Halford & Brough in the Morning - How Will Manny Coach Petey?

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

In hour two, Mike & Jason discuss the latest Canucks news with radio commentator Brendan Batchelor (1:25), plus the boys speak with BC Lions President Duane Vienneau (23:55) ahead of the start to the regular season. 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.

Bachelor, Bachelor, Bachelor, life from Rogers Arena, Colenica, Knox games. It's his friend and Bachelor, Bachelor, Bachelor. 703 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody, Halford and Brough of SportsNet, 650. Halford and Brough in the morning is bratsy by Sands and Associates.

They're open seven days a week and open late to help you get debt-free. With no judgment or upfront fees, visit them today at sands-trustee.com. We are now in hour two of the program. Brandon Batchelor, play-by-playboys, so the Vancouver Canucks is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off Hour 2. Hour 2 is brought to you by Jason Hominoch at Jason Dom Mortgage.

If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at Jason. Dom Mortgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintech Studio. Step strong with orthotics and footwear from Kintech. Guests on SportsNet 650.

Call in on the ABLE Auctions hotline. Email sales at ABL auctions.ca to get your business assets sold and your building cleared. Let's go now to the Able Auctions hotline. Our next guest, as mentioned, play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks right here on SportsNet 650. It's Brendan Batchler here on the Halford & Brough Show. Morning, Batch, how are you?

I'm doing well. How are you guys? Good. We are done with waiting. Mandy Malhotra is now the head coach of the Vancouver Connects, the 23rd head coach in franchise history. Let's just get your introductory opening thoughts on the hire that everyone expected, but finally came to fruition last.

night batch. Yeah, I think it was just a matter of time. And, you know, I'm a fan of the decision. I like Mani. I think for a young team that is going to grow and go through some ups and downs over the next few years, he's the perfect person to come and lead some of these young players through that experience because, you know, just look at the last two years for him in Abbotsford. He had the high of winning the Calder Cup and, you know, navigating that team through the playoffs. and a pretty young team by HL standards as well to that championship, and then was dealt a completely different challenge this past season with, you know, limited roster and injuries at the big club

that caused him to lose players that he might have expected to have to rely on for a lot of the season. And, you know, from all reports, obviously I wasn't in Abbotsford on a daily basis, but it sounds like, you know, he navigated a challenging year pretty well, just like he navigated a successful year pretty well. So, you know, I think he's probably a guy that understands the modern player pretty well. And it makes a lot of sense for him to be the head coach of the team. So it'll be exciting to hear from him at some point here in the next few days.

And the other thing I like to see too, and, you know, some people will say, oh, they're just getting the band back together and bringing all these former players that played together in. But I think organizational alignment is really important. And at times over the past decade through multiple different regimes, we've seen how lack of organizational alignment can really hurt you. So the fact that all of these guys are really comfortable with each other are going to be on the same page with their vision and are going to move forward together, I think is promising for this organization.

How much does organizational identity have to do? do with this as well? Yeah, I certainly think it does and it should for a couple of reasons. One, we talk so much about culture. Well, all of the guys involved now were part of this organization when the culture was, you know, as good as it can get, you could argue with, you know, the teams in, you know, what, 13, 14, 15 years ago and, and, you know, the success they had. but also, you know, a strong organizational culture that recognizes talent from within and promotes it, right? Like this is Ryan Johnson doing a good job winning a championship at the AHL level, getting a chance to be the GM at the NHL level.

Same goes for Manny Malhotra as the head coach. And, you know, who else would you want to set your culture and your organizational standards other than Daniel and Henrik Siddeen? So, yeah, like no notes. You know, as I said, some people might be critical that it's too many familiar guys and, you know, the 2011 team being worked into the organization. But honestly, the 2011 team was one of the best teams we've seen post lockout in the National Hockey League. So if you're bringing guys in that understand how to have a lot of success, you know, I don't see that much of an issue with it, to be perfectly honest. If we remove the answer winning hockey games, because I don't think that he's going to be expected to, I don't think that that's the objective anyway.

What's Manny Malhotra's biggest challenge going to be on the job in year one? Yeah, I think it's the growth and development of the young talent. And, I mean, ultimately, we'll see the correct answer to that question may be navigating, you know, coaching his son or, you know, navigating organizationally, having to, figure that side of things out. Now, I know Caleb's committed to go to college, so that may not be a short-term worry if indeed they do draft him,

if he doesn't make the jump to the NHL right away. But let's put that talking point to the side for now because that's just speculation. Yeah, I think it's growth of young players and keeping morale high because, you know, it's likely to be another long year in terms of results from the country. Knox, as you point out, right?

