Halford & Brough in the Morning - Embrace The Hardness

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at a busy sports weekend (3:00) including the Edmonton Oilers keeping their Cup chances alive (6:00), BC Lions winning their home opener over the Stamps (12:00), the boys look at all the EURO 2024 action thus far (27:00), plus they hear from Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet (40:00). 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.

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Jason, good morning. Good morning. Hey, dawg. Good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and bruv for the morning is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling.

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Visit their award-winning showroom today. Visit them online at vancouverhonda.ca. It's Honda's premier Vancouver dealer. Yeah, that was wrong. Well, sounds nice. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews.

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James Sharman is going to join us at 7am. Uh, he is our sports net euros, plural analyst. Uh, we'll get into all the excitement and action from the first three days of the tournament. In case for our Romanian and Ukrainian listeners right now, it's 6 o'clock in the morning. They are underway.

Two minutes into the match. We'll keep eyes on that and everything else that's going on today. I bet it's scoreless. It is scoreless. That's why I didn't even bother giving a score update. Although, if you were watching Italy and Albania over the weekend, you wouldn't have been able to say that

because Albania scored the fastest goal in Euros history over the weekend, 23 seconds into their match. Anyway, James Sharman is going to join us at 7 o'clock to talk a little Euros here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. We'll also look ahead to Canada at Copa America. 7.30, Hart Levine is going to join the program. He is the founder of Puckpedia, which many people are anointing to be

the new salary cap tool website of use for fans in light of the fact that CapFriendly is going to go dark in the beginning of July. So we'll talk to Hart Levine about his website, founding Puckpedia, how they are going to step into the big shoes, the big shoes that are going to be left behind from Cap Friendly. 8 o'clock, Randeep Jand is going to join us.

Sportsnet 650, Canucks analyst. He's also working the Hockey Night in Punjabi broadcast. We'll talk to him about the Stanley Cup final, the Oilers. He's got a new intro today, too. Oh, that's right. The dogs are also introducing Randeep's new intro. Rapphorns away. We'll talk to him about a big win for the Edmonton Oilers,

8-1 against the Florida Panthers on Saturday night, extending the Stanley Cup final by another game. And Jason, I know and you know that the Panthers are going to win. But what if? What if? What if? Yeah, we'll get into that. We'll get into it. Randy's up at 8, Hart Lev, what if? Yeah, we'll get into that.

We'll get into it. Randy's up at eight. Hart Levine at seven 30, James Sharman at seven o'clock. That's what's happening on the program today. Laddie, tell everybody what happened. Hey,

did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was, we know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? You missed that?

What happened? What happened is brought You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. Connor McDavid had a goal and three assists. Dylan Holloway, two goals and an assist. And the Edmonton Oilers stayed alive. They staved off. They stoved it off.

Elimination, defeating the Florida Panthers 8-1 in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday night in Edmonton. 8-1, that's a familiar score in a Stanley Cup Final. I believe that was the score in Game 3 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. There's our 2011 reference out of the way real early. By the way, I know I'm still traumatized by that because when Bobrowski got hooked after allowing five goals, I immediately thought of Luongo staying in goal

for all eight goals of Game 3 in Boston. Come on, AV, get him out of there, buddy. You know what? Well, the camera did pan to Luongo, right? They did show him looking. He's like, lucky Bobrowski gets to sit on the bench. He's mouthing the words. He's like,

get him out of there. Yeah, wow. We all know the story. It was Luongo, apparently, that went to AV and said, no, I can stay in there. To which I always replied, who's the coach here?

Do you think, now that we're on a tangent, do you think that if Luongo could do it all over again, he'd be like, yeah, I should probably... Yeah, get me out of here. I should have probably

left that for four or five. Yeah. Maurice said that five was Bob's limit, by the way. And after that, he be like, yeah, I should have probably left that for four or five. Maurice said that five was Bob's limit, by the way. And after that, he's like, we got to get him out of there. So I'm 99%. Well, 95%. Sure, the Panthers are still going to win the cup. But it's boring to say that, right? It's boring to say that.

Yeah. So just for fun, can you imagine if this is the way the Canadian drought gets broken? Shades of the 2004 Red Sox, who came back from 3-0 down to the Yankees, albeit that was in the ALCS, but they did do it on their way to breaking the curse of the Bambino. wondered like if there was going to be a Canadian team ever that breaks this drought since 1993, isn't it probable that it's going to be in some crazy fashion? You know, the more that you- Like the Red Sox, right? Yeah.

Like the Red Sox in 2004, they had the curse of Bambino, 86 years. They were down three nothing to the Yankees and everyone was like, oh, well, I guess it's just another year where the Yankees are going to get the upper hand on the Red Sox, and they come back and win four straight. I mean, it was – they still had to go and win the World Series, but – It was pretty easy at that point.

