Halford & Brough in the Morning - Canada Has A Huge Soccer Match Tonight

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

In hour two, Mike & guest host Jamie Dodd discuss the New York Rangers offseason as well as the Trouba incident, as The Athletic NYR's Peter Baugh joins the show (5:00), the boys do some Ask Us Anythings (15:00), plus they preview tonight's Copa quarterfinal matchup between Canada and Venezuela with soccer analyst James Sharman (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.

7.02 on a Fiesta Friday here on the Halford and Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 2 of the program. AJ from AJ's Pizza is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off Hour 2. Hour 2 is brought to you by Primetime Craft Beer.

Meticulously brewed for quality and taste, Primetime is full flavor. Without compromise, you can get some, get some, at a liquor store near you, or you can visit the brewery to see how it's made. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews, sore feet. What are you waiting for? Kintec, that's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews, sore feet. What are you waiting for?

Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. Let's go to the phone lines now. He is the owner of AJ's Pizza on East Broadway, the best pizza place in the world. AJ joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. What up, AJ? What's going on, everybody?

We got two happy Blue Jay fans right now. The Yankees are tanking. Oh, man. You know what else this weekend is, too? It's the annual Blue Jay's Rite of Passage down to Seattle. going on everybody you know uh two happy blue jay fans right now the yankees are tanking oh man you know oh you know what else this weekend is too it's the annual blue jays right of passage down to seattle yeah i i know i have like 25 friends that are that are going down i skipped that one on purpose are they are they like how are they going down there what sort of mood are they bringing down to seattle because we were talking about this earlier like the jays stink and they're going to a place where Jays fans are

hated. Like it could be the most negative vibe baseball trip of all time. I truly think it's just, they're going down to drink, drink their sorrows away. That's good. Seattle had a huge game yesterday, right? I mean, that's a fun time. And look at the weather.

Yeah. The weather couldn't be better. Speaking of fun places to drink, AJ's this weekend, it actually starts today. So you guys, and what a bit of symmetry on the show. We've got Peter Baugh coming up to talk about the Rangers. You're a big Rangers fan. We got James Sharman coming on to talk about the Euros.

You guys are a footy bar now. So you got Portugal, France today at noon. You've got Netherlands, Turkey tomorrow at noon if everyone wants to stop by and grab some pie and drink some beers. And then Sunday, of course, it's all-day happy hour. And you can watch the Lions game as well. So AJ's is a good place to be this weekend. Right.

And you can, don't forget, you can take the pizza to the beach, a couple of AJ's lager cans, and go have some fun. Beautiful. Thanks, AJ. Enjoy the weekend. Enjoy the games. Yeah, you guys too. Take care.

Yeah, thanks. Appreciate it. That's AJ from AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. A reminder, it's Ask Us Anything Friday on the show today. In conjunction with Ask Us Anything Friday, AJ is the presenting sponsor. Best Ask Us Anything gets a $100 gift card to AJ's. And as he mentioned, you can also do takeout.

You can take the pizza with you wherever you want to go. Ask Us Anythings, go to the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650-650. The premise is quite simple in case you're new to the show or the premise you just ask us about quite literally anything and we will do our best to answer it uh before we get peter baugh on the show i'm going to throw this one out there basketball phil threw this one out uh via twitter yesterday who would win a sportsnet 650 hammer throw contest? This is a very relevant conversation to have because Canada is a hammer powerhouse right now.

More specifically, British Columbia because the number one ranked men's hammer thrower in the world, Ethan Katzberg, is from Nanaimo. The number one ranked women's thrower in the world, Cameron Rogers, is from Nanaimo. The number one ranked women's thrower in the world, Cameron Rogers, is from Richmond. So BC is the hammer-throwing capital of the world, which is amazing.

And I did a lot of research. Some would say too much. Some would say, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? But I do the research. So we'll answer it on this, because we got Peter on the line now. Is this correct? Someone give me a nod.

Okay, perfect. So on the other side, we will answer that and a few other Ask Us Anythings. But joining us now, very happy to have him on the line now is this correct does someone give me a nod okay perfect so on the other side we will answer that and a few other ask us anythings but joining us now very happy to have him on the program new york hockey writer for the athletic peter baugh here on the halford and brough show on sportsnet 650 good morning peter how are you morning how are you guys doing uh we're well thanks for taking the time to do this we appreciate it so uh we were discussing the jacob truba situation a couple different times this week because we've seen all the different stories coming out about the plight of the New York Rangers captain for our listeners that maybe aren't caught up to speed with exactly what's going

on because it's been a very busy week in the National Hockey League can you let us know a bit of the backstory about Jacob Truba and his no trade clause and his status with the New York Rangers and what the future has in store for him and his family. Yeah, so it's a bit of an interesting situation. So Jacob Truba gets traded to the Rangers ahead of the 2019-20 season, signs a seven-year contract with a no-move clause for the first five years. Essentially, Truba was named the captain, has been a big part of the Rangers dressing room, very big in terms of leadership, accountability, all those things.

