AJ's pizza for the best ask us anything. So keep sending them in.

Dunbar Lumber text line is 650, 650. If you submit the best ask us anything, you could win 100 bucks to spend at AJ's. You're listening to the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650.