Halford & Brough in the Morning - Canada Soccer Icon John Catliff + What We Learned

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

In hour three, Mike & Jason chat with Canadian soccer great John Catliff about Canada's performance at the Copa America (3:00), the boys tell us what they learned (20:00), plus we hear from the humanoids (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.

801 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. This is the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd here 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. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 3 of the program.

John Callis is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off Hour 3. Hour 3 is brought to you by Campbell & Pound Real Estate Appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at campbell-pound.com today. 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 what you're waiting for. Our next guest, a former Vancouver 86ers legend, one of the all-time leading scorers for your Canadian men's national soccer team. Local legend John Catliff joins the program now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, John. How are you? Good, thanks, Mike and Jamie. Thanks for having me. I'm doing well.

I'm actually, I think I'm a little hungover from soccer. I don't know what I'm going to do with my time anymore. But thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, thanks for coming on. We were talking about it earlier. We did about 45 uninterrupted minutes of soccer talk, a new record at Sportsnet 650. But how could you not after the weekend that

we had and i want to go all the way back to saturday and what canada did against uruguay in that third fourth place match not just getting uh a really good performance against a very talented uruguayan squad but doing it after jesse marsh turned over like half of the starting 11 to the youngsters and the guys that didn't get that much shine during the tournament. Before we get into the entirety of the tournament, just your thoughts on what Canada was able to accomplish Saturday against Uruguay. Well, I think it was massive, massive for our program and massive for the build-up to the World Cup in a couple of years.

So I think it's another large step forward for our program. We're going to need to make a couple more if we're going to compete, not just play at our World Cup. But I was very, very impressed. John, I think a lot of Canadians who maybe don't follow international soccer that closely maybe didn't know a lot about Jesse Marsh, but they sure do know about him now and were really impressed with what he accomplished and just how he presented himself.

And, I mean, we saw how fired up he was, you know, how proud he was of the team. How important is it in international soccer to have a manager who's able to get that buy-in really quickly in these short windows for international tournaments? I think it's really important, but let's be honest, with all due respect to Jesse Marsh, the performances of this Canadian national team were born years ago,

not in the few weeks that he's come in and taken charge. I have all the respect for Jesse, and I think he's doing great things, but a soccer team doesn't galvanize itself to produce those types of performances over such a short period of time. It just doesn't happen. What we're seeing now is the continued success and performance, high performance, of a group of players that got us to the World Cup and continue to excel, albeit only scraping into this Copa. It was the core of players that qualified us at the top of CONCACAF for the World Cup that have created the basis for these performances, in my opinion.

So the last time we had you on the show, John, it was at the Hollywood Theatre, and we did the pregame show before Canada-Belgium, the opening match for Canada at the World Cup. And the optimism was high, and we were all very excited, and the Canadians responded with a great outing against Belgium. And then things have been rocky since. Obviously, the tournament didn't finish the way a lot of people wanted it to in Qatar, and then Canada soccer went

through some difficult times with this men's program. Having played for this organization and having represented your country, were there ever any doubts that you were in a uh-oh, here we go again scenario, or were you confident that they were going to be able to get this on the right track and get to where they were with a very impressive

performance at Copa America in 2024? No, quite frankly, I'm still waiting for the wheels to fall off this latest version of canadian locomotive um it it uh it's been a recurring theme for the past 40 years quite frankly we take one step forward and almost two steps back it seems now that we're able to put some consistent forward steps together, and that's very positive. The money that we got from our performances at COPA is going to go some way to help our financial situation with the association, but let's still remember we needed the MLS clubs to hire our coach. We're still on a shoestring budget,

and we're still requiring our players to pull rabbits out of a hat. We're speaking to John Califf here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. John, a Vancouver 86ers legend, Canadian national team soccer legend as well. Let's turn our attention to the two matches from yesterday. We'll start with the European Championships. Spain defeats England 2-1 in the final.

Spain, the class of the tournament, wins all seven matches. They did it with style. They did it with youth. And we were talking to James Sharman earlier in the program, and I said even though I was pulling for England in the final, I did begrudgingly admit that it was nice and maybe even fitting that the best and most stylistic team in the tournament won the tournament. Curious toudgingly admit that it was nice and maybe even fitting that the best and most stylistic team in the tournament won the tournament. Curious to get your thoughts on that.

I think you've hit it bang on there. I as well wanted England to win, but there's no question the better team won, in my opinion. And I don't think England ever really played up to its potential as pre-tournament favorites. And in the Copa America, you know, the tournament was almost a tale of two tournaments because you had what was happening on the pitch and this Argentinian team that's just racking up titles and accolades as they go along into the twilight of Messi's career. And then you also had all the chaos and confusion and craziness that is kind of inherent in every Copa America tournament,

but played out, I guess on a much different stage this year because the U S was hosting it. Uh, your enjoyment level of Copa America this year, the non-Canadian division, I suppose, and then Argentina capturing the title. Uh,

