Halford & Brough in the Morning - Have The Canucks Lost Last Season's Identity?

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they talk last night's Canucks loss to the Predators and Saturday's impressive win over Connor Bedard's Chicago Blackhawks (6:00), plus they chat the Grey Cup, a big Seahawks win and the absolute  circus that was the Tyson Paul fight (27:00).  This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na- Back to Marchess. A left-wing snap. Shoots. He scores. Again. Picks the top right corner. The presentation was good. We just didn't do the game plan. A couple of guys ran around. Can't do that. Cannot coach with him. Can't do it. Steps up. Going to run.

10, 5. Geno. Touchdown. Jay Hawks. Holy catfish. Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody.

It is Alfred and his bruv. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well.

Hello, hello. Alfred and bruv of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler.

Well, they pay the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling. They recycle. You get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews.

So, Orfit, what are you waiting for? Kintec. My word, we have a lot to get into on this show. So much, in fact, that we only have two guests. That's right. Jess Mike Tanier, our NFL insider from the Two Deep Zones sub stack. He's at seven. And then Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and In Goal Magazine. Wait, Jess Mike Tanier, our NFL insider from the 2 Deep Zones sub stack, he's at 7.

And then Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and In Goal Magazine, he's going to join us at 8. Otherwise, Jason, it's all on me and you today, bud. That's good because a lot of stuff happened. Some good, some bad, but a lot of stuff happened. So without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No happened i missed all the action because i was we know how busy your life can be what happened you missed that what happened what happened was 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. It is not very often that we get to come in here and talk about a Saturday-Sunday back-to-back with a Sunday game at 7 o'clock at night. Late one last night. The Canucks won on Saturday. We'll put that one on the back burner for now.

4-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks and Conor Bedard, and we will have a Conor Bedard conversation later. But it was last night against the Nashville Predators that has left us with the most talking points. Steve Stamkos scored not once but twice on the power play. Nashville Predators 5-3 over the Vancouver Canucks late Sunday night at Rogers Arena. Yeah, there's something off about the Canucks right now.

I don't know if it's a personnel thing and you have to look at probably the blue line first or if they've lost a bit of the identity they built last season or maybe it's just a very predictable regression from last season's PDO bender that they went on, especially at the start of the season. But last night against Nashville, it was yet another slow start, failing to get even a shot on goal until about halfway through the first period. They did find their game eventually, but not before they gave up the first goal yet again. The Canucks actually built themselves a one-goal lead in the second when Elias Pettersson finally, finally hammered home a one-timer on the power play.

But the Preds would score the next three goals, two of them by Stephen Stam-timer on the power play, but the Preds would score the next three goals, two of them by Stephen Stamkos on the power play. The key play of the game probably came late in the second period with the score tied at two. That's when Kiefer Sherwood found himself on a clear-cut breakaway against his old team, only to completely fan on his shot. I don't mean to laugh. He pulled a Conor Bedard on a breakaway. I don't mean to laugh. He pulled a Conor Bedard on a breakaway.

I don't mean to laugh, but it was, you know, he could have had the Yackety Sax playing in the background when he whiffed on that. It sent back the Preds the other way a couple seconds later, a couple of nice little Preds passes later. Roman Yossi blasted a one-timer past Lankanen. Now, the Canucks did make it interesting late in the third when Sherwood made good on his blunder with his fourth goal of the season. That made the score 4-3, but that was as close as the Canucks would come. The Preds added an empty netter of the best home records in the league. And the bad news is there's one more home game remaining on this homestand,

Tuesday against a pretty good Rangers team, that just shut out the Kraken in Seattle. So I tweeted after the game, I'm getting worried about the Canucks. It was a simple tweet. I saw that. I'm getting worried about the Canucks. Now, predictably, some people were like,

what, you weren't worried nine or 10 games ago. Other people went the other way and said, come on, man, they got a bunch of injuries. It's still early. You can't be getting worried about the team. People disagreed. Some people agreed, whatever. Here's why I'm worried about the Canucks. It seems to me right now that there are a bunch of little fires burning everywhere. And at the beginning of last season, you remember, pretty much everything was going right. Right now, not everything is going right. Take your pick on what you want to worry about.

The defense, just the current construction of the defense. They've got a few injuries on defense too, but it's not playing well. You know, I think we can talk about the fact that they can't seem to get Elias Pettersson and JT Miller playing well together at the same time. You know, the injuries part, you can look at it in two ways. You can look at it, well, they've got some injuries

and once those guys are back, they'll be okay. But when are they going to be back? I don't know. And how are they going to be when they are back? We all know that Brock Besser's got a concussion. How's that going to affect his play? We all know what Thatcher Demko's been through.

What's he going to look like when he's back? You know, again, I would just say there seem to be little fires burning everywhere. And the team, to me at least, just looks a bit ragged right now. That's fair. They look ragged. Let's get into what happened with JT Miller last night. Okay, so talking about little fires burning, and this one might not even be considered a little fire. Many people noted, including Ray Ferraro on the broadcast last night, that in the third period of a game in which the Canucks were trying to mount a comeback,

JT Miller was bolted to the bench. I believe he took just two shifts in the third period and was sitting among the defensemen. Ferraro pointed it out on the broadcast. Rick Talkett was asked about it post-game. Very abrupt clips to give you a sense of how short Rick Talkett was. So we've got the questions and the answer. The first.