It was like – it was just – if it was going to get broken, it was going to get done in some sort of weird, dramatic way. I get what you're saying because, as you mentioned with the Sox. But I still think Florida's going. Well, okay. I'm just going to – I want to put this out there to the listeners because I was asking Laddie and A-Dog this morning. Do you think that they did enough to break maybe a little bit

the mentality of the Spirits or the vibes and the mojo and the juju of the Florida Panthers? Or did they go too far in scoring eight? There's a line where you put up enough offense that you throw doubt into your opponent, but then when you push it too far, too far, you piss off your opponent. I know nobody wants to hear this like oh i'm not surprised that happened but i i'm not surprised that game four went the way it did it's the same thing that

happened in the nba finals anyone watch game four that like the babs dominated the celtics the celtics didn't play anywhere close to the normal basketball they played and the panthers didn't play anywhere close to the normal hockey they played the nba finals could wrap up tonight in boston i'm sure the panthers had all their families in Edmonton for the potential cup win. That was probably a distraction. Brady Kachek was there. They probably weren't as focused as they needed to be. I think they'll be a lot more dialed in Tuesday after, frankly, getting embarrassed in game four.

Now, that being said, if the Oilers win Tuesday, all bets are off on this series. That's the game. That's always the turning point game, right? Because the way it's done with the 2-2-1-1-1, you get a game six back in Edmonton where it would be absolutely wild, and I bet the betting favorite in that game would be Edmonton. And then if Edmonton, the favorite in that game, wins,

then you get a potential game seven in Florida. And even if the Panthers are favored in that game, anything could happen. So what the Oilers are trying to pull off here, even just getting it to game six, is super rare. So there are only three teams in stanley cup final history that have gone to game six after losing the first three games and the most recent one was actually a series we covered it was the 2012 new jersey devils against los angeles kings i remember everyone was furious after the one because they had to go back to la everyone was

looking at the devils like what are you doing yeah. You guys are done. Just stop winning games. And then our old friend Steve Bernier took a major early on in that game. A five-minute major for body splashing. Yeah, that's right. It was boring. Didn't the Kings score like three times on that power play? Yes, and they just buried them. And it was just like, all right, well, that's over.

But here's the crazy one with this is that no team has ever done what Evans has done and gone down 0-3 and won game five on the road. So they are trying to do something that no other team has done before. And again, it's so difficult to read a lot into Saturday because you could tell at a certain point Florida punted on that game. Totally. I mean, they acknowledged it. They said they played terrible.

They put it this way. After a certain point, they just stopped defending the rush altogether. Like, whatever. Just get your points. It's fine. I bet they were kind of thinking, like, maybe Edmonton will just roll over and accept that they're dead in this series and we'll win the Stanley Cup here. And when that didn't happen, it was kind of like, oh, we are not prepared for this game.

No, and they absolutely weren't. And I'll say this this because we played the audio the audio that we played was actually of the eighth goal and that's the thing is you can't control the crowd like the players did nothing when mcleod scored he just kind of skated away and he knew like i'm not gonna sell you hard am i gonna do anything i'm not gonna make eye contact with anyone like it's eight one but the fans were going crazy and fair enough that willers fans have like nothing to cheer about in the stanley cup final so i don't know what it's gonna do it was so weird and so unique like that's never been done before a team's having that lopsided victory down three nothing in the stanley cup finals never

happened before so you're looking at and you're saying well there's no sort of precedent to fall back on i don't know if this means anything it'd be nice if the Canucks had blown out the Islanders in 1982 in Game 4 just to give the fans at the Pacific Coliseum something. Instead, they celebrated on the ice at the Pacific Coliseum. Okay, we can come back to the Oilers-Panthers series later in the first hour. We've got an open

segment on the other side, so if you've got any thoughts or comments on that series or anything in the world of sports, get your texts in now to the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650-650 Dunbar Lumber with three stores to serve you in Ladner on Bridge Street, Dunbar Lumber Express at Ladner Center or

Budus in Vancouver online at DunbarLumber.com. So there was a busy sports weekend, so we want to get over to many stories in the first segment as we can. The BC Lions defeated the Calgary Stampeders in front of a packed house at BC Place. Vernon Adams threw for 277 yards

and most importantly was not sacked a single time. He had two touchdowns in the air, another on the ground. BC defeats Calgary 26-17. The attendance, many of them there to see and only to see 50 Cent, 53,788, setting multiple records in the process. Lions hold up their end of the bargain. They get a win, which they needed desperately. Calgary, who's actually had two good performances from their quarterback,

Jake Mayer, in back-to-back weeks. Not John Mayer. He's a different person entirely good singer though uh they go to a one-on-one on the year so the the lions got a bunch of people in the door yeah uh they put forth a victory they looked pretty competent in doing so so they ticked a lot of boxes on saturday i guess they look pretty confident uh or competent i know a lot of negative nelly's were focused on all the people who left the game early or maybe even didn't stay for the game at all after the 50 cent concert but it's kind of missing the point of doing a

promotion like this the idea is to get people in the door, not all of them, but some of them who might end up seeing something they like and come back for another game. The issue I think the Lions had was they started badly. It was a really bad start to the football game. Overall, there was like 10 putts. Putts. I'm thinking of Rory already. Yeah.