I think the Copa America tournament, uh, in large respect, put the euros to shame as far as compelling soccer. It seemed like uh there was too much respect in the games uh against the the uh superpowers as you were in europe uh and there was a lot of games that poor watches uh not so in the cope america where the the desire to pass the ball forward seemed to be a much higher desire to desire to block horns with the opponent was there for the entirety of the game

and not just for portions. So I think the Copa America, this last version was arguably the most successful, at least it was for the North American audience. And I also think that what we saw last night in Miami has given the North American soccer community a good taste of what they're going to expect. The attendance and the fans and the violence in the stands, the Uruguay families, all of that stuff,

that's only going to be escalated and magnified at a World Cup. And I think we kind of failed in a few key areas there hosting this tournament. So we need to look at our performance, or the Americans do, need to look at their performance. And I hope that the Canadians take some lessons as well on how to host major soccer tournaments. So looking forward to Wednesday night, BC Place, 7.30 kickoff. It's the Vancouver Whitecaps hosting Sporting KC on 80s night.

And it'll be a night where they remember, among other teams, the Vancouver 86ers teams that you starred on during that decade. How does it feel now, a couple decades on, to be appreciated and understood as one of the forefathers in the Trailblazers, the Canadian Soccer League, what you guys did as the Whitecaps, the incredible winning streak that you have still stands as one of the greatest marks of any team in Vancouver sports history. Now a couple decades on that you see the fruits of that with the Canadian national team and how the Whitecaps have grown to have 20 plus

thousand in attendance on a nightly basis. Your feelings going into Wednesday night for 80s night? It's great. It's such a great time to come back and see all your mates who really you haven't seen in decades. And to remember the times that we had together. And there were some great times and some successes. It's nice. And the Whitecaps are doing a great job in this 50th anniversary year

to bring all the alumni together to create a sense of the club's history and use that as a foundation to spring forward. And I think they're doing that exceptionally. So I'm excited to be a part of it. It's always fun. And I just want to thank the Whitecaps organization for their efforts in this regard as it relates to their alumni. Well, I'm really excited for Wednesday as well. I'll be going to the match and I'm happy that you'll be there. And I want to thank you, John, for taking the time to do this this morning.

It's always great getting caught up with you. Love talking soccer with you. Well-deserved honor on Wednesday night. Enjoy it. And let's do this again further on down the road. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Jamie. And let's do this again further on down the road. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Jamie. And good luck.

I hope you break your record for the longest soccer program coming up as we gear up for the World Cup. We're going to go a full hour, John. I promise you that. Thank you for doing this. Right on. Thanks, guys. John Califf, Canadian soccer legend here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650 featuring Jamie Dodd. 45 minutes of soccer talk, just you and me,

which the market has been clamoring for. You're hearing it more and more. And then two soccer guests. Yeah. You know, when they said Brough was going to go away and I was going to turn this into a soccer show, they thought they were joking. No, no.

I take that job very seriously. Dead serious. Dead seriously. Okay, we're going to do some ask us anythings and what we learned and by ask us anythings i mean we had a call last week for canucks related everything mount rushmore power rankings superlatives what ifs all these different scenarios etc etc someone sent one in um kind of related to the vancouver canucks but it's actually a jumping off point from a conversation i believe you and i had it week, and then we also reiterated it with Josh Elliott-Wolf

because we were thin on content last week. Let's recycle it one more time. Go back to that well. Not once, not twice, but thrice we've recycled it. A different wrinkle on this one, though. This one comes from Gurge on Twitter. Given the recent talk in the show about how underwhelming the Seattle Kraken have been,

both becoming relevant to the average Seattle sports fan and establishing a rivalry with the Canucks, was Ron Francis the worst possible GM choice? And then to really tie it into Vancouver, Gersh wants to know, is he their Stu Jackson? Whoa! Distant, aged shots fired at Ron Francis catching the Stu Jackson stories. Yeah, I mean, he's got a long way to go Francis catching the Stu Jackson.

Yeah. I mean, he's got a long way to go before he catches Stu Jackson. Yeah. You have to drive the team completely. Yeah. The ground, like they would have to leave Seattle.

I think for after what? Six seasons. Yeah. For, for him to be Stu Jackson level. He's not the worst possible hire because of course that would have been Jim Bang as we all know. Right.

So he's not the worst possible hire, but it's fair to say that it has not gone well for Ron Francis in Seattle okay so first off um don't Stu Jackson destroyed a franchise so I know that the Grizzlies documentaries that Cat Jamie's done um and the second one specifically dealt more with um why the Grizzlies are gone as opposed to why just big country was gone but that was a Stu Jackson pick I know that there were a lot of different people that were pointed to about why the Grizzlies failed but it'll

it's Stu Jackson like the player personnel moves were atrocious the approach was awful there was never any clear vision on what they wanted to do or what they wanted to accomplish and he missed on every significant pick that he could have. He was awful at his job. He failed upwards into every

job since then. He had no distinguished player personnel resume going into the... It was all on him. So that is a very low bar to set. With regards to Ron Francis in Seattle, here's what I know.