Terse. Thank you. First was a question from our very own Brendan Batchelor asking, what was the deal with With JT Miller. Not playing in the third. Here's the Q. Here's the A. From last night's game.

5-3 loss to the Preds. At Rogers Arena. JT didn't play much. In the third. What can you say about. This is one of the guys. That I thought. Couldn't get us back in the game.

And that was that. Then. Our very own Ian McIntyre. Astutely decided to pick up. On the most obvious line. Of questioning. Is whatever was bothering. JT earlier and throughout this season an injury, perhaps related to why he wasn't playing in the third?

Again, here's the question. Here's the answer. Take a listen. And back to one of those key guys, we know that JT has dealt with something since the preseason. Is that a factor in his ice time tonight? No.

Okay. Okay, thanks Rick. So, if you want to, we're not even interpreting or parsing or reading between the lines here. JT Miller was parked in the third period yesterday because Rick Tockett said that there were other guys that gave him a better chance to win that

hockey game. And, I will say this before we get into the analysis. Rick Talkett was not wrong. He is the Canucks' best period. Yesterday was the third period. They limited Nashville to, what, two shots on goal? I think one was at an empty net. Yeah, and some of that was score effects, right?

Yeah, but they had push. The Preds had a two-goal lead. And they scored. Well, I hope they did push. Nashville isn't very good. The Canucks are playing at home. They should be pushing in that period. With JT Miller, I'm seeing a lot of stuff that we saw a few years ago from JT Miller when he's just not moving his feet sometimes

and it doesn't look like he's got the legs. There have been a couple penalty kills I've noticed just in the last little while, including last night, where he's just not, he's not moving out there. That's right. And he looks either gassed or he looks like he's worried about everyone else's job and not doing his.

And, you know, there were some seam passes that got through last night through the Canucks PK and there weren't even six in the lane. And, you know, the first Stamkos goal was, yeah, it was a nice shot by Stamkos. But, you know, Tyler Myers didn't get in a shooting lane. He was way off. And then the second one, which was the nice cross-scene pass to Stamkos, and he fired it home.

It was up to really JT and Petey to block the passing lane, and they didn't even come close. They didn't even come close, and they both, frankly, and Petey looked frustrated at JT. Yeah, if you want to look at a ghastly box score following a game, go to NHL.com and look at JT Miller's contributions last night. It is goose eggs across the board. No goals, no assists, no points, no blocks, no hits, no shots.

Well, that specific shift where Petey looked mad at JT, JT was like barking at him, giving him orders for positioning. But the problem is Miller was also out of position. Because he wasn't moving. It was complete chaos. You're looking at him and you're like, are you? Why are you telling him to go there? You do your thing.

Have you played the entire game? You look tired right now. So, you know, is it an injury or is that a factor in it? Or I don't know. I don't know. Like I said, I would actually like to go around with you guys right now like are you worried about the Canucks are you like the the whole thing where I'm talking about like the there seem to be little fires burning everywhere and I know we always come back to

you know Jim Rutherford's you know if everything goes right we're a playoff team well pretty much everything did go right for the Canucks last season. Not everything, but a lot of things went right. This season, it just seems different. There's injuries to key guys like Brock Besser and Thatcher Demko, obviously. The defense has not been good, and it just doesn't seem right right now. I don't want to have a cop-out answer to this, but I have questions about

the team i'm not at the level of like raising red flags and i'm deeply concerned about the team i didn't say i was deeply concerned i'm not i basically said i'm starting to get a little bit worried about the facts that's all i have questions that's it i still look at it why does it have to be so like and i'm not talking about you but you know i say i'm getting i'm getting worried about the canucks it doesn't mean like I'm cowering under a table. He's cowering under a table right now. And being like, oh, there's going to be another death march. I'm just looking at this team right now, and not everything seems right.

Not everything does seem right. I think it's a fair assessment. They've still got a 618 points percentage through 17 games. They still, I mean, even as bad as the last 10 games have been you would say i test wise they're 5-4 and one through it so they've had a very easy schedule they absolutely have had a very easy schedule my biggest quality of competition has not been there and in the good teams for the most part they have not played well my biggest concern right now is that they got handed this homestand

against a bunch of relatively easy opponents, save the teams that were going to bookend it. The story of this homestand was going to be you have a tough team at the beginning in Edmonton, and you have a tough team in the end at the Rangers. But if you can make up the mushy middle and take

all those points, or take the majority of those points, it's a good homestand. Well, they bottled it against the Islanders. They bottled it against Nashville. I'll remind you, they allowed 10 goals to both of those teams. And the Islanders and the Predators are not offensive juggernauts by any stretch. I think that's one of the highest, if not the highest scoring game for the Nashville Predators this year.

