Halford & Brough in the Morning - Embracing Hard

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Mike Halford and Jason Brough look back at the previous day in sports which include the potential addition of Matthieu Betts to the BC Lions. They are joined by AP’s Stephen Whyno to discuss the Olympic qualifying tournament, The NHL 4 Nations Face-Off and Pierre-Luc Dubois. 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.

You're listening to Half here it's heading. Leading the moment. Leading the room. And leaving the yard. Dempster was in town working with the team. And they were still hopefully be ready for the start of the season. Day one. I don't want to go really hard.

I want to go medium hard. The second day is going to be really hard. Oh, I'm hard. Oh. Good morning, Vancouver. 601 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. This is Alfred.

It is Bradford. It's Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios. Your beautiful Ferry Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Lena, good morning to you. Good morning.

Laddie, good morning to you. Hello, hello. You've got the giggles this morning just because you're a child. What? And you know how last year, and I'm talking to listeners here, was meet pressure with pressure? I think this year is embrace hard. That's the slogan from the Canucks.

Meet pressure with pressure was last year. That was so last year. This year, embrace hard. Embrace it. With two hands. It's not the embrace hard part. It's the degrees of hard. Should we all go around and talk about how hard we are?

No. Maybe. I want to go medium hard. Yeah, like, I don't... I was... I mean, it's just funny. Like, there's soft hard, which is soft, or not that hard. Yeah.

Then there's medium hard, which we've all struggled with. There's hard hard. Then there's hard hard. Especially after a big night. Right. Then there's hard hard. What is soft hard? Especially after a big night. Right. And then there's hard heart. What is soft heart? Soft heart, I don't know.

You lost me. Probably just soft, right? It sounds like a, it's like, how do you want your eggs done? Soft heart. Excuse me? Can we do, it goes back to the chef there. We can't even do that. Do we have a clip to play later in the show?

No, that's the only reference we're going to have. Okay. Hopefully we do. People are probably wondering where that came from. What are we talking about? You'll have to find out. Before we do any of this, how rude of us. Intern Zach is here, but I realize he can't no

longer be Intern Zach. No, he can. No. Why not? Because he's not an intern anymore. Yeah, but that's what he's known as. I was workshopping some ideas. I came up with Regular Zach as a nickname. Pretty great. Anyway, throw him on the microphone. Good morning, Regular Zach.

Hello. Good morning. Great morning. Great morning. There you go. Medium Zach. Or Medium Zach is also the running. Those two are there.

Okay, we got a big show ahead on a Thursday. Guest list begins at 630. Steven Wino from the Associated Press is going to join us. So when we were talking about international hockey and the return to best on best, Four Nations face off Olympics, we were looking forward, but it

actually begins today. There are three spots up for grabs for the 2026 Olympics, and that tournament gets underway today. It is a crazy tournament. There are 12 teams. They're broken up into four groups. Sorry, three groups of four.

And they just play each other one day after another. So three games in three days, and then that decides who goes. Wow. So I imagine Artur Silas will be a big piece of the puzzle for Lafayette, right? Jason, you are very good at this radio thing. That was an excellent tease because Archer Silas will not be a part of the Latvian team, which is hosting their group. Why not?

We'll get into that and what happened. Maybe with Steven Wino. I don't know if Steven Wino, who's like an American Associated Press writer, went over there and was like, so he was probably over in Europe just for the big Euro media tour. In Prague, right. And just decided to write a story on this. But I don't think he was like headed over there and being like, I got to find out what's going on with Latvia.

He's digging into the sea loves story. Just to make sure that Erder Sea Loves is healthy. We should ask some Wino about the Washington Commanders. Absolutely. Because he's at their training. That's his regular beat. Yeah. So Stephen Wino. Two things we want to talk about. Absolutely, yeah. Because he's at their training. That's his regular beat. Yeah. So, Stephen Wynneau.

Two things we want to talk about with you, Stephen. Latvia. Yep. Trying to qualify for the Olympics in hockey. And Jaden Daniels. Yeah. Related stories. The symmetry there is off the charts.

6.30, Stephen Wynneau from the Associated Press is going to join us. 7 o'clock, Adnan Virk, MLB Network, Shohei Otani Talk, and Aaron Judge Talk with Adnan. At 7, we can get into some other topics as well. 7.30, Adam Stanley for a little golf talk. Okay, correct me if I get anything wrong here because I tried to research as best as possible.

Tour Championship begins in a matter of hours from the oldest golf course in Atlanta. Eastlake Golf. Eastlake, thank you. Eastlake, but they've done a bunch of changes there, so it's newer. So Atlanta. Eastlake Golf Course. Eastlake. Eastlake. But they've done a bunch of changes there, so it's newer. So new Eastlake. And Victor Hovland is the defending champion?

I don't remember that. Okay, I think it is, yeah. But remember, this is the tournament where they get a head start. Oh, right. Yeah, it's based on your FedEx Cup standings. That's right. So it's like, that guy's already been good. He's played no holes, and he's 10 under. So Adam it's based on your FedEx Cup standings. That's right. So it's like that guy's already been good. He's played no holes and he's 10 under.