The pressure is on right now for him to crap or get off the pot with this team. I think patience has pretty much expired because he's done a lot of things now that would suggest that patience is over. For example, he fired his first head coach. So that's one of the things that you got in your pocket the card that you're allowed to play that's been played very interesting thing that i found courtesy of shana goldman from the athletic um in 10 years as a general manager in carolina ron francis kind of made it one of his calling cards that he didn't like to give out really onerous long-term contracts he gave out one contract in 10 years with term of seven years or more,

and that went to Jacob Slavin. And this past summer, he's given out two seven-year deals. What does that say? Francis spun it as, well, this is the fact that these, and it's Montour and Stevenson, that those guys want to commit shows that players want to come to Seattle and play for our great fans. Me, I took a more caustic look at that.

It's like, this is what you needed to do to get these guys in the doors. You needed to give guys that are this close to 30 seven years of term because you're kind of a floundering franchise, even though you're still very early in your existence. Those were the two of the more egregious contracts that were signed in free agency. And they've spent a lot of money in free agency in their short time in the league, right?

Andre Burakovsky to a big deal last year. Of course, Philip Grubauer as well in net. And typically speaking, spending a lot of money on non-star players in free agency is not how you build a consistently winning team. Although I understand that there is that level of desperation. One of the things they talk about in the NHL is not just related to Seattle, but just with general managers in general, the success of their first first round pick they make with a team is often a

really good litmus test for how long they're going to last with a team and how, you know, how their, their, their tenure is going to be viewed. Because if you hit on that first first-round pick, you've got a young, cost-controlled player who's performing well. Plus, you can point to it and say, hey, we've got this guy coming. We're building around him. It's all going really well. Matty Beneers is that for Ron Francis,

and he took a massive step backwards in every facet of the game. Scoring only going from 57 points in 80 games to 37 in 77. His two-way game, all of it. If that doesn't turn around, if he can't point to, hey, we've got Matty Beneers who's going to be a number one center in this league, that's what we're building around. If that doesn't change or Shane Wright doesn't pop in a big way, I think the writing's going to be on the wall for Ron Francis pretty soon.

So we had Dave Softy-Moller on the show last week from KJR Sports Radio in Seattle. We talked a bit of Mariners, and then we did a fairly deep dive on where the Kraken rank in terms of fan engagement, market saturation, because Softy covers both the professional and he's a huge UW guy as well. And he says it's a very crowded marketplace right now.

And the things that traditionally sell in crowded North American markets are winning and star power. Now, they had success two years ago when they got to the second round of the playoffs. But he said with Buneers, it hasn't had the trajectory of some other guys. Weirdly enough, there was sort of a weird julio rodriguez comparison to be made where you thought he was on a rocket ship to

the moon and then there was a step back and you're seeing the by now and i mean that maybe there's a second overall pick right like you need him to be not just a guy but a top of the lineup stud player and look he's still only 21 He'll turn 22 early next season. But 37 points in 77 games is a massive disappointment. But to turn it back on Francis, a lot of things, I'm not trying to defend his very, very, and I'd say overly conservative approach. There are a lot of things that didn't work in his favor

that worked for Vegas, which is always going to be the foil when you compare the two expansion teams, right? It's going to be wall. How can we not do what Vegas is doing? Why aren't you doing the Vegas things? He didn't have the element of quite honestly catching a bunch of general managers off guard with how the expansion draft is going to work. They all went through it. The ones that got burned the first time around, we're going to get burned the second time around. They took a more pragmatic approach of we're just going to play this straight. We're going to pick players that

we like both in the expansion and first entry draft and we're going to go from there. The bar was set unreasonably high as to what you're supposed to experience as a expansion team. To be fair though, they did get close to that bar in year two by making the playoffs and defeating the defending stanley cup champion colorado avalanche but um they have

not captured the imagination like vegas the golden knights captured vegas like it's so painfully obvious and part of it has to do with the fact that for all of the like eye-rolling glitz and glamour and the way that Vegas made it a big show, they understood what they had to do to capture the audience. I don't think the Kraken have ever understood that. And it feels like now the Kraken are kind of caught in between two approaches. I understand coming in and saying, we're going to be really patient.

We're not going to feel the pressure of Vegas and what they did. We're going to take our own path, and we're going to build this thing one step at a time. But now the problem with that is, then the pressure gets turned on the heat gets turned up and you go away from that and now you're just throwing money at guys who aren't going to move the needle for you and you're not really doing either one right you're not doing the really smart aggressive calculating stuff that vegas did you're not patiently building up step by step you're just kind of like ah maybe we can fight for the eighth seed and that's a bad place to be now from a vancouver canucks perspective um this absolutely stinks that it's gone this way

yeah because uh i am eagerly anticipating the day when the seattle vancouver rivalry exists takes off and is something compelling that we can talk about it annoys the hell out of me that every time i talk about the kraken canucks rivalry which is baked in it's the geographic rival that we've never had in this area um it's all this like waiting for guffman crap like waiting for something it might take a playoff series to be honest it might take that yeah i mean i mean obviously it would help if both teams were very good at the same time in the regular season, but fighting for a playoff spot in the