There was some stat about their goals against at home, and it's one of, if not the highest in the for the National Predators this year. There was some stat about their goals against at home, and it's one of, if not the highest in the league. It's atrocious. It's egregiously high. And part of it has to do with the fact that they gave up six to Calgary, six to New Jersey, and seven to Edmonton. But there's been other games where they've given up four and five.

That's part of the atrociousness. Those games, I mean, you're talking about it. I mean, I think the worst home loss was against the New York Islanders. But, hey, I've got time for other arguments because there were other terrible losses at home. So many candidates, really. I don't know how you – I actually don't know unless you're just – I never get worried and that's not how the way I am.

I don't know how you can't be just a little bit worried about this team right now. Well, I said before the season started, I'm worried about the, I said numerous times, I'm worried about the Canucks' defensive depth. I am still worried about the Canucks' defensive depth. It is very worrisome. When Hughes and Hirona aren't on the ice, tire fire. It's nuts.

It's just really, really not good. They got to figure something out fast. That second pair, Soucy and Myers, they're playing too many minutes, man, in the shows. It's just a lot of mistakes. There's been a lot of goals that go in, and, you know, Soucy, when the puck finally goes in, Soucy's spinning around like a top, and Myers looks confused, too.

I mean, it's that pair. Maybe just split the pair up or something. I don't know. Try something. There's just not great options to split them. I know. You know, that's the problem. You know, there's so much.

If you look up front with the Canucks, there's so much versatility up there, and there are so many different combinations that you can try. With the Canucks' defense, I don't know. You're kind of stuck. I mean, maybe when forward's back, you could put Branstrom and forward as a second pair and then have Soucy and Myers play last minutes, but then you run into the same problem Forward's back you could put Branstrom and Forward as the second pair and then have Soucy and Myers play the last minutes, but

then you run into the same problem because you probably don't want Branstrom and Forward playing too many minutes. Branstrom, I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm about Branstrom. He's not a second pair defenseman. No, he's not. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like when Derek Pouliot was a second

pair defenseman. You know, like he's a third pair guy leave him as a third pair guy I realize people want to bump him up into the lineup and play him more minutes but he's not perfect and I think you if we want to talk about the Saturday game you know they had Branstrom and Juleson together Foligno got body position on Branstrom on their only goal and just shoved him aside. And then Felino was able to get a pass to, I can't remember who the goal scorer was. McHale. McHale, that's right. How could I forget? And I don't know what Juleson was doing around,

he was pulling a Susie. Branstrom did redeem himself though. He started to play a lot better after that. Absolutely. He's been good offensively. He's got six points in 14 games. It's good. You don't want to play him in the top four. You don't want to give him the heavy minutes. He can't handle them. He cannot handle them.

You don't want to do that to Suzy Myers either, though. Hey, I think that... Two more defensemen? So as we break down the concerns with the team right now, there's... On the blue line, it's becoming pretty apparent that there's a little bit of buyer's remorse with DeJarne.

Yeah. I think Forbort's just been unavailable, so he hasn't been able to... He's been fine when he's played. He just hasn't played very much. I think that they were very hopeful and maybe naively optimistically so that they were going to be able to survive this first little bit with the defense group that they

came into the season with. And then on top of that, they did get found money with Branstrom. Say what you will about where he's playing in the lineup. That's, but that's where he should be. That's where he should be. He should be playing. Yeah. Outside of that, it's a problem,

the amount of goals that they've conceded this year. Now, the weird part that I'm trying to wrap my head around is that they haven't done it on the road. They're 6-1-0 on the road. If they didn't have such a good road record so far, this team would be in serious, multiple red flags raised. This is going to be a problem. If you want to be glass half full and optimistic about this,

you can say that despite the fact that they played, quite frankly, at times poorly this season, and I don't mean like average or mediocre, but straight up poorly. They've had some real stinkers. They are still got their heads well above water in terms of points taken from the games. Now, is part of that, as Jason pointed out,

from a soft schedule? Yep, 100%. Could all of this change in a hurry when they run the gauntlet and get some very good teams? Yep. A hundred percent. And do they start when you talk about the little mini fires that are burning everywhere?

I kind of look at it and say the fires aren't even connected. Like when talk, it speaks about being disconnected. I still feel like this team is so disconnected in a variety of ways. I still think that there's a very elongated adjustment period for a few new guys, including, and I do wonder when we're going to start to have more serious

conversations about like, what's the brusque doing on a regular basis. I think the brusque is playing reasonably well, actually. I think the production needs to be there for what he's being paid and what he's being shouldered upon responsibility-wise. I think we're going to have to be patient with Dakota Joshua. That's a fair point.

That's tough. You know, Tuckett reunited Joshua, Bluger, and Garland, and I don't think they had much last night. I think we were all hoping that Dak would provide a bit of a jolt to the team, and it hasn't happened. He came back in the Islanders game, right? That was a disastrous performance. We could talk a little bit about Saturday.

The Canucks beat the Blackhawks in soccer parlance. It was a bit of a dour affair, but a win is a win, and credit the Canucks for getting it done. It was not a good hockey game. It was good for already sea lofts, though. I think that was the real positive that you would draw from that game. But I have to be honest, I wasn't actually thinking about anyone on the Canucks after that game.