So Adam Stanley's going to join. What a great, he must have been amazing on the range. Adam Stanley's going to join us at 7.30 to explain this very, very confusing golf tournament that will be starting today in a matter of hours from Eastlake Golf Course in Georgia. At 8 o'clock, Thomas Drance, the Drancer from The Athletic. We'll talk to him about any Vancouver Canucks news,

goaltending and or otherwise. So working in reverse on the guest list, eight o'clock Drance, seven 30, Adam Stanley, seven o'clock, Adnan Virk, six 30,

Steven Wino. 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 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 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. More big news out of the Canadian Football League yesterday, and it comes yet again from your British Columbia Lions. Now, the signing has not been made official by the club yet, but according to multiple sources, Matthew Betts has agreed to a one-year contract, that year being the remainder of this year, to return to the BC Lions for the remainder of the 2024 season.

We were just talking about this guy. We were on Monday with Moj, as a matter of fact, because that was the day prior to NFL cut down day. Matthew Betts, the 29-year-old lineman, who last year was the CFL's most outstanding defensive player, was trying his hand at the NFL with the Detroit Lions. And he made it all the way until the final cut down day before the Lions released him,

opting to go with other options on their defensive line. And then shortly thereafter, Betts reportedly signed with the Lions. The CFL does not have a hard salary cap, does it? I can't really tell how it works. I know that if you go over... It's just a soft salary. Yeah, you go over, you pay a penalty,

but I don't know if it's like dollar to dollar, like every dollar you go over, you have to pay a fine. Sometimes it can involve draft picks, and sometimes they're just like, hey, don't do it again. Yes. All right?

You scamp. I'm a loony over. Oh, no. Well, I mean, Farhan pointed out on Twitter, like this won't be the first team to go over the cap in a year they host the Grey Cup. There's a lot on the line for the Lions this year.

If they weren't hosting the Grey Cup, there's a chance that Nathan Rourke wouldn't be with the team right now. I'd agree with that. Because they're paying him a lot of money. Now, they might feel that Nathan Rourke is a guy they want to keep for the future. They might feel that, well, he's probably not

going to try the NFL anymore. So maybe we can keep him as our quarterback for a long, long time. Matthew Betts was definitely related to the Grey Cup. Adding him was – the Lions, by the way, they didn't maintain his rights or anything. They didn't have his rights. He could have signed anywhere.

He could have signed anywhere, but they were probably like as soon as he was cut by the NFL Lions, they were like, we got to get on this guy because I don't know if anyone's noticed, but our defense stinks. Yeah. And, you know, he's going to make a difference because he's going to be one of those guys that can just make plays right now. He's not going to solve the tackling problem that the Lions have.

I mean, he might by himself, he might make some tackles, but they might still have some issues with that and they've still got to get better as a unit. But I think you're just looking for someone who can go out there and make a play and he can make a play. There's a reason he got a chance in the NFL and that's because he piled up a ton of sacks for the Lions last season. Yeah, I mean, he's good as... I don't want to go out and proclaim too much, because as we saw with Nathan Rourke, it might take a little while to get up to speed. But he's going to be expected to fix the pass rush, which has been not good.

And we talked about that with Moj. We referenced Farhan's lengthy breakdown on Twitter over the weekend, where he was talking about just the lack of playmakers and big playability guys on the defensive side of the football. The tackling thing is one thing. They don't do a good job of tackling, especially in the secondary.

But then more savvy football coaches will tell you the units don't exist in vacuums. Part of the reason why the secondary might not be great is because these guys are getting to the next level. So how do you stop that? Well, you rush the quarterback more effectively. The lines have to make sure that they at least host one playoff game too. Yeah. You know, like it's not, I know we went into the season,

we were like, oh, that'd be awesome. They get the West final and then go to the gray cup and they would essentially have two playoff games and they would both be at home. Right. I mean, that would be incredible right now. I know the West division is still very tight and the lines have, you know, look at the standings and they're up there with they're around Saskatchewan

and Winnipeg. But right now the way things are going, Winnipeg is probably the favorite to win the division. And then it might come down to the lions in Saskatchewan for who hosts that semifinal. Like make no mistake. This is a massive, massive addition. This is like, this is a, I don't want to get too hyperbolic, but this is like a league.

This was the best defensive player in the entire Canadian Football League last year. He was averaging a sack a game. I mean, this is a profound move mid-season to have this caliber of player come back into the fold and to join a team that made the other biggest splash of the CFL season already, bringing Nathan Rourke back. So this is going to be a huge

game on Saturday in Victoria, too. Yeah, it's not just... That is expected to play. Yeah, it's not just one of these, like, won't it be cool that they're going to Victoria? I mean, that will be cool. And I'll be curious to see how it looks on TV, and it sounds like it's going to be nice weather-wise. So I hope everyone that attends that game, I hope you have a good time.

But this is a big game for the Lions. You know, they're going to be hoping to use this to catapult them back into a good season. Because remember, this is a team that started 5-1. And they didn't look great at times on that five and one start but they've looked a lot worse as they've lost five in a row and Nathan Rourke needs to play well otherwise you've definitely got a quarterback controversy looming as Vernon Adams gets back to healthy. I think he will. The defense has to look better, and hopefully it will, especially with the addition of Matthew Betts.