But in the playoffs, he had a rough go. I think he had 11 minor penalties. He was on the ice for a lot of goals against and essentially did not play the way you would want an $8 million cap hit to play. So the Rangers pretty clearly explored trade options for him going into this offseason. But Truba had his no-m still until july 1st um and essentially that my colleague arthur staple at the athletic reported that the ringers

asked for his no trade list early so they could start to um kind of get a sense of who he would be willing to go to uh and trba's camp didn't oblige. They waited until they were, I guess, contractually obligated to turn in the no-trade list, which was, I think, July 1st would be the date. And there's a lot of layers to this, but the no-movement clause switched to a 15-team no trade list on July 1st. So the Rangers asked for that list early. He kind of dragged his feet, waited until it was due. That potentially, we don't really know,

could have gotten in the way of some deals. And now free agency has come and gone. Jacob Truba is still on the Rangers. And it looks like, at least for now, he will be. So how would you classify the relationship between Truba and the Rangers, and it looks like, at least for now, he will be. So how would you classify the relationship between Trouba and the Rangers right now? Because it's been a free agency period sort of marked by jilted exes with Steve Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning and Jonathan Marcheseau

and the Vegas Golden Knights. Now, it seems as though that Trouba, as you mentioned, is still a member of the Rangers, but I guess the question is, how's the relationship doing, and for how much longer will they be together? Yeah, I mean, well, I think it's clear that the Rangers, especially at the draft and kind of going into the free agency period,

were shopping him. It's also clear that Trouba wanted to stay part of the Rangers, so I don't know if the relationship between Trouba and the front office is necessarily in a good spot. That's just something I don't currently know. But I think it would be very natural if he was upset at the front office.

I think within the room and stuff, though, I mean, it's a place that he wanted to be, and the fellow players are the ones he's interacting with every day. So I know he has the respect of his teammates. So I don't necessarily know if there's going to be any complications there. But I do imagine this was difficult for Trouba to watch play out so publicly. So is the most likely scenario now that he is the captain of the team and just a member of the team?

As you said, there's unlikely to be any kind of bad blood within the dressing room. So is this the kind of thing that it's awkward now, but once training camp rolls around and the focus comes on the ice, that it's kind of just business as usual for Trouba and the Rangers? Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's hard to say with any certainty but i would if you were to ask me right now what i would predict i would say that um opening night he's he's in the rangers lineup i think simply just because um the cap space that they like the rangers presumably

part of the big reason they wanted to trade him was to open up some cap space. And now most of the guys that they would have used that cap space on are off the board. So I can't I don't necessarily see them moving him and then opening up another hole at defense when a lot of the defensemen have been signed and opening up cap space when there's not as many players to spend it on. Another storyline to follow for the Rangers this offseason is Igor Shosturkin, who is going into the final year of his contract, which means he is eligible for an extension. What's the latest you're hearing on that? Or should we expect to see an extension for Igor Shosturkin before the season opens next year? Well, I think Shosturkin is looking for a big, big number, and I'm not sure that the Rangers are going to get to that point this summer.

So Arthur, my colleague at The Athletic, and I worked on a story together of just kind of some of the stuff we were hearing in the offseason. And Arthur reported that, like, Shosturkin is looking for, I mean, I think it was maybe in the high 12s in terms of AAB. So, like, this is going to be a pretty massive cap hit, and I think Sterkin will be comfortable going into the season without a contract if it comes to that. And then I guess next summer would be when the Rangers would have to make

the final decision. He's obviously a player that the team can't really afford to lose. So he's got a fair bit of leverage here. But also that high of a cap for a goalie can be pretty, I don't know how to phrase it, but that limits what a team can do in other areas of ice. But maybe with the cap going up, that'll diminish a little and they can still do things. But definitely an interesting situation

to monitor, Wishes Durkin, who's one of the best goalies in the league and clearly was a huge part of how deep the Rangers went in the playoffs this past year. What has the fan and reader sentiment been about what's happened or what hasn't happened

in the Rangers offseason thus far? Sorry in the rangers offseason yes yeah i mean i think that the the truba situation has really dominated the kind of everything around the rangers offseason and i don't think that that was necessarily it certainly hasn't been the smoothest process. So I think some fans have been kind of upset at just kind of the lack of resolution there and just maybe the lack of moves the Rangers have made aside from that. They did acquire Riley Smith, who's someone who should help their lineup, but there's still no guarantee that they have someone who will fit in super well with Kreider and Sabanajad in the top six.

So I think there's still holes that people have questions about. It certainly wasn't an offseason where they handed out super bad contracts that will come back to bite them. So there's room still to improve the team but i don't know if it's one that fans have been super super excited about a lot still to figure out on the rangers front peter thank you very much for doing this we really appreciate it uh enjoy a well-deserved summer off and we'll do this again as we get closer to the start of the next regular season sounds great thanks so much thank you that Thank you. That's Peter Baugh from the Athletic

New York Rangers writer here on the Halford & Brough show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. Back into the Ask Us Anythings we go.

So I asked this one prior to break. Who would win a Sportsnet 650 hammer throw contest? I already laid out the parameters for why this is such

a fundamentally important question. We are a hammer throw country. We're coming up on the Paris Olympics where Canadians are not expected, but very heavily favored to capture gold in the men's and women's hammer throw.

I'd win. So here's the thing, Andy. I've been doing it for this moment. You mean you'd win at 650, not at the Olympics? Well, I mean, I don't toot my own horn. I don't want to limit myself. At the very least, I'd win in 650. Let's put it that way.

So here's an interesting thing. There's no particular body type that is perfect or ideal for the hammer throw. At the 2012 Olympics in London, the participants in height ranged from 5'8 to 6'5. So I was thinking that there must be some sort of prototype. Now, that being said, the number one ranked male hammer thrower in the world, Ethan Katzberg of Nanaimo, BC. Friend of the show. He's 6'6.