I was thinking about Conor Bedard and what he is thinking these days. He is really struggling to score and he's out there on a line with journeyman Ryan Donato and Philip Kurashev. Listen, I wanted the Canucks to win. I always want the Canucks to win, but I felt bad for Bedard after he gave away the puck that led to Miller's empty netter.

That was not the way he envisioned his first game in Vancouver. I'm sure his parents were there. He had a lot of friends and family there. He was a huge Canucks fan growing up. Now, this is sometimes what happens when you get a lot of hype and you go into the league and you're like, wow, this is harder than I thought it would. One of the stars of the game last night, Stephen Stamkos,

I remember there was a lot of hype around him, and it did not go well for him early in Tampa Bay. Bedard is still only 19 years old. He's the same draft class as Lekermacky, right? Yep. And he did win Rookie of the Year last season, but the hype was so crazy for him. It was higher than the Stamkos hype. It was ridiculous, frankly.

And a lot of that was because he was so prolific a scorer in junior and he was unbelievable at the world juniors that it feels like he's underperforming right now because of the hype. I was actually thinking it's crazy that Chicago has two highly touted number one picks right now. And it really hasn't been easy for Caleb Williams either. Crazy ending to Bears-Packers last night with that blocked field goal. Caleb Williams probably deserved better in that game.

It's actually tough times for Chicago sports as a whole right now. Who's the best team they got right now? The Cubs? Probably. And they're like mediocre. The White Sox were putrid and the Bulls aren't very good. The Bulls are very bad. The Bulls aren't very good either.

Tough times for Chicago sports. At any rate, getting back to Bedard, what were you feeling after the game? If the game Sunday didn't happen, if the national game didn't happen, this would have been probably leading the show. I think this would have gotten more play because not only were Bernard's struggles front and center, but when you talk about the hype machine, the hype machine is, quite frankly, how we, the media, and how all of the outlets talk about players.

And when Conor Bernard broke into the National Hockey League, I remember it also was coinciding with ESPN and TNT being fully immersed in the national hockey league and playbook coverage of sports is who's going to be the next young, bright, shining star and face of the league. And Conor Bernard was it. Conor Bernard was on Pat McAfee.

Conor Bernard was doing interviews with national broadcasters. It was Conor Bernard, Conor Bernard. He was the next, the hype machine had him as the next McDavid going to an original six big American market in Chicago. And then in his first year, he sort of delivered. Even though he was hurt, he missed a lot of time. He scored a lot of points and he won Rookie of the Year.

It is going so poorly for him right now. His goalless drought has extended to nine games now. He doesn't have a point in three. He comes back to Vancouver. He gets two shot attempts, one on goal, just 1648 of ice time. And then the end of the game happens.

He has the giveaway to JT Miller when he's trying to dump the puck in and the camera pans to Conor Bedard on the bench. And his head is hung so low. And I think part of it was probably the kid's recognition that the camera,

he's like, the camera's on me right now. The camera's on me. And I think part of it was probably the kid's recognition that the camera, he's like, the camera's on me right now. The camera's on me. And his head was just hanging, hanging low. So after the game, you had Luke Gazdik and Elliot Friedman and Paul Bissonette on the panel talking about the struggles that Bedard is having.

And they're talking about the real on ice stuff about he about he's getting murdered in the face-off dot. It's not happening for him. He's losing draws like crazy. Do we need to bounce him out to the wing? And then Freed steps forward and kind of takes it to that next level and talks about, well, hey, bigger picture here. Conor Bedard's being tasked with a lot.

He's trying to drag a franchise that's down bad, down low and down bad, trying to drag him out of the dregs of the National Hockey League, and that's not an easy thing to do. I want to play this audio because I think it's pertinent. Elliott Friedman on how hard it is when you hit rock bottom in the NHL to get out of rock bottom. Here it is.

You know, I watch him, and I see that look on his face, and the one thing we're reminded in this league, you look at Ottawa, you look at Detroit, you look at Buffalo, you look at what Anaheim's going through, you look at San Jose, you look at these guys now in Chicago. If you go to the bottom in this league, it is hard to pull yourself out. There's no, I don't know if there's another sport where it's as hard to rebuild right now as it is in the NHL. I spent a lot of time thinking about this this week. In the NBA, you get the right player. You can change your fortunes immediately. The NFL, you get the NHL. I spent a lot of time thinking about this this week. In the NBA, you get the right player. You can change your fortunes immediately.

The NFL, you get the right quarterback. You can change your fortunes pretty quickly. But in hockey right now, like these teams, like still Detroit, Buffalo, Ottawa, like you wait for them to put five wins together and they three or four and they tantalize you. It is so hard in this league at rock bottom so there's lots to chew on there there's lots to chew on with the Canucks we

haven't even got to the you know the gray cup that happened at BC place yesterday or the Seahawks win big win over the 49ers anyone watch the fight carnival? Did anyone watch the carnival on Friday night? Sure did, Jason. On Netflix? Let's talk a bit about that. Any of your thoughts? We got an open segment on the other side, so text in to the Dunbar Lumber text line,

650-650. The Bridge Street, Dunbar Lumber, and Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial Park. More room, more product, more awesome details at DunbarLumber.com. There's a lot of Halford & Brough today. We only got two guests, Mike Tanier and Kevin Woodley.