There were like 10 punts, it seemed like, in the first five minutes. The Stampeders watched the Lions' first game. That's called a pre-scout. And they watched it against the Argos, and they're like, this offensive line is no good. So they pinned their ears back and went after Vernon Adams and had some success.

They didn't sack him. Nope. But man, they got after him. And Vernon Adams had some incredible escapes from pressure to avoid sacks. There were times where guys were just like either going unblocked or it looked like they were going unblocked. But no sacks. But no sacks, no bad turnovers.

It was just like a bad start to the game. And I do wonder if there have been a few people there that were like, eh, well, the 50 Cent concert was good. This is not good. And we're leaving. But credit to the Lions who realized our only job here is to win a football game. And they got the job done. Yep.

So moving ahead now, it's going to be a really interesting season to follow. I know we say this all the time when we're trying to hype things up, but there's such an interesting dynamic of all the successes and all the interesting, intriguing things that the Lions are doing off the field. And it's very obvious right now, having spoken with Neil McEvoy and everyone else involved in the organization, that there's a pressure now for the on-field product to match what they are doing off the field with the 50 Cent concert and the Touchdown Pacific

and, of course, hosting the Grey Cup. It's almost as if they've raised the bar and said, hey, we're doing all these great things. We're having all these big events. We've got the opportunity to make a statement this season. All the football team needs to do is win football games. I don't think they look that good. I really don't.

I mean, I watched the game, and I was happy they won, and Vernon Adams made some nice plays. But in the receiver core, we asked Mojo on Friday, what's the strength of this team? And he's like, the receiving core. I'm like, aren't they like all new? They are. But they did look good.

There's some players that can make plays, but I don't know. I think they're going to need to do a lot of improvement along the way in order to be participating in that great cup game. Speaking of interesting and intriguing, I've often bemoaned a lot of the most recent golf majors because they just didn't have a really great ending. Well, Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy threw that narrative out the window on Sunday. Bryson DeChambeau won his second U.S. Open title on Sunday

with a fantastic up and down. Yeah, look at me using golf parlance. Out of the bunker to deliver an unforgettable finish at Pinehurst. And, Jason, I know you were glued to the television watching that one. You really should have just called it a sand save. Oh. Yeah, it wasn't up and down, technically, but a better term would have been a sand save.

Okay, I'm putting that one in the old mental bag. Yeah, so there were two stories here. One was Rory and one was Bryson. And I'll start with Bryson who made an incredible sand save on 18 or up and down, whatever you want to call it. Long bunker shots where you have the option of either exploding the ball out of the sand or trying to clean pick it out of the sand

are really tough. Might be the toughest, you know, I mean, there are tougher shots. Like when Bryson was right up against a root, a tree root. That was a tough lot. That was crazy, right? But of all the shots that you're going to typically get, the long bunker shots are the toughest. And I know, you know, a lot of people who are watching

and even some of the analysts were being like, I would have clean picked that thing over the clubhouse. Like, and there's no worse feeling in golf than taking a big swing. Cause you want to have, you need to have a big explosion out of the bunker. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, I got all ball there. Goodbye. Uh, it was an incredible shot. Uh, the stats said that there was about a one and a half percent chance of getting that up and

down and bryson dechambeau got that up and down for a u.s open title incredible finish but perhaps the bigger story even bigger than that was rory mcelroy who has not won a major in a decade now, looking like he was going to win that, looking like it was his day to do it. And then he had two short putts in the final three holes and he missed them both. He had a 30-inch putt on 16. He had a four-footer on 18. The 18, that was a tough putt because, unfortunately, his chip left him a slippery putt. Like his chip was so-so. It got pretty close to the hole, but it was above the hole.

And you could tell when he hit that putt, it was like, oh, he's scared. He's scared of that putt. And the greens at Pinehurst were making a lot of people scared of, well, everything. But it was that putt on 16 that greens at Pinehurst were making a lot of people scared of, well, everything. But it was that putt on 16 that first of all got in his head. That caused him to be so tentative on 18. And then when he realized that he wasn't going to win, he didn't even talk to the media.

He basically got into his SUV that everyone, I think everyone gets like a car there, or at least the top players do. And he was like, goodbye. Yeah, I wanted to play some. Spun the tires and was like, later. I wanted to play some Rory McIlroy audio this morning on the show, thinking, hey, we can hear from Rory in the face of another disappointing, incredibly disappointing loss.