Like nobody's expecting him to come in here and win 50 games with this team. But how do you go through the process of a difficult year while keeping everyone on the same page and keeping everybody's spirits high and continuing to have a positive feeling around the group that you can carry forward from training camp and, you know, making sure that you manage the young guys in the lineup in a way that allows them to grow and develop and not get discouraged? or not have setbacks in their progress individually, even as they play on a team that might not make a whole lot of progress

in terms of on-ice results. So, you know, I think that's a challenge, but I also think Manny is probably, you know, pretty well suited to that challenge, as I said, based on what he went through this past year in Abbotsford and, you know, the drastic change in quality of roster that he had to deal with. So, you know, he'll be prepared.

But yeah, that to me is a challenge is, you know, when you're one of the bottom feeders in the NHL or you've lost three or four games in a row, how do you keep the spirits high? How do you make sure that, you know, off-ice storylines don't become, you know, all encompassing within your dressing room? Because we saw at times over the past few years with the previous regime and the previous team, I guess you could say, because a lot of those guys have been moved out, that when the results didn't go their way, it turned into a circus a little bit. And so you need to avoid that to insulate your young players. With regards to Manny's coaching staff, how do you think it will be filled out? What would you like to see in terms of hires for assistant coaches and fellow guys behind the bench? Yeah, I'm not sure. It'll be interesting to see if any of the guys from Abbotsford make the jump to the NHL level with him.

I think it's, you know, probably pretty important that he have at least one veteran experienced assistant coach just to help him navigate. his first foray into the NHL head coaching realm. But at the same time, this is a guy that's been on benches for a long time. It's a guy that's been on NHL benches for quite a while, has experience in that regard. So, you know, much like I talked about with, you know, the presidents and the GM and the head coach and having alignment of vision, you know, ultimately they need to bring in the best guys to support him. And he's probably the best judge of what he does. needs in terms of supporting cast and characters around him.

But yeah, I would like to see a veteran assistant that can kind of help him navigate the first year or the first few years of his head coaching tenure in the NHL. What do you think is going to be the main difference between being a head coach in the HAL and a head coach in the NHL for Manny Mahotra? Personality and management of personalities, right? Like I think when you're in the HAL, and again, I'm not a coach. so I'm just assuming this. Like the emotions you have to deal with guys in the AHL would be very different.

Like, you know, a guy gets sent down that thought he was going to make the team and is frustrated and maybe demoralized it a little bit, and you've kind of got to build him up and get him back on task and back on focus. When you're at the NHL level and dealing with guys that, you know, make much bigger salaries and have much bigger bodies, of work, you know, the buy-in, I would imagine, is different. And how to get that buy-in, I would imagine, is different. Now, again, I'm not a coach. So, like, I'm not going to sit here and try to give Mani Malholtra advice about how to deal with big personalities. All I'll say is that we just

see the game shifting more towards player power and, you know, players having more of an impact than they ever have in organizational decision-making. Now, you know, the Canucks don't have that player right now in the sense that, you know, many of us believe that Adam Foote was brought in because they were trying to keep Queen Hughes and a lot of the decisions going into last season seemed to be geared towards keeping Queen Hughes.

Well, Quinn Hughes isn't here anymore. So that dynamic isn't at play. But, you know, I do think about Elias Pedersen and about, you know, trying to get the most out of him. and, you know, Ryan Johnson talked about trying to wipe the slate clean from what's happened in the past and just get him back to being a more productive member of the team. So that's going to be an interesting task for Manny Malhultra that, you know, I think is probably unique to anything he faced in the AHA.

What do you think, what do you think Manny's approach to Elias Pedersen would be? Yeah, it's hard to say. And I wouldn't want to speculate because I would imagine assuming, Elias Pedersen is back with the organization next year and that they don't move him at some point in the offseason, that a lot of care and thought and discussion will go into how to get the best out of him. And that won't be just a Mani decision. That'll be, you know, probably the twins and Ryan Johnson and Mani and his coaching staff all, you know, coming up with a strategy or trying to get on the same page to make sure they can get the best out of Alias Pedersen.

But, you know, in some senses, I think we've seen a couple of different approaches over the past few years that haven't necessarily yielded the results that you would hope, right? I think, you know, we saw more of the carrot from Adam Foote and we saw more of the stick from Rick Tocket. And neither of those things got Elias Pedersen back to being the player that he has been in the past. Is it a third option? Yeah, exactly. I don't know. maybe a little bit of carrot and a little bit of stick. Maybe a carrot wielded like a stick. Yeah, he beat him with a carrot. Maybe that'll work.