And the number two right now, a Polish thrower, is 6'5. So I'm going to go out on a limb just to be the elite. So maybe there's a correlation there. So who would win a Sportsnet 650 hammer throw contest? First things first, we do not have any giants currently. No, nobody's jacked. Or just like super tall. Well, like jacked is like considerably.

Yeah, right. Like, oh, you work out on the regular. Not like it's a definitive statement. Oh, you work right. Like, oh, you work out on the regular. Not like it's a definitive statement. Oh, you work out. Not, oh, do you work out? We're all pretty pathetic sacks of meat. Sat is pretty. He's in shape.

Yeah. He's, you can tell Sat works out. All right. Well, hey, man, if you want to attack. Okay, if Sat wants to come at me, then. Sounds like someone's going to get the crap kicked out of him by a very woke Ted Yolk. He's worked in the gym right now. I'll show you Jack. Yeah. Sat's driving to get the crap kicked out of him by a very woke Ted Yolk. He's worked in the gym right now. I'll show you, Jax.

Sat's driving to the studio right now. Don't kick me. Back at 1040, the resident tall guy was Ian McClutchie, our former producer, who's like 6'5". So he would have been the easy choice here. It's like, you probably get a hammer throw. Go throw the hammer. I'm thinking.

Clutch has thrown a few hammers in his day. He has. He's chucked a couple of hammers. We kind of narrowed it down to maybe Dom Schraman, former producer of this show. Very tall. Very tall. Likes to hit the gym.

Throw some iron around. Does Dom have the mental focus to excel at hammer? Good question. That's my question. Dom, can you stay within that tiny little circle, right? You got to paint inside the lines bud you can't just be going foot fouls every now and again yeah and then um dark horse candidate elon producer yes who is yeah he's got the size i think he's got the height we could do this i did i and i was i went so far down the road that i was

doing the mechanics of the hammer throw. I think early in the station's existence, we did like a... Sports Day. This was before I was here. We did a Sportsnet 650 Sports Day. That might be something we need to resurrect here. My vote is for Sat. He's got the combination of height and strength and just like overall general fitness, I think.

Because I did some research on this as well. And I found an article from the University of Arizona where they talked to one of their physics professors, and they said the length of your arms is kind of the key thing here. The longer the circle that you're making when you're spinning around, that's going to dictate how far you can throw it. So I think you need to have a little bit of height, some length combined with the strength.

I think SAT checks all those boxes. We're going to have the Sportsnet 650 arm measuring competition. Who's got the biggest wingspan? Lots of ways to figure out. Back to the Canucks stuff. Don Starr, I assume that's his real name, on Twitter yesterday wanted to know, ask us anything. Do you think Tyson Berry is the right fit for a puck mover,

or is his defensive game a problem for Patrick Alveen and Jim Rutherford? You know who I think they probably defer to on anything involving Tyson Berry? Adam Foote, who would be pretty familiar with his game. Their careers almost overlapped in Colorado. But then right after Foote retired, he quickly joined the Colorado Avalanche coaching staff where he was coaching, among other people, Tyson Berry, who, of course, broke in in 2011 and spent the first several years of his career in Colorado. My thoughts on Berry are this.

There's probably still a semblance of the previous player there. Last year, obviously, did not go well in Nashville. He felt like he was being drummed out because he was being drummed out and he wanted to move, and Berry Trotz didn't like the fact that he wanted to move. The yearotz didn't like the fact that he wanted to move. The year prior to that, just one year prior, he had 55 points and he played in 85 games in a single season because he got traded mid-season.

That's pretty crazy in its own right. But if you're not that far removed from a year in which you put up 55 points and again, 85 games, I think there's a semblance of a player there of the puck- puck moving offensive guy. The question would be, would he come to Vancouver on the context of you might be deployed similarly to how you were in Nashville last year? So if you weren't happy with a part-time role in Nashville, are you going to be happy with a part-time role here? Because I look at the defense and I'm saying, be it Tyson berry or another guy that fits that mold you're not

going to be a full-time guy no and i think again it's not so much a question of the warts and tyson's berries game i think we're all familiar with that and obviously he's not a archetype archetypical um rick tocket type of player for sure but the question is if you got him on a super cheap deal one you could bury in the minors, if necessary, could he come in and just give you that extra option when you need it? But to your point, I feel like there's still enough of a market for Tyson Berry that he goes somewhere, probably to a less competitive team where he can get more playing time. That's the key, I think, for Tyson Berry at this point

is getting regular playing time. Yeah, I mean, the allure that everyone is, the unspoken part of it is that he's from Victoria and it's the whole coming home narrative, right? Getting to play for the hometown team. If he's at that stage of his career or not, I don't know. But it would, to me, it makes sense on a couple different levels

and with a couple different ifs and a but attached to it. So I'm not sure that all those caveats are going to be able to play themselves out. It'd be like, yeah, we want you to come back. A couple different ifs and a but. Yeah, there's two ifs and a but. If all those are good, though, you could definitely become a member of the Vancouver Canucks. I'm down a rabbit hole now with Adam Foote's career.

You mentioned he almost played with Barry. They missed each other by one year. I forgot he went back to Colorado. He went to Columbus, and then he went back to Colorado. And it's funny, one of the players he did play with on that team on Colorado is another one of the high-name free agents out there, Kevin Shattenkirk. Yeah, right. He's on that team.