But no, just peeled out of the parking lot, didn't speak to the media. I'm sure there'll be a fine coming from the PG. He yelled goodbye, stink town. Yeah, pretty much. I felt almost sick to my stomach watching that because I had a chat going with my buddies. And when he missed the pot on 16, we were all like, none of us were like, it wasn't like we were all cheering hard for him,

but it was just like, oh my God, did he just miss that putt? And then on 18, before he was hitting it, we were all texting like he could easily miss this putt. Cause it was, I don't know, I've said this a few times. It was, it was a slippery putt and you could see the way he was set up to hit that putt. He knew it was going to be left to right and then but he almost was like oh i don't want to hit this too hard i don't want to put i don't want to i don't want to hit it through the break so he didn't hit it at all the crate they just quit on the putt halfway through and then it just like it went every weekend hack golfer has seen that putt and made a putt like that.

The problem is Rory isn't a weekend hack golfer, and it was a bad stroke. It was a bad putt. To give you an idea. No confidence. To give you an idea of the unlikelihood of watching what happened on Sunday unfold, you mentioned the stat on Bryson's sand save. It was 1.5% likelihood.

Something like that, yeah. Rory McIlroy, prior to yesterday, putts inside of three feet, tracked by PGA Tour stats, was 496 for 496. So he had made 500 putts at that length on tour. So of all the times to miss, it's Sunday, final round major and then bryson to pull this out sunday finally major the drama was off the chart well the golf coverage

needed johnny miller out there johnny miller's retired from broadcasting but he would always just be like pressure that's the pressure and it was. Right. It's the pressure of not only the U.S. Open for Rory, but breaking this decade long drought without a major. And he's just been through so much off the course as well, either business wise with the whole live golf thing where, you know, he stood up for the PGA tour and the pga tour was like

actually we're gonna make a deal with this sorry rory and then uh you know personally um that's a few weeks ago he's announced we're getting divorced and then the week before uh the u.s open is like no we're not we're not we're gonna reconcile and i was kind of thinking afterwards he was peeling off he's like i thought divorce is back on yes you know while i was playing we were getting divorced i i do think that he probably just saw the enormity of what that press conference was gonna be like and he's like you know what i'll take whatever punishment is coming my way i'm not i'm not talking about this i'm not i'm not talking about this i'm not dealing with it i don't blame him i would have done the exact same thing.

I was actually thinking when they showed him in the room there watching Bryson finish off the tournament, that he's thinking, oh my God, I'm going to have to face the damn media. You could see it. And they're going to be like. His face and his eyes. They're going to be like, do you think those two misses cost you in the end? You'll be like, yeah. Yeah, I feel like they hurt.

Okay, before we go to break, the European Championship, the Euros are underway. Kicked off on Friday, right after we got off the air and rolled through the weekend. Three major storylines from early days at the tournament. One on Friday, the hosts, the Germans, looked fantastic. Throttling Scotland 5-1.

Scotland looked awful too, by the way. Did Scotland even attempt a shot? Scotland's only goal was scored by the Germans. Rudiger put it in his own net. I believe they finished with an expected goals of.01. They did nothing. They didn't know how to defend. They didn't know how to attack.

They didn't know how to high press. They didn't know how to play in a low block. I don't even know if they recognize what the sport looked like. The anthem was good. I thought the anthem was good. Yeah. The bagpipers were going as loud as they possibly could, but it was not good for Scotland.

Fantastic start for Germany, though. That was on Friday. We obviously, one of the major talking lines, especially given Bruff and I's longstanding support of the English national side. England got off to a winning start yesterday, courtesy of a Jude Bellingham goal. 1-0 over Serbia. Another ho-hum performance from the English. They got the result.

Do you remember when Moj was asking us for goals on the bet? Hashtag Moj New. And then I said, well, I'm not giving you a full goal. And he's like, well, you've got to give a full goal. You eventually gave him a full goal.

And I was like, England wins 1-0 all the time, which is why I don't want to do that. He wanted to get him off the air. Yeah. Let's wrap this up. Yeah.

And England goes out there and wins 1-0. They looked pretty good to start, but they did not look great to finish. So you said, traditionally, historically, England always wins 1-0. They looked pretty good to start, but they did not look great to finish. So you said, traditionally, historically, England always wins 1-0.

The only thing that might be different about this English team is the guy I mentioned, Jude Bellingham. He is a special, special player. The kind of star quality at a young age that is breaking into superstardom right now on the international stage that England hasn't had maybe ever in this trajectory

in the way that he's going. He just won a Champions League with Real. Well, I mean, they've had lots of young star players. I don't think you should say that. But not at this trajectory. Like when Michael Owen broke in, he was still like a precautious young, like he hadn't really burst onto the stage. He burst onto the stage at Euro,

but he was still trying to figure everything out, right? When Beckham went to international competitions, I mean, to be dead honest, Beckham was a bigger star domestically and didn't really perform on the biggest stages. I mean, it was largely known for his failings at international tournaments. Bellingham right now has got the experience