So I honestly don't know how many would approach it. I think, you know, hopefully that's a question that gets asked of him when he meets the media. But I think accountability has to be at the top of the list for every player in the NHL. I think, you know, when I believe it was Daniel and Henrik talked about this, where they said, you know, it's no different than any other player. We expect him to come into camp ready. We expect him to be willing to be held accountable for his preparation and for the way he plays and the way he approaches the game.

You know, I can't imagine Mani Malhulcher would have any sort of different philosophy on that. We're speaking of Brendan Bachelor, play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks here on the Alfred and Breff Show on SportsNet 650. Hey, Batch, did your time calling games for the Vancouver Giants ever overlap with Brendan Gallagher's time as the Vancouver Giants? Did you guys miss out on each other? I covered Brendan Gallagher as a BCIT intern. When I was, I did like a three month embedded internship with the Vancouver Giants through the 2010 playoffs. And they went to the conference finals that year. and he was a very big part of that team.

So when I was actually working as the play-by-play voice for the Giants, we didn't cross paths. He was already in the NHL by then, but I did have some experience covering him at the junior hockey level. Well, then are you excited at the potential of calling Brandon Gallagher game? Should he? Of course, the news yesterday was that he's no longer going to be a member of the Montreal Canadiens and he would be open to moving to Vancouver.

So the potential of Brendan Gallagher being a Vancouver, maybe calling some of his games? Yeah, I think that would be great. I think it would be a good story for him as a, you know, a Vancouver product and a product of the Giants to come back and play some NHL hockey in this city. I think most importantly, though, he is the type of player, but also the type of person that I would like to see this organization target in terms of the veterans they want to bring in as they navigate this rebuild. because this is a guy that does not cut corners. This is a guy that does not take a shift off. And it's been that way since he was 16, 17 years old,

breaking into the WHL, right? Like he is the perfect player to teach the young guys what it takes to be a success over the long term in the National Hockey League and how, you know, a perfect example of a guy that will come in and the non-negotiables are non-negotiable with him. he's also a great character and a great personality, so I think he'd be a good person to have in that dressing room. But we've heard so much over the past few years about practice habits and about, you know, raising the level and competing every day and that element of things needing to be better.

Brendan Gallagher is a culture carrier that makes you earn things in practice and will make you earn ice time if you're a forward trying to compete for spots in the lineup. and there's someone that, you know, despite being an undersized player, goes to the front of the net, goes to the hard areas, understands that that's what he has to do to have success and does not take a night off in that regard. So if he can come in and, you know, ultimately we'll see if it happens or not. But whether it's Brendan Gallagher or whether it's Brendan Gallagher-esque players that they could target via trade or free agency this summer,

if that's the kind of person they're looking to bring in, then I think that's a really good thing to be targeting to help your young guys, you know, through this rebuild and to teach them what it takes to be a success at the NHL level, you know, not just for a cup of coffee, but for a long tenure and the work and effort and heart that it takes to have a successful career like he has. That's, this was great, buddy. Thanks for taking the time to do it, as always. We appreciate it.

Enjoy the rest of the week. We'll do this again real soon. Sounds good, guys. I said, oh, I think I just saw Gabrielle's penalty land here in Port Coquitland, so I'm going to go get the ball. I'll talk you later. See you, buddy. Brendan Batchelor, throwing shade at his broadcast partner,

Randy Janda here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, Frege just came out with an article or a quick report on Sportsnet.com. And this had been rumored. And Frege reports, according to several

sources, the Nashville Predators have permission to talk to Colorado GM Chris McFarland. What a strange circumstance this is. Well, I think they are probably going to offer him president of hockey ops. Sure. So there's a promotion. To Chris McFarland because he is the GM in Colorado.

And Fridge notes that he was elevated to that role when Colorado desired to keep him instead of allowing him to interview for Anaheim's then vacant. GM position. The Ducks eventually hired Pat Verbeek. So it's not going to be a lateral move to Nashville. They're going to have to say it's a promotion and obviously more money. Because Nashville, we've just been waiting on Nashville forever. And they still don't have a general manager. Obviously, McFarland isn't going to take the job. Would hire a general manager. I think when we first heard that maybe Nashville's waiting for someone and maybe had an executive

that was still working for a team that was still alive in the playoffs. I mean, I personally was like, oh, some assistant general manager. I didn't think it would be the general manager of the Colorado Avalanche. I wonder if this is Nick Sabin's influence. So for those that don't know,

Sabin's a minority owner in the Predators. And obviously he doesn't know a lot about hockey, but they're really leaning on like the culture and championship pedigree that he brought to all of the programs that he built. I wonder, and I'm just throwing this out as a hypothetical, I wonder if they look at McFarlane and say, you've built an excellent team in Colorado, excellent team. Do you want to have complete and total sale over the direction of this franchise movie forward?