So it's a lot of us and it's a lot of you if you want to text in at 650-650. We'll get to more Canucks and all the other stuff that happened in the wide world of sports on the other side of the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Tonight on Rock Bottom. It's canuck central with dan riccio and satyar shah your destination for everything canucks exclusive interviews inside info and even the post game show listen 4 to 6 p.m weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app.

Under 20. Smith back to throw. Smith takes off. Geno Smith. Hits out of the hand. Touchdown, Seattle. 6.32 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody.

Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brough for the morning is brought to you by Pacific Honda, North Vancouver's premier destination for Honda vehicle sales and service. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. It's an hour of uninterrupted Halford and Brough this morning. Hour one of this program is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling.

I just completely glitched there. Did you see that? Yeah, that was crazy. What's that word again? What's the word? Mr. Halford, no. 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 so much, so much happened this weekend, the notes are about 8 pages long there's things that I left out that I wanted to talk about, we were trying to figure out, like, the Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight, we need to discuss this

in some capacity, but how and when. It happened on Friday and so many things that happened since. And we also had to pay respect to the Canadian Football League. Because the Grey Cup, the 111th Grey Cup, was played here yesterday at BC Place. Yeah, congratulations to the Toronto Argonauts who won the Grey Cup, handing the Winnipeg Blue Bombers their third straight loss in the final. I don't know. I'm not calling the Bombers a dynasty.

They get to five straight Grey Cups, but they lose three of them. Nope, not going to do it. It was not a masterpiece of a football game, but I guess it was eventful. Although most of the events were turnovers. Not interceptions. One streaker. One streaker, six interceptions. Yeah, and some fumbles as well.

Good for Argo's backup, Nick Arbuckle, the brother of John Arbuckle of Garfield fame. It's true. He threw for two touchdowns and 252 yards, a couple of picks, but whatever. That was good numbers on the night for a quarterback. And he was named the Grey Cup MVP. Bad for Bomber starter Zach Kalaros,

who went 15 for 30, no touchdowns and four picks. Yeah, he hurt his hand and had to wear a glove late in the game, but it was a nightmare performance for the 36-year-old former Grey Cup MVP. We'd love to hear from you if you went to the Grey Cup. Did you have a good time if you went? It wasn't quite a sellout at BC Place, but it was close, and the crowd looked good on TV.

I was a little worried about how many people would show up to the Grey Cup, but it looked like everyone used their tickets. There were a few unsold seats right in the upper deck, right at the top. But it was the largest Grey Cup crowd since 2018 in Edmonton, around 52,000 fans at BC Place. And I thought it looked good on TV. Third title in seven seasons for the Argos. And that's going to be a team to watch if you follow the business of the CFL

because since Rogers now controls Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, MLSE, I think everyone, including whoever's going to be the next commissioner of the CFL, is going to be curious to see, is Rogers interested in the CFL? Randy Ambroji said he went and had a meeting with the powers that be and our bosses.

We don't have a lot of contact with them, though. No, there's not a direct line from Halford and Brough to the Rodgers executive. But he, you know, Ambroji said he went and had a meeting with them and he said it was encouraging, but he also said it wasn't a very long meeting. Right. You know, if Rogers or MLSC does maintain its ownership stake in the Argos, does Rogers bid on the CFL TV rights when they're up in a couple of years?

Yeah. That's going to be the big job for whoever the new commissioner is. And I mean, you know, getting a good media rights deal for the CFL because you also have to wonder does Rodgers actually want a different football league in Toronto do they want the NFL and are they going to go after it other thoughts after the great cup are we going to see some news from the BC Lions this week they obviously didn't want to

announce anything before the great cup which they were hosting but um based on some of the reports that have been out there there are going to be some changes to the bc lines uh my biggest takeaway from the gray cup was that's it no more winnipeg in the gray cup they've had it's a lot okay it's been and quite frankly too much five straight appearances zach lars is the only player in CFL history to play in five straight Grey Cups. And in the last three, he has thrown zero touchdowns and six interceptions. Why did they

keep him in? Well, they did go to the backup. He wasn't very good. It wasn't good. Anything was better than what he was tossing up there. It's one of those things where it's like you got a... You dance with the one you brought. You made it to the dance. He has a mangled hand?

You made it, yeah. You're like, just tape it up. But you made it to the dance. I'm just tired of seeing Winnipeg. It's five straight championship games. I understand. It's a great Canadian football market. Amazing fans.

You have to be doing something right to go to five straight, no matter what. Like, I know it's a nine-team circuit, and I know that, you know, most of the time that they're not playing their way in. They're just sitting there in the West Final waiting for someone to come through. Road goes through Winnipeg.

