Halford & Brough in the Morning - Jim Rutherford Doesn't Want To Rebuild

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

In hour two, Halford & guest host Jamie Dodd discuss some major changes coming to the MLS & the Whitecaps with Sporting Director Axel Schuster (5:05), plus the boys discuss Sportsnet Canucks reporter Iain MacIntyre's latest interview with Jim Rutherford (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.

7-0-1 on a Friday, happy, everybody, everybody, Halford, bra, featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. We're now in hour two of the program. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal could get you on the road to being debt-free in just two weeks. Visit them online at sands-trustee.com. Hour two on a fiesta Friday. Hour two is brought to by Jason Hominoch at Jason.

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.morgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintech Studio, Kintech Footwear and Orthotics, working together with you in Stap. To the phone lines we go, our next guest is the owner and proprietor of AJ's Pizza 325 and 327 East Broadway. It's AJ from AJ's pizza here on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650.

What up, AJ? What is going on? What a weekend we have in front of us, huh? I'm very excited. But you know what I'm most excited for, not to gloss over the excitement of this weekend. AJ, I know you know what's coming. We have a big major announcement to make here. Yes, I'm going to let you run with it, my friend.

Okay. So, for the first time ever in the history, of the Halford and Brough show. We're taken live on location to AJ's pizza on East Broadway on American Thanksgiving. Thursday, November 27, sound the rap horns at 6 to 9 a.m. We're going to be live on location at AJ's. We are going to be the de facto pregame show for all of American Thanksgiving NFL coverage. It's Packers and Lions that morning, followed by your beloved.

Cowboys taking on the Chiefs at 1.30. And then the nightcap, Bengals, Ravens. But we're going to be live in the restaurant at 6 a.m. from 6 to 9. And you guys are going to open right at 9 a.m., correct? Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Probably even 8.45. Oh, amazing. Rolling, it is going to be, I am so excited.

I cannot wait. So we've done this before, not the show live on location, but we've gone to AJ's right after the show before for American Thanksgiving. One of the best places in the city for American Thanksgiving. You guys do it right, and you do it proper. So we're really excited to do it. It's going to be very cool. Thursday, November 27th.

Before we let you go, though, AJ, set up this weekend, what's going on, what people can expect, and when they should come by on both Saturday and Sunday. Well, what are the, yeah, I mean, I mean, obviously, Kinnock's game tonight, which is great. We need a big win there. And then, yes, Sunday, and don't sleep on that, on that Bill's Tampa game at 10 a.m. That's a good one. And that's the time we open. And again, if you want to get there at 9.30, we'll let you in and come hang out and it's happy hour all day. And then we got the Seahawks.

What a huge game. And then, of course, Teresa's Broncos and her hated chiefs. So, you know, it's going to be epic. Go by Saturday. Go by Sunday. Hell, go by tonight as well. Could I give AJ a pizza suggestion? Yes, Andy.

Yeah, you can. Thanksgiving pizza. So I throw on the pizza, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and gravy. What do you think, are you going to come in and eat it? Of course I would. I thought you were going to say breakfast pizza for 9 a.m. I've already petitioned that. Okay, okay. We've gone through the breakfast pizza.

I would, of course, eat that. But I'm just throwing it out there. I will make sure there's something special. Thanksgiving pizza. Yeah, don't worry about it. I got you, my friend. Thank you. Beautiful.

AJ, I'm very excited for Thanksgiving. I'm very excited for this weekend. It's awesome doing this, bud. Thanks for doing this this morning. Yeah, thank you guys. Have a great weekend and enjoy all the football. Yeah, thanks, buddy. Appreciate it.

That's AJ from AJ's pizza on East Broadway. Go visit them 325 and 327 East Broadway. We're going to get Axel Schuster on the phone here in a second or is he already up. Are we, how are we doing here? What are we doing? Okay, we don't have them yet. Axel Shuster, Whitecaps, Sporting Director is going to join us momentarily here on the Halford and Brough Show on SportsNet 650.

When we booked Axle's hit, it was going to be almost exclusively to preview this massive matchup on November 22nd between the Vancouver Whitecaps and LAFC at BC Place. And part of the inspiration was, well, you sold 50,000 plus tickets for this massive match. Then MLS decided to throw a bunch of other news our way. One is that formerly the paywall within Apple TV in which MLS seasons past existed is no longer. They made the announcement yesterday that with your standard Apple TV coverage and package that you subscribe to, you will now get MLS coverage moving forward. But the other bigger news yesterday was that MLS, beginning in 2027, is going to move to a more traditional winter schedule to align with the majority of European League.

so there's a lot to get into with Axel Schuster. The Whitecaps Sporting Director is on the phone right now. He joins us here on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Good morning, Axel. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing way well. How are you? We're great. Thanks for taking the time to do this. So we will talk about the massive playoff matchup coming up against L.A.F. In just a minute here.

But the big news of the day as it pertains to your club and the league in which you play is that MLS is making the change to a winter schedule. So for our listeners, that might not be all, that familiar. And I know I'm asking you a lot here, but can you lay out what's exactly going to change and why these changes were made, maybe some of the messaging that came from the MLS head office and Commissioner Don Garber? Yeah, to explain to those who maybe are not that familiar with it, soccer is way more a worldwide sport than the other sports that we have in North America that are way popular in North America. And I would say 95 plus percent of

the leagues in the world and all the biggest leagues in the world are playing in a different type of a calendar that we do. That means their season starts in summer and goes until summer again while our season so far has started somehow in February and ended in December with the Cup final. So we have now made the decision that we will align our calendar in future, starting 27 to all the other leagues in the world. And why this matters so much is other than the fact that it is this calendar of world soccer and people who are following leagues, they are used to this calendar and use that seasons end in summer.