Because I would say if there's one team right now in the National Hockey League, that would probably embrace maybe like an entirely new direction. It could be Nashville. Yeah. Because it's always been Poil and then it was Trots

who was like a Poil acolyte. Yeah. You know, did anyone feel like they were really going to deviate from the David Poil personality and attributes under Trots?

I don't think anyone did. And then when Barry left or was forced out, however you want to put it, I do wonder if they were like, hey, like the Kanax. this is a real opportunity to reimagine what we are and what we're about.

And they need to be reimagined. Yeah. They really lost their way. I don't even know if it's stale, but because they... Actually, that's maybe not the right word. But they, I mean, they... It's unidentifiable. Yeah.

Because they had all those signings, including Stephen Stamco's, who, by the way, like, ended up with a bunch of goals this year. But, yeah, it's just, I think you look at Nashville right now and you're like, what are you what do you want to be? What are you? you. Yeah. What are you and what do you want to be? Yeah. That'd be really interesting if he takes that gig though. That'd be

that'd be a hell of a thing though. For Nashville to essentially hire away the general manager of the president's trophy winning Colorado Avalanche. I mean they went into the playoffs

the clear favorites to win the Stanley Cup. Tripped up in a big way by Vegas. Vegas played very well and Colorado had some injuries. But this isn't like going to some random team and thinking, oh, that GM must be dying to go to like a good team. But, you know, maybe he feels like he doesn't have universal say because Joe Sackick is there

as the president of hockey ops. So anyway, this is a big story in the NHL. I know we're focused on the Vancouver Canucks here in Vancouver and all the changes that they're making. But what an interesting offseason all of a sudden for Colorado after getting swept out of the playoffs by Vegas because there's still this conversation going on in Colorado with regards to Jared Bednar.

And who's going to be there if he needs a vote of confidence or to make a decision on a coaching change, right? Is it just Joe now? Is Joe making all the calls? Are they going to make a GM? You're going to hire a new GM? I heard, I hear Evan Gold is available. Oh, yeah.

Evan Gold. I forgot about him. I hadn't thought about him in a minute. Okay. We got to go to break, but before we do, I need to once again tell you about our friends at the hometown heroes lottery. They need your support to help change lives. BC's bravest answer the call and your ticket answers there.

Support BC's Best Value Hospital Home Lottery and get your tickets now for your chance to win big and to help big. I was perusing some of the grand prize houses that you can win in the Heroes lottery. There's a couple in Vancouver, one in Dunbar, one in the Oak Ridge area, Sasserie, White Rock. You just walked right into these houses? I've been to one of them. Wow. I went to one of them.

Yeah. I've just been kind of driving around outside them at night. Yeah. Shined a spotlight into them. He went in via the ceiling like Mission Impossible. Just dreaming. Just dreaming. The security in those places is, that's you, your core temperature.

goes up one, one degree. I know. Yeah, okay. So, but go to heroes lottery.com to check out some of these fabulous grand prize homes. Win with BC's bravest and help save lives. Millions and prizes

are just waiting to be won and tickets start at four for only $85. Don't wait, buy your tickets now, as Jason mentioned, at heroes lottery. com. You're listening to the Halford and Breff Show on SportsNet 650. It's Canucks Central on SportsNet 650. From exclusive interviews to

insider scoops and post-game breakdowns, we've got it all. Tune in weekdays 4 to 6 p.m. on radio and on demand through your favorite podcast app. 7.32 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. They're ready to give you the financial fresh start you deserve. With no judgment or upfront fees, visit them today at Sands.com. We're in our Our two of the program at the midway point of the show. Dwayne Vanneau, president of the BC Lions is going to join us in just a moment here. Hour two of this program is brought to by Jason hominock at Jason.

Dot Mortgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at Jason. Dot mortgage. To the Able Auctions Hotline we go, our next guest, as mentioned, president of your BC Lions. Dwayne Vanneux joins us here on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Morning, Dwayne. are you? Good morning. How are you today? We are well. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

I know there's a lot going on with the BC Lions on the field in anticipation of the CFL season, but we got to talk about what's going on today off the field, although right around the practice facility, tell us about what's being unveiled today, transformed locker rooms, big upgrades. What can you tell our listeners about what you have in store for the players today? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we've been in Surrey's facility here. It was purpose built over 40 years ago and it like any 40 year old venue, it needed a lot of work and Amar Doman, our owner, you know, he said, you know, we have to do better for the players. So we essentially did that. We gutted this place to the studs, you know,

everywhere in the locker room area, our AT area, our hot tub area, just everything, we went down to the studs. We completely transformed the room. And it all started last year when we decided that we were going to try to just triage it a little bit and the triage turned into more and today we're unveiling our whole new room and I'm really excited

for the players to get the first time to get a chance to see it because they've been in Camloops for camp the whole month and we've been putting the finishing touches down. So they show up today. We're showing them the room and then they're on the field. Can you ballpark how much this is cost to the owner, Amar Domman?