I get all that. But to go to five, to lose three straight is kind of crazy to me. And this one, I mean, 41 to 27 to a team that lost its starting quarterback the week prior to a broken ankle and they I mean they got picked apart defensively like I know that Arbuckle uh was named MVP but really I think it should have been the Argos defense collectively that was MVP apologies to Bill from Buffalo who also texted in uh about John Arbuckle of Garfield fan that's good I referred to him as Ryan Arbuckle of Garfield fame.

That's good. I referred to him as Ryan Arbuckle on Friday when I was speaking with Moj. I believe that's a guy I went to high school with. Should also mention famous silent film star Fatty Arbuckle. Right. All the famous Arbuckles out there. Okay, well, let's move on here. The Seattle Seahawks are the definition

of just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. and that includes Geno Smith. Because consider this. Geno Smith, we all know he had a pretty bad game last time out. He went and apologized to everyone, including the city of Seattle. And then he threw a horrific interception early in the third quarter against the San Francisco 49ers yesterday. Just no excuse for the interception early in the third quarter against the San Francisco 49ers yesterday. Just no excuse for the interception.

But here's the thing. The Seahawks defense held the 49ers to a field goal and then went and scored, not the defense, but the offense came back on the field, scored a touchdown on their next drive. Then late in the game, another low moan for the Seahawks as they turn the ball over on downs, failing to gain short yardage on two straight plays.

I don't know why they're running the ball with Jose Charbonneau, fourth and short. But anyway, the defense held again, forcing the 49ers to punt it back to them. Geno then led another drive and scampered into the end zone for a game-winning 13-yard rushing TD to finally beat the 49ers. It was a great win for the Seahawks, who really needed to beat the 49ers

and really needed that win to stay in the race for. I don't even know if you want to win the NFC West, but someone's going to win it this year. And it was a bad, bad loss for the 49ers. Kyle Shanahan, the coach afterwards, said, I thought our defense played great all game until that last drive. We let them hang around, and when you let people hang around, that's what happens.

The 49ers are not in a good way this season. Okay, first I want to bask in the glow of what was a really cool moment, really awesome win, really great moment for Geno Smith. Can we hear the game-winning touchdown run on a broken plate? 13-yard scamper, Geno Smith, essentially wins it here for the Seahawks.

Gets the snap. Looks. Steps up. Gonna run! 10! 5! Geno! Touchdown!

Seahawks! 10! 5! Geno! Touchdown! Seahawks! Holy catfish! It was a good moment. They're such a strange football team, man. This is such a hard team to figure out. Now, I do think that for as nice as the ending was, and as great as it was to snap this losing streak against the San Francisco 49ers,

because I'll remind you, the 49ers were looking for their seventh straight victory against the Seattle Seahawks. To me, this was more about not putting away an opponent from the 49ers' perspective than it was of what the Seahawks did. I'm not trying to discredit Geno Smith. And quite frankly, I think he should be making more plays with his feet because he looked pretty good at it.

And he doesn't run the ball very often. And we saw what quarterbacks can do when they move their feet yesterday look at josh allen against the kansas city chiefs that being said i'm and we'll talk to tanya about this in about 20 minutes i feel like that game was more about the niners and really a microcosm of the entire 49er season which is what new and exciting ways can we find to blow off our own foot with a shotgun? Like it is remarkable how this team continues to make mistakes to prevent it from being its best version of itself. They just don't get the job done. Either it's stupid penalties or it's special teams errors.

Or in this instance, like when the Seahawks didn't, and by the way, the Seahawks on short yardage are not good. No. This is not a new thing against San Francisco. This happened against the Rams. It's happened previous times. Bring back Mack Brown. Just Mack Strong.

Mack Strong. Just let him. Yeah, just let him just plow through. Just get the yard. That's all we need. It was a good win for the Seahawks, and they needed it badly. And you're right. I don't know what this means for a very difficult uh division

to try and handicap because sometimes i'm like i think the rams could be it other times i say i think the cardinals are the best team in the division seahawks are going to face the cardinals in two of the next three games maybe down there in arizona for that game oh you gotta go yeah i gotta go especially all right there's been a lot of text into the Dunbar Lumber text line about the Mike Tyson, Jake Paul fight. And I watched it. And I have to admit, I was entertained by the carnival atmosphere. I think I've had less weird dreams than whatever happened Friday at the home of the Cowboys. You know, dreams like there's never a normal dream.

Sure. Something weird always happens. Like why is Rosie Perez on the call? Who, who thought that was a good idea? And wait a minute. Was that Mike Tyson's butt walking away? I think if you went into that expecting a serious night of boxing, number one, come on.

And you would have been disappointed by the main event where Mike Tyson was clearly too old to hang with Jake Ball who loves fighting old guys. He loves it. It's his favorite thing. Loves fighting people at least 40 years old. Especially if they're not boxers. Yes.

The women's fight between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor was an absolute war. And in true boxing tradition, it was a controversial decision, stupid decision. Everyone else was like, yeah, Serrano won. And they were like, no, Katie Taylor won. And there's obviously going to be a third fight there. There were predictable, I say, streaming issues for Netflix. But overall, you got to think Netflix was thrilled with the viewership numbers. There are millions of people that watched.