same season. So there's like a game in April that means something between the two teams. I definitely thought that prior to them meeting in the playoffs that there would be a infiltration angle. Not unlike what we see when the Blue Jays play in Seattle and it angries up the blood

because there's so many of it. I thought that that would have sort of manifested itself early. Canucks fans would have been loud and obnoxious and going down and making complete fools of themselves. But also showing out in droves like 5-10,000 of the available seats

or something like that. I don't want to misattribute this to a texter, but a regular texter. I want to say it's Tyler has made the point that there's a Saturday night game in Seattle on the schedule between the Canucks and the Kraken this year. And the only previous time that happened, I think there were still like border complications with COVID. So it was harder for fans to go down. So we might see that dynamic for the first time, right? A weekend game, no border travel things. You can go down. You can be loud. People

are excited about the Canucks again. So we might at least get that element for the first time this year. I guess the other issue is the crack. We're good to that. That would also okay. The other thing is I don't I also don't know how I rate a what a Kraken fan looks like, but like how many there are

and how I rate they would be if they got infiltrated. The only time I've seen Kraken fans get angry is at Tyler Myers. That's the only time. Honestly, I did not know that there was that sort of... Oh, they hate him. It's such a footnote here, but it's like they're trying to... This is what we do, right? We get mad at this guy for...

They're trying to learn how to be hardcore hockey fans. It's like, guys, we didn't remember that happened. They're going through the notes like, oh, is this what we do? Yeah. I mean, Softie brought it up on our show, and we were almost caught off guard. Oh, what? Yeah, didn't even know that was a thing. We got our own reasons why people dislike Tyler Myers here.

That was in the past, though. Now we love Tyler Myers, right? Right? Yes. Right, everybody? Yes. Right? Three more years.

Okay, let's do a quick reset here. Coming up in the final half hour of the program, we don't have a ton of Ask Us Anythings in the Dunbar, or sorry, what we learned is in the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket. 650-650 is the text line. You can text in on the Dunbar Lumber text line. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial Park, my favorite industrial park.

More room, more product, more awesome details at DunbarLumber.com. Get them in. What did you learn over the last 72 hours in sports? A lot of soccer. I have a what we learned. Do we want to do it now? Do we want to take a break? You know what?

I'm just imagining how for being an industrial park guy, and that's actually a secret hobby of his, where he goes around to different industrial parks. I love a good industrial park. It's a weekend thing. It's got two things I love, industry and parks. So I have this weird thing where I like going to industrial parks, and I go to all of them.

Just hang out. I just want to see what the landscaping looks like, how much foliage there is. Got a blog on it. We're going to tease Jamie Dodd's very exciting What We Learned. I don't know what it is. This has caught me completely off guard, and I'm very excited by it. It's caught you off guard that I have a What We Learned?

What? Yeah, usually it's like no one has one, and we're like, ah, let's just read some of the listener submissions. So we're going to do it on the other side. Jamie has come prepared on a Monday for What We Learned. I think I might have one as well, but I'm undecided as of yet. I'm going to hear Jamie's first and play off that.

Get yours in. Dunbar-Lumber text line 650-650. What did you learn over the last 72 hours in sports? Let us know. We're going to do them in the final half hour of the Halford & Brough show

on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Vic Nazar. Have your say and join me on the People's Show with big takes and even bigger bets weekdays 3 to four on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. Now for my favorite part of the show. What'd I say?

Talk to the audience. Oh. This is always dead. It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. On the show. 8.30 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford Brough featuring Jamie Dodd here on Sportsnet 650.

Halford Brough of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, 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 3 of the program. It is what we learn time. Hour 3 is brought to you by Campbell & Pound, real estate appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at campbell-pound.com today.

Good fade out. Okay. Thank you. It's the little things. It is the little things. Jamie Dodd is going to get us started here for what we learned. It's the highly anticipated.

So anticipated. I'm really glad you hyped this one up so much. I'm sorry. Didn't put me in a bad spot at all. Yeah, this better be good. I'm sorry, Jamie Dowd. It is not that good. But anyways, what I learned, we're going hyper-local here, guys. Great. Little Mountain Little League

are looking to become three-time consecutive BC Little League champions. The Provincial Championships going over the weekend being hosted by Lake Hill Little League champions. The provincial championships going over the weekend, being hosted by Lake Hill Little League in Victoria. Little Mountain, my Little Mountain. If you're watching on the stream, I'm repping with my Little Mountain hat. They're 2-0 so far.

They got wins over Wally and Beacon Hill. They play Lynn Valley today at 11. Israel Fares, beloved Lynn Valley. And yours, beloved Lynn Valley. And yours. I'm Lynn Valley. So Izzy and I, I think we're co-hosting together in August. We often do at this time of year. We have a rivalry going between Little Mountain and Lynn Valley.