Oh, you know, I won't talk about that number, but it's significant. I'll just say that. And but it's, it's been a very, it's been an investment by Amar. It's, it was important to him to make sure that we did everything in our power. You know, his exact words to me, you know, about a year ago is Dwayne, we can do better. And let's do better. And we were always in a situation where we wanted to look at other potential options and figure it out. And how do we, how do we improve?

the quality of training facilities for our players and eventually it just became, listen, let's just, let's just got this place and do what we can. Are you guys going to be in Surrey long term? You know, we don't really know yet. We have obviously a current lease with Surrey and we like it in Surrey. You know, it's been our home for a long time. But there's a little bit uncertainty at the moment where

there's a well-publicized discussions about a new 10,000 seat arena in the Surrey area. And one of the options of that site is exactly where we are. So if that happens, you know, the city of Surrey said, don't worry, you know, we'll look after you, we'll find you a new home, whatever that is, if that's what the solution is. But for Amar to come in and say, listen, I don't want to be here in five years and still be in the same venue, that's when the decision was made to listen. and let's just deal with the now, let's improve this room and go from there.

So it's hard to say right now, but, you know, we didn't want to wait, essentially, and be in a situation where you could be saying, God, I wish I would have did that five years ago. Could you put the new hot tub on a truck if you need to move it? You know, it's funny. We did do a lot of things that potentially can be moved. So, you know, but, you know, I don't know if that ever really works, But, you know, when you're making those kind of purchase decisions at the time,

I guess it makes you feel better, but, you know, those are some of the considerations that we did. But, you know, we have new hot stuff, new cold tubs, a brand new. What happened to us last year is when our gym facilities, you know, were a little bit outdated and they were in two separate rooms. So we purchased this sort of an end structure. It's more like a building in the back of our facility. and we erected that last summer and moved our sort of our workout area, our gym area into that gym.

And it was supposed to be temporary. And a lot of the guys said, we like it. It's got this outdoor gym sort of, you know, California field to it. Some would say a prison. Ah, it could be. But, you know, when the players said they like it, liked it and the sunshine and the open air and all of that when you got all the doors open, we said, well, if we keep it, then we can take that space over when we go down to the studs.

And that's really what we did. Our locker rooms double the size. Our athletic therapy area is double the size. And we blew up our players lounge and it's now a wide open and it's in the middle of the whole room. And so we've really just modernized it. It's a dramatic improvement from the past. Well, it's exciting news for the players, and I'm sure they appreciate the commitment from the owner. It's been an exciting and interesting time for the CFL as a league with the news about the new broadcast deal.

What were your thoughts when you heard about TSN, but also DeZone? And I'm wondering if you've heard from many of your fans who are either excited or disappointed about the DeZone deal. Maybe Rick Dollywall has emailed you about something. Well, Rick doesn't like it, but I don't know if it's, anyway, let's move on to the good stuff. I think the good stuff about it is, you know, the league is growing. And for many, many years we've heard, and I've been around this league for a long time, that we're not going, we're not growing. Well, this is growth.

This is a growth deal. A lot of this happened because of some of the changes that we're, We're looked like of a progressive league right now, where we're willing to make changes, we're willing to do things that improve our sport. And if these broadcasters believe our sport is improving, then they're ready to invest in us. And that's exactly what just happened.

And, you know, Bell Media and TSN, they've invested, you know, more than the past deal. And this DeZone piece, it's going to bring on a whole new audience. audience. It's, it's, it, they're a part of almost every, I think every major league in the, in the world. And they attract a new audience and, and a younger audience. And that, you know, this is how people are consuming their content today. And, and, um, it's, I think it's going to be very exciting. It's going to also going to be, you know, they're not just picking up the feeds. They're, they're creating their whole broadcast. They're, they're running their own broadcast. So now you're going to see a different look and a different take on our games. from a different broadcaster. So I'm really excited about it. And obviously financially, it's, you know,

the deal is substantially higher than the past. Is the idea with the DeZone deal that you're exposing your product to people who are already subscribed to DeZone or is it the idea for DeZone that they're going to pick up new subscribers? I think it's a bit of both, right? Like DeZone as a business model would, you know, look at this and say, listen, this is how we grow our business. And we're looking at this as well going, we're growing our business.