We'll see if they can work out the technical issues before their NFL games on Christmas. But the carnival atmosphere, did you just look around that stadium and everything that was going on? And I have to admit, I had this thought. How is Donald Trump not at this event? He was saving it for UFC, right? That was his kind of crowd. He was at UFC the next night.

Was he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I was... Jon Jones did the Donald Trump dance after he won and then went over and gave the belt to Donald Trump. I was convinced...

He had to pick his crowd. I was convinced that Trump was going to come out at some point. I think we all wondered at some point before the whole fight if this whole thing was just going to be scripted,

but, you know, the Tyson-Paul fight, if it was scripted, it was a bad script. How do we feel about Jake Paul, by the way? Does he deserve our respect for being one heck of a promoter? Or, all right, a grunting response from Laddie. Or does he deserve our scorn for being a promoter?

He's not a boxer. He's not an athlete. He's a YouTuber that knows how to sell pay-per-views. Yeah, yeah. And he is the elite, elite tier of the guys getting attention in an attention economy. Does that make sense? Yeah.

But none of that means that he can box. Or he's a boxer. But he put together an event that millions of people watched. He put together an event. He put together an event that millions of people watched and frankly had an enticing proposition to it. But I'm not sure that says anything about him as maybe it does about society.

So here's what I'm thinking here. The spectacle that you're talking about in this carnival-like atmosphere, that's born out of something that used to exist in the society with the sport. The boxing prize fight used to be like a staple, and really it's very Americana. It used to be that the staple and really it's of a it's very americana like it used to be that the heavyweight champion of the world was the most popular athlete on the planet i i was watching with the boy who's 13 and i was trying to explain to him what boxing used to mean to the greater

public i'm like mike tyson yeah was way beyond an athlete when we were growing up you know who had a video game before madden and everybody else mike tyson punch out nintendo mike tyson was a celebrity prior to him take your pick going all the way back to the early days of boxing through muhammad ali era through all the great boxers that we can name just by their nicknames it used to matter and it used to be relevant. What Jake Paul is weirdly tapped into is that sort of boxing folklore and the history of it with, it's supposed to be a big deal.

Sitting ringside at a prize fight is what celebrities have done time immemorial. It goes way back, right? To be seen. Yeah.

Right? Remember the Biggie and Tupac and shooting the Vegas Strip? That was at a prize fight. Yeah. It? Remember the Biggie and Tupac in shooting the Vegas Strip? That was a surprise fight. Yeah. It's always been a gathering for celebrities and people that want to be seen.

Did you enjoy some of the crowd shots? They were better than the fight. And it's not even a fight. It's not. So what happened? What was the plastic surgery per 60 in that group? A lot. It was a lot.

And Rob Gronkowski was about as drunk as you can be on television, which is pretty impressive. However, so what he's weirdly tapped into here, it's almost gaslighting. And I know gaslighting gets thrown around a lot and probably incorrectly a lot of the time. But basically it's a manipulation that causes someone to question reality. So everyone went and by the end of it,

after the press conferences and people talking about it and the slap in the face and the betting lines, everyone went in under the reality that this was an actual boxing match. And then it started. And then I thought Tyson looked sharp for 30 seconds that's what it was it's like first round you're like hey this is sort of boxing after the first round what is going on and that's really what gaslighting i think is is you trick everyone into thinking that the reality is different than what the reality actually is because here's the thing. Well, look, I mean, the last few Rockies were all about an older fighter

that, you know, somehow digs down deep enough that he finds it one more time. You don't even need... But there's a reason it's a movie. You don't even need the fictional aspect. George Foreman

won a heavyweight title when he was 46 years old. And he beat a guy that was 26. so that's tied into boxing lore as well i don't think that jake paul's smart enough to actually manipulate all these things i think it's a situation of circumstance that he just stumbled upon this thing but there was people go to a boxing match for a couple reasons one a lot of celebrities do it to be seen that's what you do right? I think the other part of it is you kind of go to the potential of seeing someone get hurt. It's as sort of like animalistic and tribal as we get as people. Well, the women's fight.

Right. You want to see two people beat each other up. It's the gladiators. It's all of that. The other part of it is there's that little bit of mystique that even if you don't know what you're doing and you're overmatched and you're a complete underdog, you always land that one shot. You can always land that lucky punch. That's what you were hoping with Tyson, right? And then the fight started.

Mike Tyson is 60 years old. I know he's 58, but he's 60 years old. And a chode. He is not a healthy man. He wasn't a 60-year-old man that was a beacon of health prior to this. He had stints in rehab. He had taken a ton of physical abuse during his boxing career. And then after the fight,

he said that he had undergone multiple blood transfusions. And I don't know if it was related to the ulcer that kept this fight from going on in the first place that delayed it, which he looks scared to get get hit, for sure. I mean, that whole thing. In some ways, I actually wonder if Jake Paul carried him. He threw 18 punches. But do you think Jake Paul?