I was thinking, you know, how like when two teams play each other in the finals, the mayors or the governors or premiers or whatever will make bets. And it's like, you know, Alberta and Florida. It's like, I'll send you some Alberta beef if florida wins and you send me a bushel of oranges if if edmonton wins i was thinking i should do something like that like i'll give izzy like a vinyl record or something right i don't know what the lynn valley delicacy would be

rain just a bucket of rain yeah here's some rainwater just like uh mountain bikes mountain bike shocks or something like that. Oh, yeah. That would be a good one, too. An Arc'teryx jacket. Yeah, that would be a good one. So anyway, shout out Little Mountain. I think it's really my assistant coach T-ball role that's really propelled this program to such great heights.

Well, Fred, you've got another burgeoning rival because i a dyed in the wool hastings little former coach hastings little league also at said provincials also off to a two and oh star so uh my kid graduated from hastings last year but played with a bunch of the kids that are currently on this crop of hastings little leaguers currently playing at lake hill uh so by the way this is the leaps and bounds that little league baseballball has come. They're live streaming every single game on YouTube. You can watch every single game from Lake Hill. Do they have, like, play-by-play? They have a game changer.

The game changer app has an AI voice. What? Yes, you can sync up. I don't care for that. Wow. They're coming for our jobs. Yeah, yeah. It's not very good.

It's better than the show, but it's still not very good um but it's an ai voice that reads out the box score as it goes in real time you can sync it up with the youtube feed which is soundless and you can actually i mean it is about as elaborate as you get for uh a little like it's a little league tournament the kids are like 12 and 13 years old it's remarkable by the way little mountain and hastings play tomorrow yeah it's a huge, huge clash. It's going to be awkward between us tomorrow. Yeah, we are definitely going to fight to the death over a team in which we have no children on whatsoever.

But shout out to Hastings. They won the minor provincials. This group won the minor provincials a couple years ago. Yeah, they're big-time favorites. Clash of the tight. Or even big-time favorites. You talk to the sports book. Big-time favorites. Yeah, Bet365 has them as heavy favorites. Yeah, one of big-time favorites going in. Clash of the Titans. What are your big-time favorites? You talk to the sports book. Big-time favorites.

Yeah, Bet365 has his heavy favorites. Yeah, what are the Vegas odds, Adam? Live betting. Am I live betting on Little League? Who's to say? Big-time favorites. Hastings Little League. Moo Cow.

Ben has a golf. What we learned. I'm going to start with saying that I started by playing t-ball at Little Mountain when I was a little kid. There you go. I'm biased here too. It's a 2v1 situation on you. Sorry, Halford. That's fine.

Tough. Golf won Robert McIntyre. Previous winner of the Scottish Open won over the weekend, finishing with an eagle on 16. And he birdied 18. And I know that's not overly significant. Like, yay yay good for him One his celebration was fantastic Putter down

Screaming just ecstatic So excited and then he says They ask him are you going to be at Troon tomorrow For a practice round because the British Open Is there this upcoming weekend And he's like I don't think I'll be legally able To drive by tomorrow And I just love how open athletes can be about this.

Like, I'm going to get messed up tonight. It's going to be a really good time. A Scotsman winning the Scottish Open is great. Fantastic. I don't know how it relates to like a Canadian when, what's his name? Nick Taylor. Nick Taylor won the Canadian Open. I don't know.

I'm sure it's on par. Yeah, it's just like when Nick Taylor won it, it had been so long. Right. That this is a bit different. It's kind of like, oh, you did it again. Good for you. And this was the guy that had his dad caddying for him. At the Canadian Open. Yeah, right. This is him, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah.

Good season for him. Dark horse maybe for some people in the British Open who want to place a bet on Bet365 or any of your betting apps. Yeah, I saw yesterday. He's a plus 2900 to win. Not that I pay attention to these sorts of things. He's skipping a practice round, though. As I'm bruising little league odds.

All right, we'll count that. Adog, you got anything? Well, I want to hear about Ben's golf story as well. It's not executed. My what we learned is Ben is good at golf, and I'll let you expand on this further. You're letting me expand on it further? Yeah. Ben, we kept tabs on you last

week at the BC Amateur. We only got your opening round, though, and then we kind of, for reasons unbeknownst, never got a follow-up. So I want to know, how did you fare? 71-72 to start. Made the cut, which was a pretty good accomplishment. Had a tough third round with 77.

But finished strong. Fourth round, 70. Good showing. I think it was T35-38 out of 160. The T stands for tied. Tied, sorry. Thank you. Decent result.

The winner, back-to-back champion now, Cooper Humphreys. I haven't seen him play, but I've heard fantastic things about him. He's young, lots of game. He won it last year as well. He finished at minus 13 for the tournament. Very impressive. I have many questions because this is about as close as anyone here is going to get to doing something professionally,

even though it's designated as an amateur tournament. It's still pretty serious, right high level of competition um so going in knowing that it's not your job and you play golf recreational a lot but like you it's not your career no uh you go in with you is right this is the high point of said career remember when we relitigated the willie mitchell trade um when you go into it what are you do you set specific goals like i want to finish uh in this particular region like top 20 top 30 i just want to play good golf i just want to have a good time like when you go in what's the expectation so this was my third bc amateur since i got back from school in from toronto uh i'd never made the cut