of having played in a couple big tournaments. He's in the conversation of one of the best footballers alive right now. He's in the top five. He just looks like he has so much composure. And that's the thing. He looks like he plays on a different level, and that's kind of what I'm talking about. It's very rare that you get a guy who feels like he's coming into superstardom

in that moment on this big of a stage. And the other one, obviously, the defending champions, Italy. I mentioned it earlier. They avoided a scare because they gave up a goal 23 seconds into their match against Albania on a gaffe, on a throw in. And then just showed tremendous composure. Came back, scored twice within the first 20 minutes of the match. They won 2-1. So the defending finalists and runner-up or defending champion and runner-up both

win their opening matches. The host Germans win their match and then we've got a few more today including Romania and Ukraine which is still tied at nil-nil in the 25th minute. So we got an open segment on the other side so text in to the Dunbar Lumber text line with any of your thoughts or

comments from a wild weekend in sports. We can play some Rick Tockett audio on the other side. He was on The Chirp with Darren Millard. It's an NHL backed podcast. So we can play some audio from that because Tockett went into some pretty interesting conversations about how he's going to prepare

not only his team but himself for next season following his coach of the year season with the Vancouver Canucks you're listening to the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. It's Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and Satyar Shaw your destination for everything Canucks exclusive interviews inside info and even the postgame show listen 4 to 6 p.m weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app. 6.33 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by the Dilawri family of Acura dealers.

Experience the Dilawri difference today by visiting your nearest Dilawri Acura dealer. Today we are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler. Pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling. They recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver.

Spoiler alert! I know if you are a Romanian and or Ukrainian supporter and you're PVRing the game, turn off your radio. That obviously applies to most of our listeners. Romania's got up 1-0 on an absolute scorcher. Curler.

Fantastic goal from outside the 18. So they're up 1-0 on Ukraine. Sometimes I get confused with soccer talk because I want to use the word. Like, that was a howler of a goal. Because it sounds good. Howler, bad. Howler sounds good. Howler, bad. Howler's bad. Howler, bad.

Scorcher, good. Why is a howler bad? It's a mistake. It's a mistake. It's a gaffe. But it sounds like it would be good, though. Like, you fired a howler. Because you're laughing

at the guy. You're howling. The ball's moving so fast, it's howling. You're laughing so hard, you're howling. It was like, howl!

What a goal! Yeah, exactly. You all are definitely making this more confusing right now. We got some texts into the Dunbar-Lumber text line. Nice rundown of the Euros, except you folks didn't mention the Spanish side, who were dominant over the Croatians. Massive win, arguably more impressive than the German win.

Also, Slovenia versus Denmark was a fantastic match. Yes, it was. The Slovenians hung in there and got the draw in the end. Very pumped on the Euros so far. Christian Eriksen for Denmark scoring three years after suffering a cardiac arrest in the tournament. The delayed one because of COVID. And then you mentioned Spain.

So Spain has a 16-year-old playing for them right now. Yeah, who is that? Lamin Yamal. He plays for Barca. I don't know what else to say other than he's 16, and he plays like a man. Is that unusual? Highly.

There's not a lot of... You see young phenoms come along, but usually it's the older teenage years, 18, 19. Oh, he's a teenager still. So this guy is really, really good then? He's phenomenal, yeah. yeah and well you watch him play he doesn't look like a kid right he doesn't look like he can barely get his driver's license he has braces but um he doesn't look like he can get his barely get his driver's license uh there's some that there's it's the physical maturity that's a big thing really when it comes down to it is because uh you're playing i mean and i know that he's a larger puppy ah yeah he's 5 10 he's incredibly fast he's got all the attributes you would love

to steal from a younger person right he's got full of energy he's young he's fast life hasn't worn him away yet he hasn't been beaten down by family and wives and children and everything yeah he's yelling at him. Yeah. Right. He doesn't have a bad dad. Right. He doesn't need to drink seven cups of coffee in the morning to get her going. Okay.

I'm, I'm, I'm right. I feel some rejecting here. Did you take care of business here? I did. Okay. Uh,

another text in is Rory now classified as a choker. So many runners up and top five in majors, but can never get it done. Brad, he was classified as a choker before this tournament, and now he's classified as a super choker. That was, I mean, that was the textbook definition of a choke. A howler, if you will, those missed putts. You know what?

Howlers. I was actually also thinking like he was devastated, obviously. Didn't want to deal with the media. He was furious. He peeled out of there right after Bryson won. I don't even know if he congratulated Bryson in person.

It must be nice. It must be nice to be that disappointed. And they're like, here's $2.3 million. Sir, I know you're heartbroken right now. Maybe this will make you feel better. It's a big novelty check.

He's like, you know what? It does make me feel better. 2.3 million on a novelty check will do it. Also on the subject of golf, the Bryson DeChambeau glow up the Bryson DeChambeau glow up, the DeChambeau blow up, the changing of him being like a sort of unlikable. He's still so cringe.