Yeah, Shattenkirk doesn't have a job. There's another guy I was wondering about because if there's a puck mover that the Canucks want, again, it's going to have to be in that mold of you might be the seventh guy here. Yeah. You're probably not playing regularly. Right. Marcus and Gibson has a good Canucks related ask us anything.

He says, if you could pick one of the Sedins, one of the Sedins in their prime to help get this club over the top, are you picking Danny or Hank? I think the first instinct for a lot of people would be to say Danny because, hey, you need that winger for Patterson, the sniper, all of those things. But if you pull Henrik Sedin in his prime, all of a sudden you are far and away the deepest, best team down the middle at arguably the most important position in the NHL. You're rolling one of JT Miller or Elias Pedersen or Henrik Sedin as your third line center. I think that has to be the choice just because of the absurd depth you'd have down the middle at that point.

So, yeah, I remember when they retired in 2018, and it was two years later that they had the bubble experience, right? And I remember thinking that the Sedins were probably in good enough shape that you could bring them out in a fourth-line role and play them 12 or 13 minutes, and they'd be a dynamite fourth line. So if that's the case, I would say you always take the center over the winger if you're depth like that. As much as you could look at it and say, you know, hey, Daniel, we're talking about a goal-scoring elite winger for Elias Pettersson.

Like, Daniel Sedin, there you go. That's a pretty good option to have. But I think it has to be Henrik. In this, like, fantasy pseudo let's look back and recalibrate world, I always felt bad that the Canucks didn't have enough of an upswing post-Sedin that they could have had that come out of retirement. We're going to give it one more go. Because, I mean, you remember when they retire, it was announced so quickly. It was like, oh, by the way, we got a couple of games left. We're going to retire in one of those games.

And it was over. And we had that last game against the Coyotes. And it was a nice moment. Second last game. Right. But one of them didn't play in the last game, though, right? I think they both played but it was in edmonton nobody cared i think there was there was some question of should they even go

to edmonton and they're like no we're gonna we're on the team we're gonna finish the season um but i always wondered if there was ever going to be that opportunity because we've seen guys take a half a year off after announcing their retirement then come back and you know try out and get getting going in january or something like that. Well, that's what Preese did with the Colorado Avalanche this year. He came back midseason. Came back sooner, and he would have got 1,000 points. Right.

Yeah, that's right. So my answer there would be go with the center. Okay, one final one, and there's no real debate on this one because I came up with this last night. Justin and East Van, who is on your Mount Rushmore of Vancouver Canucks mustaches? All time. Mustaches. Yep.

Babbage, of course. Yeah, I've got the list. This is number one. The list is, you know what? I don't know if Babbage is number one. I don't know if they order them on Mount Rushmore, but they did in this situation. Is that how Mount Rushmore works? He should have his own mountain of just Babbage mountains.

Okay, so John Garrett, 100%, right? And it stood the test of time from his playing days to his broadcasting days. Dave Babich, that's an obvious one. Harold Sneps, outstanding mustache, legendary. Jack McElhargy. Now, I would put Garrett and McElhargy ahead because their mustache served in two different yet important roles within the organization. There was the player mustache.

And then in the case of Garrett, there was the broadcasting mustache. In the case of McClurkey, a coaching mustache. So that's the four. When was the last really good mustache on the team? Eric Goodbranson. Okay. I think you're stretching the definition of really. I'm on a list right now of the best of all time. I blank right now the best of all time entire Eric Goodbranson's on there he had a really good mustache we're

forgetting John Garrett no I just know what did you say okay the four are Garrett, Babbage, Snaps and McElroy he also said Harold Snaps yeah I'm just going over the list here yes a lot of really old Canucks that I don't remember so So you're going with the most recent one. And Goodbranson's mustache was very good. Very good. He had the handlebars and everything. It was solid. I don't know. I don't think he rocked it that long.

I saw, like, I'm flipping. You know how you can click through pictures on HockeyDB? I'm seeing a lot of beard pictures, not a lot of mustache pictures. He had a full-blown soup strainer, which was good. And then there haven't really been any other very prominent ones in the years since. Did Connor Garland, someone texted him, Garland had one. Did Garland have one at some point this year?

Yeah. Ryan Miller had one. I'm looking at a picture. That's a good one. That's a good one. Does Archer C. Loves have one? He's trying to grow one. I don't think he's there yet.

Okay, we got a lot more to get into on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Before we go to break, I need to tell you about the BC Lions. The roar is back at BC Place for the BC Lions 70th season. Get your tickets now at bclions.com. Coming up on the other side, footy talk with James Sharman, the host of Footy Prime. We will look ahead to the Euro quarterfinals

and the big match for Canada tonight at the Copa America. You're listening to the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance. 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. 7.32 on a Friday. It's a Fiesta Friday. It's a footy Friday here on the Halford & Ruff Show on Sportsnet 650. Halford & Ruff, the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda.

Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 2 of the program. Hour 2 is brought to you by Primetime Craft Beer. Meticulously brewed for quality and taste, Primetime is full flavor without compromise. You can get some from a liquor store near you, meticulously brewed for quality and taste. Primetime is full flavor without compromise.

You can get some from a liquor store near you or you can visit the brewery to see how it's made. James Sharman from the Footy Prime podcast is going to join us in just a second here. I mentioned it's Footy Friday. You're going to be hard-pressed to get three better matches in a single day than what you're about to get today. At 9 a.m. our time, it's Spain and Germany in the first of the quarterfinals at the European Championships.