They just need to win because they've got some tough games coming up. They've got Toronto. They've got Montreal coming up. I don't think Montreal has lost in, like, years. They're 9-1. They haven't lost a game on the road yet. Yeah. I think they're 18-1 in their last nine or something like that they're

on fire they're very tough to beat but that can also be one of those games where if the lions go and win that game then all of a sudden you're feeling a lot better about the team now before we move on to the rdc love stuff i do want to say like we are routinely praising the work that Amar Dolman and the ownership and the executive have done since taking over. But it's moves like this which reinforce why we speak about them in glowing terms. I mean, there are not a lot of teams that go over the salary cap in the Canadian Football League. Last year, there was three. Well, that's like half the league, so there are quite a few, too. But, okay, but, I mean,

Hamilton, this is kind of funny. I don't mean to poke fun at the CFL, but Hamilton went over by $2,000. Like, I thought maybe they bought a couple extra plane tickets. I don't know. But that's not a lot of money, right? Like, they didn't break the salary cap.

They just slightly nudged it. Compared to the Lions... They actually made that up by selling their Honda Civic. Right. The team Honda Civic. They rented it out on Turo and they got the money back, but not all of it.

And then the Lions went over by 85,000, which is a significant amount. And the leader of all the CFL teams that went over the cap by a fair margin, the closest, the closest was Winnipeg and they were over by 25K. The numbers don't necessarily matter so much as the fact that they're willing to spend, and they're willing to go out and do things like this

and willing to say, it's a 5-6 team, it's flawed, but that's not even going to stop us from spending the money and bringing back very good and very important players to try and get to the great cup in the year they're hosting. Like, I admire it. I mean, because there would probably be people to be like, I don't know if you want to do this, like from a financial standpoint. Like, even I think it makes a lot of sense, especially if they get a home playoff game. It makes sense financially. It does.

But it could also not work. I mean, Betts could come back and be all out of sorts because he's been, you know, trying to focus on the National Football League where they have bigger players and an extra down and all these different things, right? I mean, it's. This is what the CFL needed in this town, though. Narratives.

100%. Like narrative, like reasons to follow along on a week-to-week basis. And that's what we have with the Canucks for pretty much every player on the roster. Right? And this is what the CFL needed in this town because there just wasn't enough storylines to get invested in for so many years.

They were like, the Lions are, you know, eight and five. And you'd be like, okay. Is it week 14? Is there anything interesting about that? Well, and this is like, I don't, when we talked to Moj on Monday, and I brought up Matthew Betts, just kind of like, I mean, it was just. There's some people that aren't like down with him for some reason. I don't know if they were just,

I don't know if they kind of talked themselves into not being into him when he left the team and they were kind of like ah we'll be fine without him you took a lot of penalties wasn't great against the run either yeah and i was like but i was like look at all those sacks yeah he was you know when he won the best defensive player it's he was really good at defense that's why they gave him the award yeah kind of goes hand in hand do a lot of bad players get a chance in the nfl right i it's i i don't know i think part of it is like maybe there's a bit of being jilted and jealousy. Like you had success here and now you're trying to go score somewhere else.

But at the same time, from a narrative perspective, which we've talked about at length this week, everyone should have been on that from Monday. Like NFL cut down day is coming. The reigning defensive player of the year in the league might be cut loose. That's a story. That's a story that everyone should have been focused on. And it just sort of seemed like everyone was taking too much of a wait and see approach.

Whereas I was like, if Betts is cut on Tuesday, you should be on the phone the moment after he's released. And some people are like, I don't know how they're going to fit in under the cap. I'm like, who cares? It's the CFL. That's a kick the can down the road problem. You'll figure that out later, right? They can in under the cap. I'm like, who cares? That's a CFL. That's a kick the can down the road problem. Like, you'll figure that out later, right? They can dock you draft picks or knock you out.

Like, who cares? Fine you $4. That's right. Okay. We do want to turn our attention now to the other story from yesterday. Kind of a weird one, and it might take some explaining. So I'll go ahead and start. Yesterday afternoon,

Lavia released its roster for the upcoming Olympic Hockey Qualifiers. That's not the story, okay? We're not talking about the Latvian roster at 6.16 in the morning. The interesting thing... Did they snub Zemgis Gergensens again? Yeah, so that's a good point to bring up. There were several Latvian NHLers that were expected not to play in this

tournament, including Vancouver's Teddy Bluger. The Vancouver Latvian that was not to play in this tournament, including Vancouver's Teddy Bluger. The Vancouver Latvian that was expected to be in this tournament was the goalie, Artur Silovs, who you remember is like a national hero in Latvia. After backstopping him to bronze at the 23 Worlds, he won the MVP, whatever. Out of nowhere, Latvia releases their roster for the tournament that starts today. No Silovs on it. So that raised the eyebrow of a lot of people because it was assumed that he was going to go and he was going to play. As a matter of fact, in a Latvian news outlet's story last week,

Silovs was quoted talking about how excited he was for the tournament because it was being played in Riga. So he's out. Now, this is where it gets kind of sticky because we're relying on Google Translate and a couple other machine translations of what the head coach was saying. But I'll just read what it says from a translated version on Google. Arters is in good physical condition.

He is currently overworked and the medical staff determined that the danger limit of turning this situation into a chronic injury is high we decided to protect him a little now we've got to be careful with how this sounds and the way the words work and this could be a situation where he had something that might have been an injury and they didn't want to aggravate it or they're worried about him getting injured because you know Vancouver might be calling and being like hey Seelov's can't get hurt can't play in these next three games we have a training camp coming up and our other goalie is also hurt I need to I need to get a real translation on this because that word overworked to me stands out and it might be a total red herring

in all this but when the translation is overworked and we've just had this whole conversation about a goalie coach ian clark and the work level that they've done with i don't know what do you think laddie you think this is related to the the clark stuff no i've just i heard the overworked i was like are all the canucks goalies overworked he hasn't been working with ian Ian Clark in the last few months, so he shouldn't feel overworked. He's been getting ramped up for this. Because this tournament, and I kind of took a closer look, probably closer look than anyone outside of Latvia did at this.