I don't know. I kind of fell for him. I kind of fell for Bryson this weekend. I kind of liked him. I kind of liked him. But he's so, he's just cringey. Like he's, you can see. But it's an just cringy like he's you can see but it's an authentic they showed him signing his

uh signing his scorecard and he's talking all animatedly with uh Pavone who the French guy that he was paired with and like I don't know I was sitting there going he's like and then did you see that shot and that shot and that was crazy and Pavone's like I was also hoping to win this tournament like you know like it's just like there was no there was no recognition of of him either you know like I don't know I just find DeChambeau just a little much yeah

you know what but I'm just saying like I remember I know what you're saying though when he got when he was doing like he made a good effort to relate with the fans but he was just it was just different because when he was you know drinking 17 protein shakes a day and like existing totally on muscle milk and grilled chicken and he you know it was like okay he's interesting because it was like a living science experiment yeah but when you started hearing him talk about it it's like one too many joe rogan podcasts for you there

but and then well i don't think it's that i don't think it's that. I don't think it's that. I think it's more just like, he's got that type of personality that you're like, I know you're trying. And I think you're trying a little bit too hard. Someone just texted in. He's the guy that tries to get every single person to like him. Yeah. Is that fair?

That's exactly it. Okay. That's exactly it. Well, it worked on me. Here's another text from someone who either watched the concert on tv or saw clips of it or was in bc place 50 cent concert was way less family friendly than i anticipated but man was it fun it was that's a mea culpa from halford uh someone asked during ask us

anything friday do you think that it'll be clean radio edits from 50 cent you're like oh yeah i'm That's a mea culpa from Halford. Someone asked during Ask Us Anything Friday, do you think that it'll be clean radio edits from 50 Cent? You're like, oh, yeah. I'm like, oh, yeah, it's got to be. I mean, there's going to be so many kids in the family. Yeah, when I saw that, I immediately thought of Halford. I'm like, well, Halford was wrong there. And up. That was pure 50 Cent.

I didn't check with the 50 Cent people beforehand. I should have. I mean, it's kind of awesome that he went that route, though. I do respect it. That is very funny. You would think. All these young kids I mean, it's kind of awesome that he went that route, though. I do respect it. That is very funny. You would think all these young kids are like, what's he saying? How many 50 cent references do you think the TSN broadcast

managed to cram into the play by play and the entire broadcast? Oh, I was hoping because all the gamers like the Canadian press one and everyone else was writing it. There was several illusions like the Vernon Adams part and everyone else that was writing it. There was several illusions like, Vernon Adams partied like it's his birthday on the weekend.

And I'm like, not really. He only threw for 277. But I get the point you're trying to make. It was very ham-fisted. And there's a trip to the candy shop. Right. See, that's exactly it. You need to work in as many of those as possible. Trying to work in a Get Rich or Die Try.

That would sound super morbid, but I don't think I can. They start throwing in a few F-bombs. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, we've got to be careful. That's right. And the wide receiver was shot multiple times. Wait a minute. That doesn't work as well.

And that's the game. The BC Lions got rich, and the Calgary Stampeders died trying. But not actually dying. They were able to get back on their airplane and go back to Calgary. Here's an early what we learned that we wanted to read. BC Place has a lot of work to do before the World Cup comes. The lines were, there was a swear there,

astronomical insane to buy a beer, I missed a quarter. Someone swore in the, was it sent by 50 cent? Crazy. Yeah. And there was like a little emoji of a stripper. Oh. That's a 50 cent text. Yeah. Well, I mean, a little emoji of a stripper. Oh. It's a 50-cent text.

Yeah, well, I mean, I was at the Messi match, and I didn't even try and get anything to eat before the game because the lines were too long. And they were giving away 50% off and free stuff at that game, so it was very crowded. The Messi game, too, there was way more people in the stands at the end of the game. Like, a lot of people left.

And I think some people left because it's just a long, it was a long day. You know, you're in there. If you went to the festival before the concert, I think that started at like 10 AM. Yeah. The concert. And then a CFL game is not exactly short.

Um, and so some people left, but the crowd seen after the messy match was chaos outside. Trying to just walk around. So I mentioned this earlier about all the improvements coming to BC Place in light of the fact that they're hosting the World Cup. By the way, I used the Messi match, ironically. Did you hear he didn't show up? You can still call it the messy match, though.

I mean, what else are you going to call it? The Inter-Miami match? Half the people didn't even know what team he played for when they were buying tickets. They're like,

yes, he's coming? Cool. Who's he playing for? Yeah. Messy match is fine. Oh, speaking of that, Scott, with what we learned as we run through

everything that happened on the weekend, the Whitecaps are wasting away a hell of a year from Ryan Gould. Gould scored twice on the weekend in a 3 are wasting away a hell of a year from ryan gold gold had scored twice on the weekend in a 3-2 loss in new england to a bad new england revolution team one of the worst teams in the eastern conference and there were a lot of uh red flags that shot up after

that one including ryan gold who scored the only goals for the Whitecaps, including a cracker in the 90 plus fifth, I think it was, minute. He was very vocal in his disappointment and frustration with the side. He said, we had no intensity. There's something really off about them, isn't there? Well, it's not him. Really off. But it's not him. He's playing great.