The host Germans taking on a Spanish team that's looked very good thus far. Then, talk about a star-studded affair. Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal take on Kylian Mbappe and France at noon. And then tonight, the Canadian men's national team will play Venezuela with the opportunity to win in advance to the Copa America semifinal where they will take on Lionel Messi and Argentina yet again

for the second time in the tournament. So it is a footy lover's dream. Who better to walk us through this than James Sharman? He joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, James. How are you? Good morning, fellas. Yeah, I'm doing great. I'm excited. It's one of, I think, the best days of football that I can remember, quite honestly. Two marquee matchups in Euros and then, of course, the big one tonight in Copa.

Man, what a great day. Let's start with Spain and Germany. And it feels like the kind of match you would expect later in this tournament, given how good both these sides have been. The host Germans have been very dynamic. Musiala has been great for them. Spain with their dynamic young players. And just the history of these two nations, footballing-wise,

a very tantalizing matchup to kick off footy Friday. Oh, yeah. This is amazing. Two perennial contenders. Two nations that i suppose in recent years i've been trying to grasp back to the past where they were so dominant and they've been developing and transitioning and here we are now uh two of the teams that probably play the best football at this year's euro so far spain for sure have they've been just wonderful to watch

well ahead of their their uh the curve we thought they'd be at at this point with their young players. And the host, Germany, you know, feeding off that energy. You know, this nation apparently didn't really embrace the Euros to start with. They didn't have much hope for this team. But, you know, they've shown that the recent six months or so wasn't a fluke.

They're playing great football through their young talents. And, of course, the old guy, Tony Cruz, is still there amazingly. And yeah, it's really just two of the heavyweights of world football who I think are going to be there once again for some time. It's going to be just a real great occasion. I think I cannot wait for that one. Portugal, France. I kind of want to focus on the Cristiano Ronaldo angle here.

And I would love to get your thoughts on the narrative. Because Jason and I had the conversation earlier in the week and I was trying to explain it to him that, you know, in Portugal, Ronaldo's much more than a footballer. He's an icon that goes beyond sport. And that is partly why he requires the amount of oxygen that he needs or that he takes up when he's on the pitch. And it's why he's the one on free kicks.

He's the one on penalties. And there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that. Some of it, which he wants to take on. And then there are some that are saying that that might come at the expense of his team sometimes. So I'm curious to get your thoughts on the Ronaldo dynamic as they go into this matchup with France. Yeah, it is difficult, right?

I mean, let's be honest. There's a real selfishness there. There is. With Ronaldo. There's no doubt. taking all the free kicks he scored one in the last 61 direct free kicks for his country but there's great dead ball takers on that side but he insists on being the man for it um in the group phase the third game they qualified why not rest the 39 year old nope got to play that one as well and then we saw the tears during the last match.

During the match, he misses a penalty. There's still plenty of football left, and he's breaking down. He's making it about himself. That being said, which is all true, I look at the pressure he is under. Much of it he's put himself under, but he is under absolutely enormous pressure to be a winner, to succeed, to be the man, right? And he's put it on himself, but it's tough to judge the guy, to succeed, to be the man, right? And he's put it on himself, but it's tough to judge the guy to know really how he feels.

He demands success. He knows that this is coming to the end. He's 39. This is his last Euros. Maybe he'll be there for the World Cup. I don't know. So you understand the pressure he was under. No one in world football is under more pressure than Ronaldo because he puts it on himself.

So, you know, I thought the tears, for example, it was all a bit much, but I thought they were real. I thought they were authentic. But, you know, I mean, just imagine living in that lifestyle, that life of his where he's put himself in that bubble as being the main man for his nation, for millions of fans worldwide. It's intense, right? But I really think at this point, for the good of that team, he has to

step aside and let this team play a different style of football because regardless of what the tactics are, if he's out there, he's going to be the focal point. That's the deal. Get Ronaldo the ball. There's other good players on the bench, I think, that could play a different system. So, the time is coming for sure. It'll take a brave

manager. I'm not sure if Roberto Martinez is that man to say no, now is the time, Ronaldo. But listen, it's a bit sad, but hey, he can still,

is Ronaldo, right? He can still go out today and score two goals and get to the semifinals and have a great success. But it's, to me, just a little bit too much at this point.

We are speaking to James Sharman from the Footy Prime podcast here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. One final euro question before we turn our attention to cope america and it is about england you wrote on twitter england is one

win away from the semis and i haven't enjoyed a single minute of them i mean they could make the semis like this and i've still not enjoyed a minute only england can do this to me i you summed it up perfectly because jace and i were saying the exact same thing after the dramatic comeback against Slovakia. They got through, they advanced. We love to see it, but we've hated watching it.

That's precisely it, right? I mean, we expected so much from this team who had done so well in the three previous tournaments playing decent quality football, you know, not the most attacking on the Southgate,

but with these players coming off great seasons in Germany and Spain and, of course, in England, the hopes are high. Not only would they do well, but they play an attractive brand of football. And it just hasn't happened. They've looked lethargic. They've looked overwhelmed. They've looked tired.

There's been no tactical aggression. It's been painful, but they found a way to win these games and get through these games. And in the end, it's about winning, I suppose. But yeah, I just haven't, I've been, it's been torturous watching this team struggle through every single game

and almost to expect it. So that's the reason why I wrote that. It's thrown back to, you know, most of my life watching England, that's how it is. They don't play great quality football, even when they're a decent team. But the last three years kind of showed me something.