They play three games in three days. It's a real quick, real fast tournament. I'm just picturing Jim Rutherford calling up whoever's in charge of Latvia and me going like, ah that we just got rid of their goalie coach who overworks all the goalies and then like he just puts it in there I mean it's a ridiculous you know it's a stretch I know but

as soon as I heard that I'm like why it overworked like how is he overworked maybe it was a training injury during the offseason maybe it could have been anything it could be but it it's I do wonder if the Canucks had been in touch with Latvia and just been like, listen, we can't lose this guy too. So for a little backdrop to this story,

we've got audio from Kevin Woodley yesterday who appeared on the station, and he mentioned as an aside that he actually did talk to Patrick Alvin a couple weeks ago for a 32-and-32 that he was doing for NHL.com on the Vancouver Canucks. And Alvin actually referenced Silov's playing in this Olympic tournament and how it would be good for him. For more, here's Kevin Woodley from yesterday right here on Sportsnet 650. I really hope that Google Translate butchered some of that

because we talk about Canucks fans and ominous and being a lot more stressed about Patrick Demko than I am. But that didn't sound like a great translation. No, I mean, I think it says... Overwork and chronic injuries for a guy you're going to have to maybe lean on for the first month of the season. That's a little... That's interesting.

Listen, I talked to Patrick Alveen for an NHL.com series. We run 32 and 32, look through every team. It's a three-parter that nhl.com does i actually think the canucks come out on august 29th i filed it last week i talked to him uh so so two mondays ago and he when i asked him about goaltending the one thing was that demko was in town working with the team and they were still hopeful he'd be ready for the start of the season and the other part was he was excited about our tours and the opportunity to play an olympic qualifying as part of his process to get ready for the season so um you know that doesn't match the buzz of the team

maybe pulling him out unless there is something bugging him i'm gonna go out on a limb read some tea leaves here and just suggest that the Canucks called over and were like, you're not playing in this thing. There's just the juice is not worth the squeeze. The risk is not worth the reward. Jolese loves that. Yeah. And then it's kind of, you know,

I imagine they probably had to stick handle or tap dance a little bit over in Riga to try and get some wording out there. But it makes no sense if everything that we know reportedly, allegedly, about Demko is true, that if he's not ready to start the season, there's a 0% chance that you're still interested in having Artur Silov gain the valuable experience of playing in three Olympic qualifiers in three days. You're putting him in bubble wrap and flying him back to Vancouver.

So how does this tournament work? Who's in the running? There's 12 teams. I'm not used to the whole qualification for the Olympics. As Canadians, we just get to go. Okay, let's see if I can remember. Yeah, we qualify. They're like, please, please come.

We don't have to qualify. Just show up. It'll be great for the tournament. Let's see if I can remember. Yeah, we qualify. They're like, please, please come. We don't have to qualify. Just show up. It'll be great for the tournament. Let's see if I can remember it off the top of my head. In Latvia's group, it's Latvia, France, Slovenia, and Ukraine. So it's a lot of fledgling hockey nations, I would say. I believe Denmark and Norway are in the same group, and that's actually considered the group that you're going to want to watch

because there's quite a few NHLers participating in that. Japan and Great Britain are also in it, and they're expected to be minnows in that one. Who else is it? Slovenia's in. I think Slovakia has to qualify through this tournament as well. But the interesting thing, and the reason that we're getting Stephen Wino on the show in part is that when reporters went over and did this European tour with all the NHL players in Prague, they were super, super excited at the return of best-on-best

international hockey. And a lot of them were saying, like, this starts for us now because a few of these guys are going to play beginning now to try and qualify for Italy. And there was a lot of Finnish guys who were very excited for the four nations face off in February. The Czech players all kind of have a chip on their shoulder because they kind of got frozen out of the four nations and they just won the world.

I know Pasternak has been pretty vocal in his chirps and especially on social media about how like we just won the world hockey championships and we can't get into this four nations. And people david come on man let's calm down all right it's the world yeah so it's uh it's an interesting time though because we as we continue to forge our narratives here on sportsnet 650 we're going to continue to we're going to keep getting excited about international competition because the way i see it right now um the four nations face off even though it's it's a made-up tournament they're just trying this out um it's very clearly an appetizer for the entre which is the olympics and that's that's a really good thing

i think so here are the groups um slovakia will be favored in a group with Kazakhstan, Austria, and Hungary. Latvia will be favored at home in a group with France, Slovenia, and Ukraine. And then there's Denmark favored and also at home in a group with Norway, Great Britain, and Japan. Okay, so we will talk to Stephen Wynow about that and the natural pivot to the Washington Commanders, all on the same hit. That's coming up next.

We've got a big show ahead. A reminder, get your What We Learns in. We're going to ask, I think we need to ask for more with regularity throughout the show because 8 o'clock rolls around and we're like, oh, we don't have any. So Dunbar Lumber text line is 650-650. Hashtag it WWL.