And so there's people on DeZone already that are going to, you know, check out our sport, which is great. We're going to have, you know, fans that are going to, you know, go to DeZone because they want to catch us on those Saturday games. But I think it's just we're going to work together. It's a partnership like anything. and we're going to grow our collective businesses. And I'm really excited about it.

Now, the challenge is sometimes people, you know, look at the pay for service. But, you know, the last time I looked, I don't think TSN's free either. You know, like it's, there's, we all consume different forms of media and different things. So there's going to be season C-volder benefits. And to get in earlier,

there's all those kinds of things. that aren't done yet, but how do we help bridge this gap a little bit? But we're excited about it. We just think it's going to take us, it's taking us to the next level. And it's exciting times. How challenging is it sometimes to cater to your core fan base? And I think we all know that it's a bit of an aging demographic. While everyone is telling you, you got to appeal to the young people,

you got you got to make sure that you get new young fans because sometimes the way people are in the core demographic are used to things are different than the way the young people consume media. Yeah, you know, it's not an age thing. I think it's just, you know, I'm old and I'm switching how I consume media every day. So it's, you know, we don't want to ever do. We have a loyal fan base. You know, like our fans, moving around since 1954, would we ever want to do something that, you know, that, you know, that we're not here to try to make our fans unhappy with us. We're here to do things to grow our sport.

And we all take pride in that. And if we collectively, you know, our goal is to have BC place, you know, sold out every game. And are these the kinds of things that can help us get to that next level? It's just one of those those, you know, it's just one of those pillars to help us do that. And so we're really focused on. We want that stadium to be, you know, packed every single night. We're growing a lot. When I first started with Amar in 2022, our, you know, our average attendance was quite low.

And for the second year in a row, we're now the third. the third highest attendance in the league. And I think when Amar bought the team shortly thereafter, we are, I think, for the third lowest. So we've had huge growth, but you can't just stop and plateau. How do we continue that growth?

And we just have a mindset that we're never good enough. We just got to keep growing and pre-building. And I just think that everyone should have, we all appreciate it. We appreciate our fans. We appreciate everybody. And how do we help people, you know, expose themselves to our product.

We pride ourselves and it's calling, you know, the BC Lions and saying we are BC's team. And we do a lot, we focus on that a lot, like with Colonna and Langford and just all the things. Well, you are truly going to be BC's team this year. You've already played in Langford. You've got a couple games coming up in Colonna. I know they're going to be excited about those games.

Congratulations on the new or the renovated practice facility out in Surrey. I hope the players enjoy it. Maybe you can go in there and use the cold tub once in a while. I hate the cold tub, but maybe. I'm staying out of there. Yeah. You know, you said something. I really, really quickly on BC's team, we, you know, we were in camloops for the entire, basically the month of May on camp.

We flew out of Camloops to Langford. We then came back after, you know, been to Winnipeg for our game, came back to Surrey. The team landed on, you know, the equipment guys landed on Sunday night, Sunday. and that, you know, they had to get this room ready today. So I sort of described it as, listen, it's like getting a new house and the louvers drop out of the boxes and you're hosting your family for Christmas in two days. Like, if you think about it, it's crazy, but our teams worked really, really hard to get it up and running. And I just a huge shout out to everybody there.

Well, congrats on that and good luck this season. I'm sure we'll chat again soon. Thanks for taking the time to join us. Yeah, thank you very much for your support. it. Thanks, Dwayne. Dwayneau, BC Lions president here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, let's pivot quickly here. We got about 10 minutes before we got to go to break.

To the Canadian men's national soccer two, we were going to start with a recap of their wet 2-0 victory over Uzbekistan yesterday. But news this morning, Alfonso Davies has officially ruled himself out of Canada's opener against Bosnia on June 12th. Now, I'm going to play some audio from last night. This is a mashup of sorts of Alfonso Davies speaking post-match and Jesse Marsh speaking post-match. They were talking about the possibility of Alfonso playing at all in this World Cup

with an eye on Bosnia. He's since confirmed Davies, that is, that he won't be playing. But here's what it sounded like last night after the game against Uzbekistan. Laddie, take it away. It feels nice to, you know, get back on the pitch and do some. running. You know, I'm happy to be home and I'm happy to be with the boys and, you know, support them whether it's on or off the pitch. I'm happy to do it. Yeah, given the timetable, I mean, obviously me and Jesse spoke about this. Yeah, we just have to see how everything