A Euro final, a World Cup semifinal, even against France in the quarters of the last World Cup. They played well in that match despite losing. And now it's like, oh, no, here comes the old England again. They're going to just beat me up and take away my enjoyment of this tournament. So, hey, it could all change tomorrow against Switzerland, but I have my doubts. Okay, let's turn our attention now to Copa America. Tonight, six o'clock,

it is Canada, it is Venezuela. I've been trying to explain to people that historically and traditionally, Venezuela has not been one of the powers of South America and commonable as a region.

This is almost a, I don't want to say golden generation, but the results that they've gotten over the last year and especially in this tournament are a tad unprecedented. What sort of opponent, This is almost a, I don't want to say golden generation, but the results that they've gotten over the last year, and especially in this tournament, are a tad unprecedented. What sort of opponent, what sort of challenge do they present to the Canadians this evening? You know, much like Canada, you know, for their region,

they are an emerging force, an emerging power. They've got some good youth in that team. They're legit. They've never qualified for a World Cup before. They've made the semis of Copa, I think, once before. They're traditionally not one of the stronger teams in South America, but they are building.

They're looking very good right now in Commonwealth qualifying for the World Cup. They're in fourth place right now. Got some really good results there. In the group phase, they got through Ecuador, an excellent team, and then Jamaica and Mexico of CONCACAF. Pretty easy for them to get through those matches. So, yeah, they're a really good team that are the favorites

and should be the favorites this evening. But they're not a powerhouse. They have some good players. Listen, I mean, Jeveson Soteldo, people might recognize from Toronto FC a couple of years ago. A creative player, a fun player to watch. You have Solomon Rondon, who's the old campaigner up top. He's played in the Premier League for Everton, for West Brom,

41 goals for his country. He's playing in Mexico these days, doing really well there. I think he's got nine goals in the campaign. So they have some real talent. So it's going to be tough. They're attacking numbers. So defensively to Canada will be a challenge, but it's not as if you're facing Argentina here or a Colombia or a Uruguay.

They're just below that quality, I think. So there's definitely an opportunity for Canada now to make some noise. Losing Tejan Buchanan to the broken tibia, the fractured tibia, sorry, it's a huge loss for the team, no doubt. I mean, when he was in the XI, he's a dynamic player.

Coming off the bench, it was a real shot in the arm of energy when they were able to bring him on as a sub. I do think, though, that there might be a positive to be drawn from the negative here, and that's Jesse Marsh's ability to turn it into a rallying cry. I've seen the videos that have come out of the Team Canada camp. I saw what they did at training, lining up in the No. 17. Do you think that there might be something that the group can take from this

that'll give them that extra motivation? What's going to be a very cagey, testy affair against a South American opponent? Yeah, you know that someone's got the shirt on the sidelines, right? Yeah, right, yeah. So if they score a goal, that's coming out. I'm sure someone's got it on a white T-shirt underneath their shirt, you know, his number and his name. I'm pretty sure that's already. So, yeah, they can use it as a rallying cry for sure but let's not kid ourselves

it's a big loss for canada um i know he hasn't had the greatest tournament started the first game benched in the second and the third game but he showed some flashes coming off that bench in the last game it was getting back to his best he's a guy listen he's going to be a startup canada for years but he made the move to Inter Milan at the window in January, and it took some time to find his feet there. Didn't start, came off the bench a couple of times, so wasn't really match fit, and certainly

wasn't on form, but he can give Canada what a few players can give, and that's a real game-breaking threat on the right-hand side, or through the middle, you can cut inside, so there's no doubt losing him is a big loss. But, you know,

as they've shown so far this tournament, they have Richie Larea who can step into those shoes and do a pretty good job. Different kind of player. You've got Schafferberg who can step into those shoes as well.

So there's options. There's depth there perhaps more than we thought there was. But, listen, losing a player of that talent on a team without that much depth is not a positive but hopefully they can use it

bring that brotherhood together once again and do it for him. Maybe those little things can make a difference in a tight game which will be, I think again, a very tight South American style match tonight So if you had told me prior to the tournament that Canada would qualify for the knockout phase of Copa America

in a tournament where the likes of the US didn't. And some other CONCACAF regions as well. I would have said, that's great. I would have taken it. I would have been happy. I would have been content. But now, I'm looking at this and saying, on the horizon, if you can just get past Venezuela in the

quarters, you have got a Copa America semifinal, a rematch against argentina and messi in east rutherford new jersey in a massive venue where it's going to be such a big prominent profound match would you be disappointed if canada doesn't get through tonight even though they've gotten to this point yeah it's a great point and yeah absolutely listen the big picture will reflect on in months to come and getting at the group phase is fantastic right that's a big step for this team and they're playing a very

good team in venezuela but at this point they should be under pressure to perform and seeing what awaits them on the horizon they're good enough to beat venezuela i really believe that as much as they're not the favorites um they have the talent there the system i think to to really cause Venezuela some problems so if we want to be considered a legitimate force an emerging force

perhaps in world football we have to look at these games as games that we can win and we shouldn't be satisfied with just qualifying from the group you know

it's not a world beater there in front of us right now but there's that match and the semi-finals awaiting which the whole world

will be watching. That's a huge, huge, you know, shove in the right direction ahead of 2026 and even next year's Gold Cup in 2025, where they should be considered one of the big favorites to win that thing. I think it's a massive match tonight. And yeah, we should very much be not looking at it as,

well, job done. Let's just enjoy these nights. Let's expect a performance and expect a win. I'm with you on that one. I'm looking very much forward to the next few hours. I imagine you are as well. So James, with that,

we'll let you go. Thank you again for doing this. We really appreciate it. Enjoy all the footy today. Hopefully all the results go our way. Yeah, you too. Thanks so much guys.