What did you learn over the last 24 hours in sports? We will talk to you, Adnan Virk, Adam Stanley, and Thomas Drance on this show before we get to what we learned at 830. But a reminder, get them in. Dunbar Lumber text line is 650-650. You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. 631 on a Thursday now that's music. Did you ever have any of those CDs growing up?

Now that's what I call music? Yes. What is that? It's like a Big Shiny Tunes, but with pop music. Yeah. And my first ever was Rock 85. And also White Hot and All Out Metal Assault. Wow. I thought it would have been like K-Tal Records

or something. K-Tal Records. A time-life production. There's the... I can't remember which Celebrity Roast it was. But Pete Davidson went up there and Ludacris was on the panel. And he looked at Ludacris

and he's like, oh, Ludacris. And then he's like, I love your music, man. And then he's like, some of you might be too young to know it, but don't worry. It's on all of your moms now. That's what I call music 5 CD. And he just destroyed him. You can see his heart breaking in real time.

I knew I shouldn't have licensed it to them. Whitehot, an all-out metal assault started with Rock You Like a Hurricane by in real time. I knew I shouldn't have licensed it to them. Whitehot, an all out metal assault started with Rock You Like a Hurricane by the Scorpions. I think that's why I bought it. Solid start. Solid start. And it also had Turn Up the Radio by Autograph. That's a pretty good compilation.

Rush, Distant Early Warning. I never really liked Rush. I'll be honest with you. Really? That's very un-Canadian, unpatriotic of you. I never really liked him. And this was 1985? 1985.

But I also had a rock 85. 85 was a good year for music. I'm basically Dolly Wall in music. You are. Yeah. And a lot of other ways. We got a lot to get to on the program today, including our next guest.

Joining us now, good friend of the program from the Associated Press, Stephen Wino, joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Stephen. How are you? Good morning, gentlemen. How are you guys doing? We are well. Thanks for taking the time to do this. We really appreciate it. So we were saying, like, it's going to be the natural connection of topic here, where we go from qualifying for Olympic hockey in 2026 to the Washington Commanders. So I'm setting you up for that right now.

But I do want to start with this Olympic qualifying tournament that gets underway today. Now, you were over in Prague, if I'm not mistaken, for the NHL's media tour with some of the European-based players throughout the last couple of weeks. How excited were either the guys that are going to participate in this Olympic tournament or the guys that are going to be participating in the upcoming Four Nations face-off for the return of international best-on-best hockey. Yeah, it's a big deal. And the league has realized this over the years after skipping 2018 and missing out on 2022.

You talk to any player among kind of the elite level in the NHL, and this is a generation of players, guys, who grew up, unlike the previous generation, expecting to go to the Olympics, where up until 98, it wasn't an expectation. And now you've got the guys like Conor McDavid. I'm not talking from North America, Conor McDavid, Austin Matthews, those guys. But also you talk to David Pasternak, you talk to Mika Zibanejad, you talk to players in Europe who this is what they grew up watching. They grew up wanting to play for their national team even more so than they

wanted to play in the NHL because the time difference and all that is that there's a special connection to the world championships and to the Olympics of best on best hockey. And even some of the players from countries, not.s canada sweden finland about the four nations they kind of understood that that those that if you're going to have the top four countries in the world you can't have russia in it for obvious reasons that that this is going to be a spectacular tournament and everyone's eyes are set on milan where we haven't had a true best on best without sort of the asterisk of the under 23, 23 and under team, North America and the team Europe from the 2016 world cup since Sochi in 2014.

And you have a entire generation of stars who haven't even gotten the chance to qualify for an Olympic team. Victor Hedman wasn't even on that team. So you have a legitimate excitement and anticipation for those Milan Olympics. And everybody almost kind of crossing their fingers, hoping nothing goes wrong before that. What did the guys have to say about the four nations?

I'm sure the guys from Sweden and Finland are excited about it, but are some of the other guys who weren't really invited to that tournament because their countries aren't invited, were they upset about that? Do they go into the Olympics now with a bit of a chip on their shoulder? Yeah, I think a little bummed that you couldn't have a true World Cup of Hockey, which the NHL was trying to do into this past winter. The war in Ukraine obviously kind of threw a wrench in the idea of having a team of Russian players in there and sort of had to make the league sort of reinvent this on the fly.

I think there was an understanding that if you had to pick four teams, that this was it. And maybe a little bit of bitterness from guys like David Pasternak and Czech Republic after going and winning a world championship about not being involved in this. But it does give a certain amount of motivation for Milan in 2026. I think a lot of the players from Switzerland, Germany, and Slovakia and Czech Republic understand that you can't field an entire team of just NHL players at this stage for a tournament like that, that they really wanted to have full NHL teams.

The only other one would have been Russia. And I think there was a kind of a prevailing opinion that if you're going to have a best-on-best tournament, you need to have Russia in it. And that's sort of the question going into Milan is, is that going to happen? The qualifiers happening now this weekend. Three teams are going to get in. Is there going to be a fourth team getting in? Are we not going to see Ovechkin, Malkin, Vasilevsky, Sorokin, Shostakhin,

those guys, Kucherov, Kaprizov on the international stage in 2024? But you've got a chip on the shoulder from guys from Czech Republic and those sort of places, and a motivation from the Slovak guys, Jaroslav Kovsky, Martin Farivari, Eric Chernak, because when the NHLers weren't in the Olympics in 2022, that team won a bronze medal, the first medal that that country's ever had in hockey at the Olympics.