goes over the next couple days. You know, I just continue my rehab, my progression and see how I'm feeling, you know, day by day, step by step. All you guys in the media, you're going to be asking every day, how's Alfonso doing? How's Alfonso doing, right? And he and I have talked for the last month that what's really important is that he can be free, that he doesn't feel pressure to come back. Obviously, when the games get started, he's going to want to play, right? What we don't want to do is put him in a situation to suffer again and to be vulnerable again. So you can imagine that he's, you know, wants to build up his body and trust his body in all ways so that he can go out and play football and do the things he loves. So we're going to, we're going to make sure

that as a staff that we do a good job of really looking at. every single day, monitoring every single day and putting him in position to succeed. Yeah, I mean, obviously, all depending on, you know, whether if I'm fit enough to make that, I mean, time will tell. And I can't really say right now. And obviously I can say yes or no,

but all depending on how the rehab goes. So I'm not sure exactly what changed with regards to the messaging from last night as opposed to this morning, where Davies officially ruled himself out of the June 12th match against Bosnia. But I assume it's that they just realized after last night, and leaving it with ambiguity,

that it was only going to lead to more daily questions. So why not just shut it down entirely and rule yourself out of the first match? Because of the way the tournament is scheduled, the Switzerland match, which could be a massive one for Canada and for the group, that's not until June 24th. That's three weeks away.

So that's three additional weeks of rehab that Davies could get conceivably before Canada's biggest match of the world. Cup. Yeah. If you want a reason for optimism right now. And even then, they might not have to play them in that game. Well, I'll tell you where I'm at right now.

I don't expect to see him in the opening around, the group stage. I really don't. This has been a repeat issue with Davies, the hamstring. And part of the issue is because there have been, call him allegations or whatever, suggestions that he's rushed back too soon every time. And he keeps reagravating the same. Same hamstring injury.

Do you need your hamstrings to run? Especially fast, yes. Can confirm. Right. Now, I've never run fast in my life. But I have been told by sprinters. You pulled your hamstring getting up out of that chair, I think. I did it quickly.

Right. So there's that. Yeah. But it is, you know, they are vitally important. Okay. As for the match itself. Can I just say that? You can say whatever you like.

You're on the Mastead here. The world of football is making fun of Canada in Uzbekistan. especially one play that happened last night early in the game where the Canadian defending looked a little shoddy in Uzbekistan got a break and then the finishing from the Uzbekistan player was quite poor. Which is crazy because he's a very good goal score.

And they're making fun of us on the internet. They're saying things like both these teams are going to be in the World Cup. Okay, I just want to point out that that meme that you're, that is a meme now. is a bunch of people are grabbing clips from these friendlies that are going on right now. Because there was one in the Switzerland Jordan match

where the Jordanian striker ignored his coach's instructions and encouraged all of his guys to high press. Okay. And then Switzerland put together three passes and scored. Didn't they pound them like four nothing or something like that? So everyone's like, this is your World Cup.

Can't wait to see this because of the expanded field. Anyway, right, right. Now that play you're talking about, that was Moist Bombito defending for Canada. Oh, okay. Is he's a storyline? He is. So, Bombito, who has not played a lot, recovering from a broken tibia, played 30 minutes yesterday before being

subbed off. That drew the attention of a lot of onlookers because it was not relayed ahead of the match. Bombito, it was a planned substitution. He was only going to play 30 minutes. What people saw, and hey, fair enough for them being freaked out by what they saw. They saw him subbed off really

early in the match. They saw ice, immediately go to the injured tibia and they saw them gingerly, some would say limping around. Very aggressively limping, I would say. So Canada soccer. Even Chris Tanov was like, get that man a boot. Yeah, one, like the venom of just like a boot. So afterwards, it was reported that Bambito was feeling fine. He was walking around fine after the match. The ice was removed.

He said he felt sore after playing 30 minutes for the first time in a long time. But Canada soccer said, no reaggravation of the. injury. He's good. This was planned. They're going to try and get him. I think maybe some more minutes in the Friday match. They're going to plan him against Ireland? I think they're going to try and give him another run out, maybe another 30 minutes. I thought after he was walking

off the way it looked, I was like, can he even have this guy on the roster? Because aren't we also wondering, like, could Ralph Preso make it? It may be a great yesterday. And if Bombito isn't healthy, do you put Preso in there? What is the deadline for making decisions? The day before the World Cup's

starts. Okay. And then once those decisions are made, you can't add anyone. It's 26 guys. The only thing you can add is a goalie. Okay. Yeah. And you take three goalies, right? Some have taken four. Okay. Speaking of goalies. Yeah. Max Crepoe looked pretty good yesterday. Okay. Another Halford, it's not a hot take because there's only two guys to choose from. Cripo will be starting. I think he's done it. I just said it. You are diminishing both the hot take and the rap horns in a We're playing it in songs now. It lost all meaning. Even if he hadn't had that game yesterday where he played well.