Thank you. That's James Sharman from the footy prime podcast here on the Haliford and breath show featuring Jamie Dodd on sports net six 50. I am, as you can probably tell, pretty excited about tonight. Yeah, it's a big one,

a big footy day in general, just pretty incredible. Actually, it's, it's, you don't get a lot of opportunities to have like a moment and they did in Qatar. And I felt that they,

they blew it. They, they, a lot of people were like, ah I felt that they blew it. A lot of people were like, ah, don't worry about it, getting to the World Cup. Was your World Cup, whatever happened when you were there, that's just icing on the cake and gravy on every night. Keep coming back to it. Upsets happen in tournaments like this where it's one-offs. You don't have to be the better team

over the course of 82 games or a best of seven. You just have to be the better team or things just have to break your way in one game. Right. And in these, especially with Copa, remember this, there's no extra time after a draw from 90 minutes in this match. It goes directly to penalties. That's what happened yesterday between Ecuador and Argentina and why Ecuador was like this close. And I know not everyone's watching on the stream, but I'm in the fingers very close. Again, Ecuador is this close to knocking Argentina out of the tournament in the quarterfinals.

The path is there for Canada to play in. And I will say this again. If they go into a Copa America semifinal against Argentina, it's the biggest match that Canadian soccer has ever played on the men's side. I think it's bigger than the matches, the three group stage matches in the World Cup. I honestly do. I think it is. End of rant. Should we do some Ask Us Anything, sir?

I would love to do some Ask Us Anything. Soccer, yeah. Laddie, I've got one for you as a matter of fact. Is it soccer related? No. It's NHL goalie related. Oh, I can dive into that. Tatiana on Twitter last night threw one out. Are there any updates on Arctur Shelov's contract?

And if not, is that cause for a concern? So I'll just set the table here. On June 30th, the Canucks announced that they had extended the qualifying offer to Shelov. So that keeps him under club control for the time being. The time being is until, I believe, July 15th, where he has to make a decision whether he either accepts the qualifying offer or rejects it then they go back to the drawing board and try and figure out if they're going to get a deal done um i know some people have floated the notion of a lad he's already rubbing his temples an offer sheet can you please just shoot that down once and for all? Nobody is offer sheeting a goalie who's played nine career NHL regular season games.

It's just not happening. The Canucks don't even know if they're willing to commit to him yet. When you offer sheet someone, you're committing years to that player being on your NHL roster. No one is going to do that with Artur Silov. I'm sorry. As much as you like Silovs, as much as I like Silovs, it's not going to happen this year. I think the general offer sheets are one of the most overblown concerns. We get a lot of texts in any time the Canucks have an RFA, right?

Whether it was Hronik before he signed, Pedersen before he signed, now Seelovs. Like, is this an offer sheet candidate? It's like the answer is always no. Any somewhat good player that has a contract that comes up. Oh, he's going to get offer sheet. No, he's not going to get offer sheet. To jump off from that conversation,

I do hope that when they redo the collective bargaining agreement that they look at the current setup for offer sheets and make it less punitive to sign a guy to one because it's a pointless exercise right now and i think that in a hard cap world where there's so much parity and there's so many teams vying for those playoff spots, I think you should have a mechanism that allows general managers to screw over other general managers or to put them under the caution, make life difficult for them. Right. I think it's an added wrinkle into the game. It's not unlike what they've done with coaches with challenges. They've created a little mini game with challenges. Right. with challenges. They've created a little mini game with challenges, right? Now the coaches are suddenly,

you've got to have a good review team and you've got to be on your toes and you've got to make tough calls in games. And it can be punitive if you make the wrong call on a review. Let's make it a little game for general managers, right? I think pitting these guys against one another with more feasible offer sheets is a good thing.

I think that's the biggest thing, right? Is so often, almost always, you look at it and you either are going to if you sign them below a certain number, then the other team will just easily match because it's like, okay, that's great value for them. Perfect. We'll match. Thank you for doing our negotiating for us. Or if you go too high, you're giving

up more in draft capital than the player's worth. So there's so rarely any incentive for another team to actually go do an offer sheet or try to do an offer sheet because remember, the player has to agree for another team's player. Austin and Langley with an ask us anything. What is the most dad thing you've ever done? So I have two kids.

Yes. And congratulations for those that don't know. I guess I technically haven't had the second one. That is a good dad move this is a list that we can either add to or you can disagree with this is the ones that I've done and the first one this is funny

because I used to not be this guy but now I am that's getting to the airport six hours before a flight I hate that it's like what time's your flight four o'clock you should try and leave by 8 a.m. You never know what's going to happen. Just get there and hang out all day at the airport.