So you've got a very motivated team coached by longtime NHL assistant Craig Ramsey trying to get in the Olympics and trying to defend a medal. do you think the final being in boston and not in toronto or not in montreal and i'm talking about the four nations face off here do you think that underscores the opportunity that the nhl the nhl pa sees um given that the americans they've got some real star power there. I mean, I worked the Sochi Olympics with you, Stephen,

and this was a long time ago now. But you remember you'd look at the American lineup and you'd be like, they've got some good wingers, but they don't have the centers that Canada has. They don't have the defensemen that Canada has. Now they're getting pretty close. Yeah, they're getting really close, and they've got probably four to five goaltenders more than Canada has, better than Canada has right now.

And that's, I think, if you're Hockey Canada, your biggest concern. But, yeah, having it in Boston and giving a chance for an American audience to see that up close, this is what Gary Bedman and Marty Walsh have been talking about all the time, of giving an appetizer for Olympic hockey. Because, look, if the U.S. has won a World Cup before and all those other things, it's going to be a fun tournament. If the U.S. wins it and then falls short in Milan, it's not going to be the same thing.

But it'll be a good sort of flavor of what this U.S. team is going to be. Because, to your point, they do have the depth down the middle now with Austin Matthews and Jack Eichel, and they do have depth on defense where guys like John Carlson and Seth Jones are not locks to make this team. And so it's a good problem to have for USA Hockey and a good problem to have a coach like Mike Sullivan. It's good to have sort of a depth of coaching with Mike Sullivan and John Hines and David Quinn around to be able to kind of lead this generation of U.S.

talent. I know some of our colleagues like Greg Wyshynski have been kind of waiting for this U.S. breakthrough of talent. And we're finally going to maybe get to see Patrick Kane, Jack Eichel, Austin Matthews, Charlie McAvoy, Adam Fox, all play on the same team together, which has never happened before. I wonder if Kane will make that team in the Olympic team. It's a big question.

Yeah, or even the Four Nations team. Who knows? Let's talk a bit about the Caps before we get to the Commanders. We'll stick on hockey. They did make some moves this offseason, bringing in a guy like Pierre-Luc Dubois. What is the interest level in the Caps right now in the D.C. area? It's high still, and I think there was a little bit of a lull going into last season

after missing the playoffs, kind of waiting for Alex Ovechkin to chase Wayne Gretzky's record and a lot of the focus being on that. And don't get me wrong, there's still a huge focus on Alex Ovechkin and the Wayne Gretzky record and trying to just contend until then. But this is also a team that Brian McClellan, in this offseason, before passing the torch over to Chris Patrick, made moves that, in theory, make this team better than last year. And look, the Capitals could still miss the playoffs by three or four points, and it wouldn't be surprising.

But if things go right, they give themselves a chance to contend pierre luke dubois is a kind of a buy low on a big contract opportunity that after vinnick is not thought got shipped off to carolina and then terminated contract and then khl they've kind of filled their material center role uh with with pierre luke dubois and ship out a contract in darcy kemper that allows him to bring in logan thom Thompson, who was really the Capitals discovered him essentially at development camp several years ago and almost a homecoming for him. Got bigger on the back end with a guy like Matt Roy and Jacob Chikrin. The changes seem to have added more talent to this team. Alex Ovechkin still turns 39 in two and a half weeks.

It's still going to be hard to expect someone 39 years old, even as great as he is, to score 41 goals, to tie the record 42 to break it this year. But there's a certain amount of anticipation now about this team made the playoffs on the last night of the season, barely by the skin of its teeth. But there's a lot of change here. Maybe TJ Oshie out.

Certainly Nicholas Backstrom probably never going to play again. That this is a team that people in the area and around the NHL are intrigued to see how good they're going to be. When Dubois did the media rounds after the trade, what did he suggest happened in L.A.? He essentially said it was a bad fit. And look, there's no argument that it was a bad fit. And that this wasn't. And even on the way out, Rob Blake didn't trash Pierre-Luc Dubois.

It just didn't seem to work out in L.A. And this is a player, for the first time, after two times asking for a trade, this was the first time that this wasn't something he wanted, that he would have rather stayed in L.A. and set roots there and all these things. But with the no trade, no move clause kicking in, there was speculation for a long time that the Kings wanted to move on from that. And it didn't work out. It wasn't a good scheme fit. And I think what a lot of folks around him seem to say is he cares too much. And it's not like he's someone who doesn't care on the ice and the effort isn't there,

which was some of the concerns about getting Kuznetsov over the years or Alexander Semen years before that in Washington, that this is a guy who it almost got to him, the contract, the pressure, everything got to him. So this, in theory, from the capital's perspective, from Pierre-Luc de Bois perspective, gives him a bit of a fresh start, even though the contract is still there and all of those other things, that this gives him a chance to, again, which he's had a fresh start a few times now, but

to play with Alex Ovechkin and at least get the chance to start with Alex Ovechkin and show what he can do basically with that chip on his shoulder of look at how bad a year last year was. We're speaking to Stephen Wynum from the Associated Press here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

Okay, let's pivot here to the National Football League, specifically the Washington Commanders. You've been at training camp. You've been covering the team throughout the preseason here. And there's been a number of big storylines. There's the Jaden Daniels, a quarterback thing. There's also the stadium issue. What's the biggest storyline

going into this season? Is it the on-field product or is it the stadium issue that kind of seems to be hanging in the ether here? Yeah, the stadium thing is out there, but Jaden Daniels is the talk of everything. And he's the Heisman Trophy winner from last year from LSU, the number two pick, the franchise quarterback, face of the franchise. He's the guy. Everything circles around what Jaden Daniels does now.