The rest of the squad, not so much. Inconsistent performances up and down, not really being able to string together a lot of good. You know what I think it is personally is I think their squad is too thin because they don't have enough literally players that they can play with regularity. Because in MLS, you have a super compacted schedule. You play a million games.

You're in like 18 different competitions. You need a deep squad. And if guys aren't going, like I don't know if you've been keeping tabs on brian white this year but he is not scoring a lot totally i check it every year in the mess he didn't score in the year every day yeah he didn't score in the messy match either um it's not it's not been good i'm i've got some concerns about where the white caps are headed because it has been very inconsistent this season uh okay i i mentioned that the rickckett was on a podcast

called The Chirp with Darren Millard and he didn't get too into the details of the Vancouver Canucks per se and Darren Millard, I guess, hasn't been listening to the Halford and Brough show because there was no direct question about Elias Pettersson to Rick Tockett. But I did find some of the clips pretty interesting, especially this one where he was talking about coming off the Jack Adams win

and how he's going to capture the player's attention again and improve the team, but also he might have to reinvent himself. Well, I think you got to look at your team, you know, why we were successful, why we weren't, you know, what can we, you know, you look at your team, the players you have, and then is there something we can do different?

Obviously, we didn't score enough in the playoffs. Defended well, you know, we kept the low event games, but, you know, was there a goal here or there? So maybe I have to think of, can I open up the system a little bit? Is there a way we can be a better rush team? We weren't a very good rush team analytics-wise, but we were one of the best defending the rush. So is there a sweet spot you could find?

You know, I give our assistant coaches projects. You know, you look at the top three rush teams. What are they doing that maybe we can steal from them that can help us, but without sacrificing our defensive game. So that to me is reinvent yourself. Not being afraid to, hey, we're not doing it properly, or maybe we have to think of some other ways to do it. And I think that's what good coaches do.

Take a deep dive. You can do better. So we've all seen the quick turnover in most NHL teams when it comes to the head coach. There's only a few John Coopers out there. Actually, there's like one. John Cooper. John Cooper.

And it's really, really difficult to maintain the attention of your team as an NHL head coach. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's just the physical nature of hockey and how sometimes the coaches that are really effective and actually, you know, win Stanley Cups are not all of them, but a lot of them are very demanding of the players, extremely demanding. And eventually you just get tired of hearing, you got to win your puck battles, you know, you got to win, you got to win those, et cetera, et cetera, right? So I think what Talkett had this year,

which was hard, but also kind of a gift, was that he had this perfect storm heading into the year where he said, I know what I'm going to focus on, and that is pressure meet pressure. He said that over and over again, and he had a rallying cry that his team, fortunately for him, bought into. And they said, yeah, there is a lot of pressure

on us to have a good start. And then they did get a good start because they really focused on it. They didn't run from it. There was no like, oh, we've got to protect ourselves from these expectations. There was, there was a recognition. We got expectations.

Let's not run from them. Let's recognize them. Let's talk about them. And then let's overcome that pressure. And they did. So they had a great season jack adams winner for rick talkett coach of the year uh nearly made it to the conference finals nobody expected them to do that but now it's kind of like all right so what do you focus on next year you can't come in and be like

uh yeah me pressure with pressure right you know what i mean like sure let's go back to the drawing board on that one that seemed to work pretty well last year pressure with pressure but i see yeah you're talking about the the philosophical or the motivational side of it here right well there's part philosophical but there's also part like we need to make some adjustments right when the adjustments were it was pretty obvious it was you had a structureless i repeat structureless team under bruce boudreaux and that was probably another easy sell for Tuckett. He's like, what if you guys played with a little bit of structure and we stopped giving up six goals a night?

Maybe we'd be more successful. And they became a pretty sound defensive team in a lot of different ways, including, as he alluded to, really, really effective defending rush chances. I believe it was they had the lowest shooting percentage allowed off rush chances uh i believe it was they had the lowest uh shooting percentage like allowed yeah off rush chances by a fair margin that was personnel they brought in guys like carson susie who's good at defending off the rush but whatever the case they were good at defending that facet of the game but talk it that was a sort of acknowledgement in in the chirp that part of defending the rush comes at the expense of creating on the rush like there's there's a sense of well you know it's we're defending it really well but part of

the reason we're defending it really well is we we absorb more and we don't take chances with our guys positionally guys i think there's a couple issues why they they had trouble scoring off the rush one is exactly what you're talking about. They're so focused on the defensive side of things that not just defending rush, but defending in zone. They're like, okay, we're going to pack the middle. Well, that makes it hard to get going after you've regained control of the puck. But when you watch them in the defensive zone,

I noticed it a bunch of times is there are certain plays that guys make where i don't want to say cheat for offense but they can go in a direction that would allow an opportunity to go but they are very much like we're putting body on man first we're tying up pucks first staying on the right side of pucks always and that sometimes comes at the expense of maybe eh, maybe I'm going to blow the zone here. Maybe I'm going to shoot the other way. Or maybe I'm going to let someone else do my job and go the other direction.