And a new wrinkle to this dad power move is booking the Uber like a month in advance, right? Like I have a flight in November. You can do that? Yeah, you can book Ubers like 30 days in advance. This is one that I think there's different variations on it but uh grabbing food sometimes the last bite of food that you want or like the last nugget off your kid's plate and yelling dad tax while grabbing it and then throwing it in your mouth i'm usually the one having the food stolen off my plate yeah and an offshoot of that is eating your child's leftover

meal over the sink that's a big time dad what about eating your eating your child's fruit snacks by dumping it down your gullet yeah that's that's a dad move that's a dad producer i do a lot like if i open like a pack of gummies for them i'd be like i just got to make sure they're good yeah i just gotta taste these make sure they're okay everything that's the dad tax you just paid the dad tax um i the other one i do this is smaller scale but i've caught myself telling my kids to quote smarten up yes which feels just like yeah it's a catch-all right guys smarten up come on in what way just smarten up smarten up um i get irrationally angry whenever youths drive down my street too fast now we're always the youths it's

the youths it is i've i've actually like stared them down as if it's going to make a lick of difference when they're going by at 60 clicks like alfred stared at me uh we live relatively close to a school zone so i feel like we should get the runoff right like you should be going slow theoretically it shouldn't be time to speed more speed bumps two more uh every time i crack a corona in the summer i sing my corona to the tune of the next 1979 classic my shirona very nice corona yep and finally uh biggest dad dinner of all time where you're like i've gone out and cooked is getting a rotisserie chicken i live right next to two grocery stores rotisserie chicken yeah uh pick up like a loaf of like french bread or something that you can slice I live right next to two grocery stores. Rotisserie chicken.

Pick up like a loaf of like French bread or something that you can slice. He's done it. He's done the dad dinner. This is great. If you're feeling really advanced, you get one of those like pre-made salads if you want to put it on the side. And you're like, look at the feast I've created. Potato salad, man. Potato salad.

Yeah. But look at the feast I've created for you. None of it was made by me, yet I was able to go to the grocery store. And that's a full- Really fulfilling my hunter-gatherer. You have no idea how excited I am that you threw in the baguette there. It's like it's just the chef's kiss to the whole thing. If it's lunch sometimes I'll throw in the pot pie. Oh wow.

Out of the hot food section. The other thing that had made me feel most like a dad is coaching my kids' t-ball team and just trying to like keep the frustration inside and not let it show as i'm coaching the team so i had a spiel a couple weeks ago someone texted in saying they were first time uh youth sports coach for their kid i can't remember what sport it was but they said do you have any advice and i'm like yes just do it yeah 100% i agree and

there you need to overcome the fear of, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not that familiar with this sport. I'm not a natural born leader. Throw all that out the window and just go do it because that time will pass and you'll never be able to do that kind of cool thing with your kid again.

They'll be like, you're lame. Leave me alone. Don't hang around with me. But in those brief moments, they'll look up to you and they'll be, the cool thing is they call you coach and they don't call you like mom or dad or whatever.

That's good. That being said, be prepared for the most frustrating few months of your life. And it's also with kids that aren't yours. So you have to have some restraint, right? You can be like authoritative and you can be demonstrative, but it's a fine line with certain parents and

baseball is hands down the most difficult one and the reason for this is the sport inherently requires children to spend long times not doing anything also there's a lot of rules and then snap and there's a lot of rules and then you have to snap into attention and you can't like i coach practices and they're like you have to slow down your practice like it was always like high movement like we're moving we're moving we're moving and they're like that's not baseball but it's but it's what you have to do at a t-ball practice right because if you're just like let's play a baseball scrimmage and they're just standing out there in left field and they're not doing anything but when you get to as you go further and further along you actually have to coach kids to be prepared to stand there for long periods of

time like okay you're gonna watch an entire inning go by and every pitch you have to coach kids to be prepared to stand there for long periods of time. Like, okay, you're going to watch an entire inning go by, and every pitch you have to do the same movement. Like, if you're in left field, you have to run in to cover third base, even though there's nothing on third base, and then you go back to your position in left field. And that's tough because some kids, they'll just zone out, right? I will say the good far outweighs the bad. Like, I'm thrilled that I've coached T-ball and everything.

It's awesome, but it's just there's some time. I've really realized, like, I spend a lot of time tryingweighs the bad. Like, I'm thrilled that I've coached T-Ball and everything. It's awesome. But it's just there's some time. I've really realized, like, I spend a lot of time trying to tell the kids to hustle. Like, come on, guys. There's no walking in baseball. Run, run, run. Hustle, hustle, hustle. And then they watch a baseball game. You're like, wait a second.

These guys are just milling about. I'm actually excited to coach my kid because I've been a coach for many years of other people's kids. So I'm excited that my kids are finally going to be of age where I can coach them. It's fun. You'll enjoy it. You'll hate other children but you'll enjoy it. This is, I know we got to go to break but I got to read this one from Gary the Atheist who says

the most dad thing he's ever done yelling at my children that turning on the dome light in the car is illegal. For whatever reason when you become a dad and your kids reach up and turn on that overhead light. Two years in prison. It really is. Don't turn on the light!

I can't see! You want us to crash? Okay, we got one final hour to go on the Halford and Brough Show. Moj is going to join us on the other side of the break. We're going to do what we learned and ask us anything in the final half hour. We're going to give away one. Oh, Moj, just text me. Dad thing?

Kids and shopping carts. Oh, wow. Okay. That bothers him, too. That bothers wow. That bothers him, too. That bothers him? That bothers him. Okay. I think we're going to have to ask Moj for more clarification. Yeah, he will.

That's just the thing. Yeah. Okay. Moj is coming up next. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650.