And by the way, Cropos played the first half. Dean St. Clair played the second. Neither of them allowed a goal, but Cropos made a couple of terrific saves. Yep. Which is kind of a concern for Canada that they were allowing these opportunities. Yep. Regardless, it was good that they got the saves. Was he the favorite going into this game anyway?

No. I think it was, I think it's an open competition. It's an open competition. I think it was up for grabs. I don't think Marsh should be made up his mind. Here's how I would frame it, contextualize it. I think Marsh wants Dean St. Clair to be the guy, but I think he knows that Cray Poe is the guy.

Does that make sense? Yes. Does that make sense to everyone? Like, everything about St. Clair, the size, the physicality, the athleticism, lends itself to him being the guy. But I think Marsh knows that Cray Po is the guy. because Craypo

I think what he did at the Cope America is a big indicator of what he can do at this level and I'll say this, part of the reason he has had such a trying year. Is he Bennington? Like a big game guy or? Part of the reason he's had such a trying year with Orlando

is because Orlando's maybe the worst team in MLS and they give up a million chances a game. Like if you watch the games where he concedes four, five, and six goals, they're not really his fault. They're just awful defensively. It's like when Craig Forrest gave up 11 or whatever. I think it was 9. 9.

Fitching it's United. Yeah. Yeah, like it's not his fault. Right. You know, would you like him to make saves? Yeah. Are you ever having a good day when you've allowed 9? No, but they're not necessarily your fault. In a weird way, the amount of work that Crapo got playing for Orlando served him very well yesterday because he was a very busy keeper in the first half. I made three very good stops.

Yeah, he's like, I'm used to this. Yeah. I know what it's like to have breakaways from center where. How do you think they looked yesterday at Canada? First half was very concerning. Starters versus starters was not good. Second half. Now here's the tough part. 11 substitutions for each team.

Yeah. So it was basically two new teams. Yeah. Canada's depth was significantly better than is Becostans. Yeah. And that's the reason they scored two goals in the second half and looked like the better team. So that's a positive. The negative is the first half. First half was not a good performance at all.

Here's what I think. I think that they need to start. Tani Olo O'Sheae up front because yet again, the Laren and David thing, it doesn't work. Right. For some reason, David in the second half, it was almost like he understood that the way Olo Echaye plays allows him to just kind of move around and be different. Yeah.

Then with Laren, I don't know if they don't read off each other as well with Laren that they do with Oloishahe, but he was much more effective. Jaden Nelson looked really good. Ralph Pryso looked really good. Luke DeFuzerole look really good. So that was promising. But the starting 11, it wasn't good. Where's Ali Ahmed? Hurt, hamstring.

So what's his expectation? He's not as badly hurt, and he's played games more recently. Is he a starting 11 guy? Yeah, but they put Liam Miller in there and he was fine. Yeah. Except he always cuts inside to the point where you're like, do you have another trick in your bag? Maybe you want to go to the outside. Can't turn left?

Want to whip in a cross maybe instead of cutting inside all the time. But, you know, we're quibbling there. And it wasn't great from the starting 11. Ahmed might be the guy over Miller. I think. I hope they have better conditions in Montreal. You know what I'll say? If Bombito and maybe to a lesser degree, Cornelius, can't go at centerback,

the Fuzerol acquitted himself very well. I think he could start. I swear, and I know this might be the rosiest of rose-colored glasses, I swear that Ralph Pryso could start. I know it's a lot early in his career, and he's just, but, you know, kind of transition to being a centerback, but he's just transitioning to being a centerback playing for the national team. I know, but he's really, really dynamic.

Yeah. He's got a skill set that a lot of guys just don't have. And, you know, that's my smart decision, by the way, A Dog, brought to you by Crow. Playing Ralph Pryso yesterday and giving him a look over the guy that was named to the 26-man roster in Joel Waterman as a centerback. I think Marsh knew in the back of his mind that if Bombito can't go, Pryso is the most reasonable facsimile they have to fill that spot. Right.

And Ralph really showed out yesterday. So a smart decision there to play him in the second half against Uzbekistan that is brought to you by Crow. Your trusting accounting and tax advisors for over 55 years. Crow smart decisions lasting value. Learn more at chromokai.ca.ca. Coming up, we're going to talk a little more World Cup, a little bit of different tone though different topic of conversation. Paul Runnels, the director of talent and productions for the upcoming FIFA fan fest at the P&E. He's going to join us next. Interesting

conversation to have about what's on the horizon, how ticket sales are going, what we can expect from the fan fest at the P&E. Paul Runnels will join us next on the Halford and Brough show on SportsNet 650.