And that's where I think, this is going to be the most fascinating thing. But don't you think the other reason is, just before you get to your point, they need more speed up front. I think that's a big part of it. They don't have a lot of burners that can, I'm not saying cheat, They need more speed up front. I think that's a big part of it. They don't have a lot of burners that can...

I'm not saying cheat, like not even cheat. No, but turn the transition quickly. Go from defense to offense because you've got speed. No, they need that. The question is, will they get it? And I guess the other question inherently is if you don't get the speed added to your lineup, can you coach it in? Because I think the only way to get those chances

is to say to guys, you're allowed to cheat a little bit more. And I'm not sure Toc is willing to go there. That to me is going to be the most fascinating thing from a coaching perspective, going from this year to next year. Two things. Is he going to loosen the reins

or adjust some things to allow them to create more offense in transition? And how different is the power play going to look because that's something that it seems as though he's willing to cede some power to other people because it was grim in the playoffs i know that the oilers uh were a great penalty killing team uh in the second round and i know that they've established that throughout the playoffs but it was it was evident in the first round against Nashville that the power play wasn't right and it was really... It wasn't right for a lot

of the regular season. And you can date back to the last couple months of the regular season where it just looked uninspired, stagnant, not dangerous with regularity. Their entries were terrible. And it's not right with a team that has the offensive weapons that the Canucks have. So those are the two things for me that I'm going to be very curious to see

if they can put together. And if talk, it can change. That's what it is. It's change. It's allowing yourself to say, yes, I was named the best coach in the National Hockey League last year, but there are some things that I can do differently.

Here's a word I prefer, Michael. Yes. Evolve. Yeah, right. You're not changing, you're evolving. You're evolving. You're not doing things differently, you're doing things better.

You're evolving like a Volvo. Like a differently, you're doing things better. You're evolving. Like a Volvo? Like a Pokemon. However I fear change. Yeah. Yeah. I want to play one more clip in this segment, and that is Rick Tockett talking about how things are not going to get easier for this team because, number one, I don't know if we got this part of the clip,

but he talked a lot about there's going to be changes to the personnel and that's going to be challenging because any new players that you bring in, you got to make sure that they've bought in with what they've been selling in Vancouver under Rick Tockett. And you got to make sure that they're the right fit and the right players. There's always a challenge for coaches when you got new players in that you don't a hundred percent know, but more specifically, things are going to get harder because the Canucks are not going to sneak up on anyone next season.

Yeah, because it's going to get harder, Darren. It's going to get really hard. We've kind of like raised the bar. Well, we've raised the bar. I mean, we were, you know, bubble team and there was a lot of noise in Vancouver, and they haven't won, and there's a lot of negativity. I'll be honest with you.

When it got there, there's not a lot of trust. And I think the last year and a half, because of Patrick Alvien and Jim Rutherford and the Aquilini family giving us what we need, the Quinn Hughes, the Millers and the Pettersons and Dempster, I can go down the list of guys, Myers, where they bought in to what we were selling and to trust each other. But now we're not, you know, we're not going to surprise anybody now. They're going, okay, we're on the Pacific division.

There's no easy games for us. And it's going to get harder. You know, we're going to have, our team could drastically change. We're going to lose seven guys, free agency. We're going to have to sign some players. So we could – you know, a lot of things can change here, but it's going to get harder. And I think we have to embrace the hardness.

Embrace the hardness. A new slogan for next year. Oh, so me pressure with pressure. Embrace the hardness. That was fine. I'm like the Cucks marching team going into panic mode. You Embrace the hardness. That was fine. I'm like... The Cucks marching team going into panic mode. You have to embrace the hardness.

Prep and I are talking while the clip's going. He's like, okay, take this to break. And then it's like, embrace the hardness. I'm like, well, there goes that. Rick, can you please expand on the embracing the hardness part, please? You know who's embracing... Oh, it's going to get harder. You know who's...

It's going to get harder. You're going to embrace the hardness. Okay, let me try. Ready? You know who's embracing the hardness? Okay, let me try. Ready? You know who's embracing the hardness? The BC Lions. The roar is back at BC Place for the BC Lions 70th season. Embrace the hardness and get your tickets now at bclions.com.

Coming up, we're going to dive back into the world of Euros. James Sharman, Sportsnet soccer analyst, host of the Footy Prime podcast, is going to join us. Coming up next on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. It's going to get really hard.