And no one expects the Washington Commanders to go make the playoffs this year, to contender a Super Bowl this year or next, or probably even the year after that. But this is all about building around a young quarterback. And I'm old enough to remember when RG3 got brought in to Washington over a decade ago and sort of how magical that rookie year wound up being leads Washington to the playoffs and and then the knee injury happens and the career kind of falls apart and it's been a circle of a cycle of Kirk Cousins and eight other quarterbacks since then Jaden Daniels is the eighth different week one starting quarterback

in the last eight seasons for this franchise and the hope is that it's not going to need a ninth, that Jane Daniels is the guy. Yeah, Josh Harrison and the ownership group and Magic Johnson and that group, they're working kind of in the background on the stadium and figuring out a long-term home, which for the generations of the future is going to matter more. But in terms of kind of what's front of mind right now, it's this new regime led by Adam Peters and Dan Quinn

and kind of putting all their faith in what Jaden Daniels can do with this team. It's an interesting dynamic that's at play because it feels like Washington is constantly trying to purge itself from the previous regime. There's obviously the new ownership group that's trying to purge the Dan Snyder era, and now you've got to do it on the field with the players and the personnel more because you're trying to move on from the Ron Rivera era. It just seems like this team is constantly in a state of trying to move on from its past.

Yeah. And it's amazing that, that, that there's almost 60% roster to over 60% roster turnover from last year, only 12 picks from the Ron Rivera era remain. It really has been. And as much as the front office is trying to downplay it, percent roster turnover from last year only 12 picks from the ron rivera era remain it really has been and as much as the front office is trying to downplay it just an absolute sort of house cleaning of the last four years were an unmitigated disaster for this organization and may have set the franchise back a decade with this but every regime has said that right like every regime has said we're going to be better than the previous one.

We're going to draft better. We're going to develop better. And time will tell whether it's going to happen this time. And you're seeing it from the top down now. Ownership was the question for the last two decades of, is Dan Snyder ever going to sell the team? What's going to happen? Will this team ever get out of this sort of like bogged down,

whatever, with Dan Snyder in charge? Now that he's not in charge, it has allowed a little bit of optimism around the D.C. area that, OK, things can change. The people in charge now seem to be adults in the room and know what they're doing. And who knows how long it's going to wind up taking to turn this team into a contender, but it now seems like a professional organization from the stadium and fixing those things up to the practice facility to how they treat family to how they sort of draft and develop and look at the roster. But it's an entirely different universe than it was a year and a half ago when Dan Siner owned this team. Does Jaden Daniels have the personality to withstand the pressure of being the starting

quarterback in Washington and essentially being the starting quarterback in Washington and essentially being the savior almost of this franchise, the current savior at the very least. I still remember when RG3 was the savior of the franchise. Yeah, it seems like it. And it seems like he's got the right people in his ear, in his corner to keep him humble for that. Because RG3 certainly, and this was maybe not as obvious at the time, but became clear over the months and years since that there was an ego level there that either the pressure got to him or he felt he was big enough for the moment.

It does feel like Jaden Daniels feels like he just needs to be process-oriented on a day-to-day basis. I know that's hockey talk and athlete talk, but he has done a good job, and Cliff Kingsbury and Dan Quinn have done a good job of not sort of handing him the job right away, of sort of making it a kind of complete one goal at a time sort of situation. And look, if this team starts out 5-0 somehow and things keep going crazy and there's all that hype, it's going to be a big test of that. I don't expect that to happen.

I expect to see some rookie growing pains along the way, but if he continues along this path, it seems like he's got the right head on his shoulders to handle it. Steven, thanks a lot for doing this today, man. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the start of the NFL season and then the start of the NHL season. I'm sure we'll be doing

this again later on down the road. Thanks, guys. Talk to you soon. Thanks. That's Steven Wynum from the Associated Press here on the'll be doing this again later on down the road. Thanks, guys. Talk to you soon. Thanks. That's Stephen Wynum from the Associated Press here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

So we got a text into the Dunbar Lumber text line. It's an early what we learned, and it allows me to do what I enjoy the most on the show, and that is put Halford on the spot. Yes. Juan from Comox texts in,

what I learned, the draw for the Champions League is today. Can you explain how the new format works? No. I don't get it. There's four pots.

Right. How many pots have you smoked? There's four pots. And it's like a league phase now. Yeah, there's no groups of four. Yeah. I guess there are still groups, technically. This is fun, folks, isn't it?

No, there's still groups, but they're, they're referring to them as league. It's like a league phase. So instead of having, can't you play like seven different teams, eight different teams now in the first phase, right? That's what makes it more of a league. Like the,

I mean, I think the most Coles notes version I can give you is that they wanted to expand the field and the amount of games and the amount of time that teams can remain alive in the competition does that make sense so instead of a little bit instead of having groups where it's like well you lose a couple games in your group and all of a sudden you're in the bottom and you're possibly eliminated and then you're looking backdoor channels through to europa league or conference league okay this kind of keeps things alive as far as explaining they're not going to be playing like the home and aways that we see normally?