before so my number one goal is i wanted to make the cut that was huge for me and then the ultimate goal is obviously to win and play good golf throughout but wanted to make the cut and have a good showing have four solid rounds i had three solid rounds the 71 72 70 that's good golf and just one kind of bad day and but i think it's all about the process it's such a long week with the practice run you play five straight rounds of golf it's it was so hot last week right in abbotsford you've really got to take it one shot at a time because you're gonna hit great shots and you'll hit shots where you're like i think my dad who was caddying for me thank you to him i was like maybe you could have done better on that one so it it happened so is ben

the most athletically proficient i don't even just say it's 650 because like obviously no one's touching it quite obviously but like in vancouver sports radio history the best actually at playing a sport whilst on the air whilst on the air in the industry that's a good question i feel like you're number one man wow you're bringing some much-needed legitimacy to things. That's an honor. I have so many questions. So when you go to an event like that, how wide is the scope in talent? Oh, it's...

There's no hacks out there. No, no, it's the best players in BC. Right, but there's got to be some on the low end that are like, I shouldn't be here. No, because you have to qualify to get here. Okay. So we had to play the city championships a few weeks earlier. And this is all very hard on the boss, on Cam,

because I gotta lay out, like, I gotta play this tournament and if I make it, I make this tournament and if this happens. So I was 74-67 in the city championships, and so everybody has to play in that to qualify from their district around the province. So there's no hacks.

What's your handicap? I'm a plus four, so minus four. Okay, what's... Plus is minus. Yeah, that's weird. I don't understand. Are we in the matrix? I think we have it on the board here. Brough's like a two handicap. He's a two. Okay, so would he be completely out of place at this?

Yeah. Okay, so that's the difference. It's like... But he would say that too if he was sitting right there of course of course i just wanted to like lay out for listeners right like a two handicap most people that's a really really good golfer everybody at this is scratcher better yeah okay and it's it's you're like walking on the range to warm up and everyone's striping shots and you're like well everyone looks pretty good and it just comes down to who can make some putts and I mean, minus 13 as a winning score is pretty

fantastic. That's, it's impressive. And the really cool thing was the course was in okay shape, but it's the home course of Nick Taylor, Adam Hadwin, a ledge view in Abbotsford, which is what we played. And I walked away from the first round being like, yep, if you can play golf here,

I understand why you can play golf at a lot of different places. So that was kind of neat to play where those guys grew up and see where they honed their game in, which have led them to be so successful. Well, Ben, I don't say this often of coworkers, but I'm proud of you.

What is this feeling? Thank you, Mike. Yeah. Pride, but less shame. Yeah. And now how to make it shameful. We moo cow, your honor. I have a second what we learned if we want to do this.

You know what? Sports related. Barely anything going on. I just feel like we got to bring this up at some point on the show because what I learned over the weekend is that young Josh Elliott Wolfe is a battler. He's a fighter. All right? So it was Josh Elliott, not his official bachelor party, but his Sportsnet 650 bachelor party on the weekend.

I don't know if you were invited or not. I was invited. Is this awkward? Have I made it awkward? I take full responsibility for what Jamie is about to say. Am I learning about it for the first time? Possibly. No.

Yeah, I was out of town this weekend but josh and i worked i wished him a happy and soon to be not sober um bachelor party on friday after we finish the show anyway continue okay so i they they started at the lions game i could not make that part so i met up with the group at uh a park at the casino after so i got there about eight and shortly after i arrived so we're talking like 8 15 8 20 josh elliott wolf people are calling it like the tebow pose remember tebow would be like hand head and fist on the sideline before the game right yeah that's what josh was doing like hand head in hands for i want to say an hour the better part of an hour at the bar just going through it i didn't see i was

there ben you said you might bear some responsibility for what got him into that state elon and i definitely were like let's have fun tonight but we're gonna have fun at the line i was like man i showed up here at 8 15 i'm not gonna talk to josh he's gonna be gone by nine o'clock here at this date but full credit to josh elliott wolf i don't know what kind of demons he was battling in his head what he was going through during that stint, but he made a trip to the bathroom. He came back. He rallied. He was back.

By the time I left, he was playing at the Crab Stable. The Pickleback Demons. So shout out to Josh Elliott Wolf for fighting through it and getting back on the horse at his bachelor party. Drunk Josh yelling out his Sadin PD take at the top of his lungs. At a crap stand. Why did we trade Willie Mitchell?

Just listen to us. It'll make sense. Okay. Mook out that. Okay. Fire up the dumb matrix. Still play the fire plan drop, even though they're on hiatus as a sponsor. Free sponsorships.

Play it. Oh, my God. We're having a fire. Free sponsorships. Play it. Oh, my God. We're having a fire. Plan. That's amazing. It's summer, whatever. What? I'll tear this thing to the ground if I want to.