There was 97 punches thrown. Maybe Jake Paul was scared of getting hit, too, because it only takes one shot from Tyson. He was scared of getting hit because he's not a boxer. I feel bad for the sport because the sport's allowed. The sport's cannibalized itself. A lot of suggestions that Paul's next fight is going to be against Joe Biden. Yeah, why not?

Jimmy Carter. I mean, I don't know. He's laughing all the way to the bank, though. Oh, yeah, for sure. He's laughing all the way to the bank. But I don't think that is like a counter argument to it. It's like, well, he made a lot of money off it. But you can make a lot of money off a lot of things.

It's embezzlement. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. When you guys were watching that, the whole thing I'm talking about, I'm not talking about the people that just tuned in to watch Tyson Paul. I'm talking about the whole night. Were you kind of entertained? Like for me, I was like, this is, this is, uh, it was almost like watching, um, you know, like, like a, like a dark comedy.

Sure. For me. I mean, that's fine for me. I was just like, this is, this is, I found it funny. I laughed a lot and I don't know if that was intended. I don't know if it was intended I don't know if it was intended to do that but for me

I watched it and I'm like you know what but here's the question I'm glad I watched that here's the question does any of it does any of that matter

whether it was yes it does if it's entertaining yes it does matter does it matter if you're laughing at it or laughing with it

no or does it just matter that you're laughing it just matters that I'm laughing there you go I'm glad I watched it or laughing with it? No. Or does it just matter that you're laughing? It just matters that I'm laughing. There you go. I'm glad I watched it on Friday night. It was an entertaining way.

I watched it and we were laughing. We were watching. It was very entertaining. I will give it that. This is hilarious. I think the issue that I have with it is that it comes in a sport and propped up by people that quite honestly should know better that shouldn't treat it as seriously as they didn't shouldn't promote it as a legitimate thing that's where i have a problem with it because there were people rosie perez should know better so rosie perez is actually she does i know but it was like weird it was weird. Because I heard it. I was like, is that Rosie Perez?

But like R.L. Hoani, Roy Jones Jr., everyone else that was affiliated with the lead up to this at a certain point probably should have been like, well, you know, when they get to the ring, it's going to be a 60-year-old man in there. Like, that's it. Like, you should have been. But during the fight, Roy Jones Jr. was like,

I don't like Mike Tyson's legs right now. Right, but he could have said that before the fight. Like, he knew that was coming. But that's the whole hook. Like, that's the hook. You know. What's the hook? The hook is that maybe.

Right. The hook, that's the hook. Maybe. Yeah, he'll get one shot in there and it's over. Maybe he does it. Okay. Stop right there. And that's the brilliance.

No, seriously, that's the brilliance of the promotion. It's not. It is. That's what everyone's watching for. That is the brilliance of the promotion. People are watching for that one chance. Maybe it'll happen. Does it not say something about us?

Yes. It's an idiocracy right now. We all know. We all know that our society is like, you know, we all know what's going on, but, you know, enjoy the ride. You just need to embrace it, buddy. No, no, no.

I think it's like, can this old man maybe land a punch on the kid that nobody likes? Dude, that's the whole premise. What a brilliant hook. That's the hook, exactly. And it worked. He's got a very punchable face. He does it worked. He's got a very punchable face.

He does, right? He's got a very punchable face. And then they went in the ring, and it became painfully apparent right away that it wasn't going to happen. After one round, Paul was probably like, oh my God, I could kill this guy. Jake Paul, right at the end, there will be no refunds. Yeah, that's it. So did the stream, I am, the one thing I was most curious about is like, is Netflix going to be able to pull this off? And how many,

did you guys all watch? Yeah, it was, the streaming was pretty bad for a while, but luckily by the time the fight started getting going, it was okay. But man, they got a lot of technical issues.

I had to kind of stop Netflix, like close it and then open it up again. I let mine run, but at a certain point it looked like Minecraft. Why is everything so blocky and pixelated? They better figure it out for Christmas Day for NFL or they're in a lot of trouble. Yeah, it was downright bad at times. You could tell that

they had trouble as soon as like, because I think it was as soon as Tyson walked in. Yeah, because that's when everyone turned it off. That's when a lot of people were like, oh, the fight is starting. Yeah. Yeah. At any rate, the Dunbar-Lumber text line is full of things. I like this from JD and Kukula.

Mike, why would they try to anti-promote the fight? Yeah, Halpert doesn't get it. He doesn't get the promotion game, right? I just replied to maintain their dignity and legitimacy, I guess. No, dignity is so out. Dignity and legitimacy flew out the window a long time ago. A lack of shame is what gets you to the top in the United States. Come on, man.

Haven't you learned anything? You know what? It's true. It's a lack of shame. I would like to now announce that I have joined the Jake Paul promotion team for his next upcoming fight. Mike Tanner is going to join us next. We'll talk about a busy and eventful and frankly,

very entertaining day in the world of the NFL. Then we've got another open segment on the other side of that, and then Kevin Woodley is going to join us at 8 o'clock to talk about the Vancouver Canucks and their two games over the weekend. You're listening to the Alfred and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.