No, it's going to look fundamentally different. Like you said, you could end up playing a lot of different teams in the league phase. And I'm looking at the – there's only four pots, and there's a ton of teams in each of them. So it's going to be bigger and more expansive with more opponents in this quote-unquote league phase of the Champions League. And they only just got the teams, the final teams qualified.

They did it yesterday. So you used a good strategy there, and that was called honesty. You were like, I can't explain it. I can't explain it. It's confusing, as opposed to like, yep, I know, and then not explaining it very well at all. It's kind of been like a running meme on social media. It's like,

try and explain what's going on with the champions league because there's three, the real understanding is there's three European competitions right now. And they kind of are like in tears, like Mike Sandoz quarterback tears, right? The top is the champions league. Got it.

The second is Europa. And the third is conference. Okay. But if you get bounced from one, you can kind of like fail upward into the other one. So if you get knocked out of Champions League, you can kind of dive into Europa. Okay. And if you do really well in conference, you can move up to, you know, it's very confusing like that. Imagine just being like, I'm going to be a soccer fan.

I'm going to start that today. I don't understand any of this. It's very complicated. Even the rules, like the Canadian Championship that we just saw. Don't get me started on that. The finals are going to be between Toronto and Vancouver. They were still using the away goals. Only conference in the world, only federation in the world that's using away goals still is, for some reason,

CONCACAF in that tournament. Like TFC got through on away goals, didn't they? And nobody has an explanation why. So the Forge coach, he said it right after. He's like, well, instead of this press conference right now, we should be in penalties because we drew 2-2 with tfc over the two legs everywhere else in the world we'd be in a penalty shootout right now except here we've lost on this rule that everyone else got rid of but no one can explain why they kept it right it didn't make things any easier i always find it interesting when a tournament starts you have to check all the

rules it's almost like are they using var here do they have the facilities and that's and what are the var rules yeah and um it's constantly evolving constantly changing like we're seeing with the champions league like champions league had a good format 32 teams uh you know there's there's eight groups of four like the math works yeah yeah there's it's hard to qualify for in the final there will be some english groups there will be some some some spanish german italian every now and again a french team finds its way through and we're like fine every now and again you can play but that's it it's it's very confusing and don't get me started on uh the the subscriptions have gotten completely out of hand i know i've ranted about this before but so how do you watch champions league now what would you need in canada you need to

zone how many subscriptions now what are you up to 13 so yeah martin nago that's not a joke by the way i know but that's insane it's it's it's not 13 not for soccer like 13 um so it was a joke yeah martin nago texted me he's like do you want to get in on fubo or something i'm like what yep i guess everyone shares shares their subscriptions to that? I have multiple shared subscriptions because I am on every platform. If you only had to pick one, if you only had one

for soccer, what would you... What does that give you? Premier League? If you want to watch Italian Serie A, you can... I mean, who doesn't? Right. I mean, I don't watch a ton of it, but it's there. I'll watch it. But that means if you were to subscribe to just that one. You would miss out Champions League.

You'd miss out on Champions League. You'd miss out on Europa League and Conference League, because those are all on DAZN. FA Cup, you have to get Sportsnet World, because they're the rights holders for that. Sportsnet World also picked up the Dutch League over the summer, which I was unaware of. But then if you want to watch MLS, you would have to get the Apple TV package

because that's the only place that you're watching MLS matches. I was laughing over the weekend. Oh, don't get me started about the Canadian men's national team because then you have to get one soccer. Right. Also for the CPL. There's also that as well. And the Canadian Championship. And I'm sure I'm missing something at this point. I guarantee you there's something

glaring that I'm missing. It was funny, though. Oh, La Liga's on TSN. If you want to watch Real Madrid and Kylian Mbappe, you have to get TSN. I flipped on the actual TV. Remember TV? Just regular TV. I flipped it on on the weekend. And it's CBS. And they're playing.

It's Serie A. Huge soccer channel. Yeah, and I'm like, did I just flip on Parma versus AC Milan? Yep. On American network television? What the hell is going on here? CBS has. Where's my SEC?

I want Georgia taking on Alabama. Yeah. That's CBS to me, right? I don't know why Fiorentina is on. They've invested a ton into soccer. They have their own sub channel, CBS Sports Galazo. I want my song. Da-na-na-na, na-na-na-na.

TV's got to be here. I know that's next week. It was week zero in college football because you know there's someone who's like, actually, it'll be next week. The Ireland game, you alluded to that earlier. Who was playing in that again? Georgia Tech? Georgia Tech upset Florida State. Right. Okay. In Dublin. We ran the game. You alluded to that earlier. Who was playing in that again? Georgia Tech? Georgia Tech upset Florida State.

Right. Okay. In Dublin. We ran the game. The world is way too confusing right now. It is very confusing. College football started. It's an American tradition.

Oh, yeah? Where's the first game? In Ireland. Yeah. The home of American collegiate football. Dublin. Yeah. Okay.

We got a lot more to get to on the program. We really ran the gamut in that segment there. We talked about a whole lot of stuff. We're going to continue running the gamut. 7 o'clock, we're going to talk to Adnan Virk, do a little MLB talk and some movie talk as well. And then at 7.30, Adam Stanley's going to join us for some golf talk as the Tour Championship gets underway

in about an hour and a half's time. You're listening to The Alfred M. Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.