It's my name on the masthead. Harry from New Westminster with an Ask Us Anything on a Monday. The chaos is out there. Who would you have as your second line center? Peak Trevor Linden, peak Ryan Kessler, or peak JT Miller? I thought about it, and it's peak Kessler because the elite two-way game. Don't you think JT Miller, though, with the point production this year? I think this was probably the best individual season

that any of those three players has had. Now, Kessler, the the Selke puts it into consideration 40 goals that's an incredible accomplishment but I mean JT Miller was a pretty good two-way player this year one of the few things that I will agree with Bruff on is he's got this long-standing assertion that there's a correlation between Stanley Cup winners and a Selke caliber or Selke winning center is that in the playoffs where you need, you've got your, and it can be both. Your front line guy can be your Selkie winner,

but you need that defensive center to win. And it was further cemented this year with Alexander Barkov and the Florida Panthers. And I do got, every time he says it, I'm like, damn, he's making a good point. I hate when he does this. And I nod and I think he's right. And so for me um kessler gets

that slight nod because of the maybe more astute two-way play i do kind of like i love miller miller miller this year was great yes we forget sometimes and only seven canucks scored 100 points in a season i think it depends who your first line center is that's true can the answer be dependent on that yeah i do think like 40 goals on a selkie in the same year is pretty rad that's an amazing season that's an amazing season. That's an incredible season. I think people forget, I mean, he scored 40 goals, but he was the other forward on Power Play 1 that year, right? He was doing literally everything that they asked of him

and doing at an incredibly high level. And points production-wise, he didn't get 100, obviously, that year, but he didn't have a Brock Besser on his wing either, who scored 40 goals. And the scoring environment was a lot different then. That one singular season, also given

what he did in the National Series, like having a series named after you. We talked about that last week. If you were able to take that one singular snippet of a season and say that's the peak, and you plug it into any era, I think that's the one I'm going with. Miller would be number two by a hair. And then Lyndon would be number three.

All right. What we learned. This is from our good pal, Mike, the urologist from Brockville, who sent this in earlier. I believe he's in the operating room currently. So best of luck to Mike and his patient. Just doing the table. Doing some urology. Just doing some urology.

But he sent this one early. I'm going to screw this name up. But Tadej Pogacar had two incredible Tour de France stage wins over the weekend, breaking decades old records for climbs and absolutely crushing everyone else. He now has a massive three minute gap over Vingegaard, who himself broke records but is still behind. We are witnessing generational cycling talent and he says and hopefully not generational doping uh at the tour de france um i wanted to read that one because mike has been dutifully texting in tour de france what we learned for weeks here and we just haven't had time to get to him and i said okay the soccer's over

i'm gonna do mike a solid here i hope he gets a big thrill when he gets out of the operating room and listens to this back on podcast. We mentioned it. Mike has been texting in for a while, so I went and tried to do some cycling research. The only thing I came up with was there was a guy that had to drop out, unfortunately, because he had COVID, but his name was Tom Pidcock.

That was your takeaway? That was my takeaway. Nice. Does he know Bob Nutting? How many field goals did Louis Pasella make a tandem bikes tour de France what how many field goals in a row is the record for BC Lions 69 69 and then it's not the Lions though it was a red black for CFL oh and

then the guy was like I'm done I'm gonna miss this next one sorry coach yeah he was Englishman he's like I get you get the understated humor of 69 jokes the english love the understated humor it's pretty highbrow not for everyone exactly you'd expect from an english comedian um okay uh i got one here oh yeah what we learned unsigned so it's from gary the copa america was disorganized filled with dodgy officiating decisions and an incredible amount of diving whiningining, and thuggery from players. And I hope Canada is there again in four years

because it still generated some of my best memories ever as a fan. Yeah, okay, so Ben, you haven't worked with us in a while. How glued were you, I'm assuming you were because you're a sportsman at heart, to the Canadian soccer journey at Copa? Did you watch it intently? So soccer is the one sport I really don't pay attention to.

Ever. I'm sorry. The listeners might love that take but I am really checked out on MLS, Premier League, unless it's big stuff. But when Canada plays I make it a complete thing that I gotta pay

attention to. I watched all their games. Good. As much as I could. And so it was important to me. I thought it was cool. I kind of got to know the players. I kind of got very frustrated with Jonathan David and his lack of finishing ability.

But it was big to me because this team has made such progress and I've followed that progress. But I don't have a club team necessarily. Sure. But that's the beauty of like a club team necessarily. Sure. But that's the beauty of following a national team. Exactly. You can get to these heights. I mean, it's really easy to, you know,

I don't know anything about the sport, but patriotism, right? It's totally that. Yeah. This one came in earlier from Justin Muse Van. Now it's an ask us anything, but I'm just going to flagrantly violate the rules here and do it anyways.

He says, after losing their matches this weekend, who would win the Halbro Consolation Cup between Canada and England? Which I thought was a really interesting question because, of course, England made it to the final, lose by a goal, but they were so disappointing for the whole tournament. Canada loses their final two games, but they were really impressive against Uruguay. It's still probably England, right? The talent gap and all that is still probably there, but theuguay it's still probably England right the

talent gap and all that is still probably there but the fact that it's even a reasonable question I think is really telling and I know you mentioned this with Sharman earlier in the show but the performance from Kone is so big because that's really been one of the things that Canada has been lacking is somebody who can take charge of the game in midfield in midfield it's so important and if he takes that next step to being that type of player game in midfield. It's so important. And if he takes that next step to being that type of player, then in a couple years it might not be ridiculous to ask, can Canada hang with a team like England?

Number eight. Very well done. A box-to-box midfielder, Ben. Let's go. Look at you. That's really impressive. I'm more proud of you now. This is a big show. Yeah, than your golf.

Than your very impressive individual sporting accomplishment the cone thing was great because he's actually kind of become what i think everyone thought eustachio was going to be eustachio's actually form is kind of wavered a little bit um what's crazy is that some of these guys when you look at their rise go look at where moist bombito was playing soccer three he's He was playing at a community college in Iowa or something like that. Schaffelberg was on the second team at TFC. Kone went from being an academy player to starting for Watford and the champion.

These guys had huge, huge jumps up. And it kind of goes to show how much talent the country has, but also when they're finally able to be freed from the shackles of the Canadian stigma. They no longer have to kick the door down for some of these clubs because they're looked upon unfavorably. Everyone's kind of intrigued by Canadian players now,

and it's benefited a lot of these U.S. Yeah, and I think for a long time, you had Jonathan David, you had Alphonso Davies, you had Tejon Buchanan, Kyle Lahren. You could see, like, okay, you can win with that group of attacking talent, but then in midfield and the defense, do they have the talent? Their Kone developing like that is huge for the program.

Unsigned, what we learned here. So, again, it must be from Gary or Gary, as it was. Hashtag WDW. If you're going to up the soccer talk, you should have to use your Spanish names during those segments. So I would be Miguel. Jamie would be Jaime. Jaime Dodd.

Jaime? Jaime Dodd. And the dogs would be Los Perros. I like Jaime. Los Perros is good. Dan Riccio, I forget the genesis of this, but for a long time would exclusively call me Jaime. Really? I don't know where it came from, but he really made a run at making that my nickname at the station.

Miguel Halford and Jaime Dodd. Jaime Dodd. You got one there? Me? No. What? No. What are you talking about?

Oh, what we learned. That was it. Justin and his family. Another one. What we learned. Brough's European vacation worked out perfectly for Halford. Mike finally got a two-week window to dive into the footy talk. And then Brough came back from vacation.

Yeah. So he's back on Wednesday. Yeah. Was in Europe for the duration of the European championship, the second half of it anyway, but got to avoid me completely turning this into a footy show. There was a certain point in the evolution of Halford and breath, the footy version where I just stopped apologizing and was just like,

you know what? We got to lean into it. And this weekend, I mean, let's be honest here. The football over the soccer overshadowed everything. Of course, Wimbledon was a footnote.

Yeah. Wimbledon was a footnote. Like it got no run yesterday. It was third or fourth on the list of things that we talked about. I mean, and amazingly, our listeners have not really been complaining that much. Well, it's because it was front and center. It was everywhere. I mean, like, one of the major networks in this country yesterday

had a European championship on in the morning and the South American championship on at night. Like, that is a full-fledged footy day. And it's been hot footy summer and I've loved it. I don't want it to ever stop. The last week of July when you and I go away that's going to be an entire week of golf talk. I will say also

and I'm on the show the entire week. It'll be all golf all week. For soccer content, of course, the Canadian women's team trying to defend their gold medal coming up in Paris in just a couple of weeks here. So more hot footy summer on the way. Yeah. Oh,

speaking of the basketball, I meant to ask you how excited are you? Basketball Ben pumped for the upcoming. Yeah, this is fantastic. I watched the game on Wednesday night. Yeah. And I wish Canada would have maybe tried to roll out a little bit more of a

competent like minutes dispersal. Yeah, it was weird. And no, I knew what he was saying. Jordy Fernandez didn't want to tip his hand at all. No. And he also didn't want to get anybody hurt.

But in the fourth quarter, it was still within... I love the Scrub Brothers, local guys. They got it down to like five. Yeah, they played great, but it would have been a better dress rehearsal if the big guys had gone at it. Because I feel like Murray and SGA could use a few more reps in

the backcourt together and play a little bit more because you know they're going to be fundamentally important. It was very apparent to me that they lack size up front and the depth at the center and forward positions but their guards and their wings are pretty solid. They can keep up for sure and it is not out of the question for Canada to medal at the Olympics here and even give the U.S. a scare if they were to see each other at some point. I mean, Embiid fouled out.

He played 11 minutes and fouled out. But Canada's in a group with Spain, Australia, who are not as good as they usually are. But they can make some serious noise, I think, for sure. The games are awesome. Spain's number two in the world. Australia, at least, they're not as good as the East, but they can make some serious noise, I think, for sure. The games are awesome. Spain's number two in the world. Australia, at least, they're not as good as the East, but they're still number five. And then you got Giannis as well.

They're going to be must-watch games. I'm excited. Serbia in the U.S.'s group. That'll be good, too. With Jokic. Okay, the music means we got to get out of here for today, but don't worry. We will be back tomorrow. Signing off for now, I've been Mike Halford.

He's been Jaime Dodd. You've been a... Los Perros. Yeah, you have been Los Perros. This has been the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.