The main reason what is also was very important for this decision is that the transfer windows in those we can acquire and sell players are the. driven by the other leagues, obviously, when they are league ends and when they build a new squad. And so in future, we will act and work in the same transfer windows as all the other leagues. What should help us to acquire players at the right time when they are also available in other leagues and to sell players also at the right time when other leagues have the dollars to spend for the next season. Now, for the Canadian perspective, Vancouver, and I think more stressingly for Montreal and Toronto is the winter weather.

There will be a winter break baked into the schedule, but it's still going to be games in December and in February in a lot of cities where temperatures can get quite low. What about the winter weather? Is it a problem? You know, it is not a problem, and it is something that we have discussed more than a year, how to help those markets who maybe have a little bit challenge just before the winter break and at the end coming out of the winter break.

But we also have to explain to everyone that right now our cup final is in December. So if you are in a cold weather market and you have to host a cup final, you have to host it in very challenging conditions. We just saw the CPL final probably a lot of people who follow the game in our country. we have seen. And I would say, do you want that the most important game of the season is maybe impacted by weather? And then also our season again, and now since many years, start already mid of February anyway. So I would say that's not a big difference. Yes, there are a few markets who maybe where we maybe have to think about how we can help them at the end and at the beginning

of this break. But first of all, we have time until 2027, and we discussed this already since the year, and I can say that the maturity was very positive about the change because they

think that the pros aligning the calendar and having the most important games, and also to start into a season in good weather, outweaves the cons that we maybe have to to find a solution.

And there's one little other thing, and I don't want to speak too long about this and take too much of your time. But the weather was also challenging in summer, in very hot markets. So we have played in Houston in August, and this is also far from ideal. So we always have to work a little bit

around those issues because we play on a continent, not just in a small market. And we are proven, and we have a history of solving those problems. I'm glad that you brought that up because people sometimes forget playing in 100 degree temperature in Houston in the summer is probably just as extreme on the other side as opposed to the cold in December and February. So there's no real escaping it. Final question on this before we pivot to something else. Collectively, as an organization, are Whitecaps FC happy with the MLS's decision to move to this calendar?

Yeah, we are absolutely happy. And we obviously are a little bit in a luxury position because when we had this many service, and we had many pot calls about how would this impact the market, how would that impact training, you can train outdoors in all 12 months in Vancouver. Yes, it's a little bit more rainy in winter, but it's not anything that holds you back from training on a grassfield outdoor. And we have a stadium that has a roof. So we are pretty much covered for every weather.

so we don't really have the issues that might come for the one or the other markets that we have to solve and on the other side we see the pros, the big pros, to be aligned with the worldwide calendar. We're speaking of Whitecaps FC Sporting Director Axel Schuster here on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Some other business stuff to attend to here, Axel, before we get into the LAFC match.

Don Garber, the MLS Commissioner, was in town last week to meet with politicians and with the city and with the provincial government about a variety of things including the existing lease which is about to expire for BC Place and a new stadium build can we get an update on where things are out

with regards to a new lease between you guys and BC Place you know we will have a new lease and we will play in BC Place next year I mean we have a very very good working relationship with the staff at BC Place and there's no question. We have already gotten the dates that we have locked in into next year's calendar

for all the competitions we are playing in. The discussion here is way more than about just the next year. It is about the future of this club. It's about the long-term vision and it's about the challenges that we have right now. And I had wonderful discussions with the people at Pafco and BC Place and they totally understand our challenges. And there's no easy solution. If there would be an easy solution,

I think we would have already signed some form of a paper that would solve all of this. The commissioner wouldn't have to come here and have these discussions. Because our issue right now is that although we are in the top 10 in attendance, we have been top seven last year, we are at the bottom at that end in revenues right now. and there are a lot of factors who are playing into this and we want to find a sustainable solution for this club

for the future because what I always continue to say is this ownership group is looking to keep the club in Vancouver and this ownership group is looking to find a new owner who will own and support this club for the next decade in Vancouver and for that we have to solve a few issues or we have to have a few visions or we have to have some solutions and that's what we're working on.

We're not losing our optimism that there is a solution and I think that we have laid out several plans how this can go and we have to continue to have this discussions. No one has to be worried about next year. This is far beyond next year the discussions that we have right now.

It is always significant though when the big boss shows up. So when Garber comes into town it draws a lot of attention and there was a press conference that went along with the, meetings. If you're able to, can you classify how the tone and tenor of Don Garber's meetings went with the various politicians and officials that he met with in Vancouver?

The tone was very constructive, way, I will say, thoughtful and also vision, with a great vision. I think the commissioner has been very clear that he is here because he believes in the market. He thinks that the numbers that we can present are proving this, the attendance, but also the growth of this club and the attraction that this club gets. Thomas Miller's signing was also a big driver for this. And now the good thing is if Dongawa comes in your market, we are a single entity enterprise. So we are one-thirtieth of MLS. So he comes into the market and he has the insight in every of the other 29 markets. He knows every single number there.

So then he can speak about, look, can we look into this or this because this is working in other markets or that happened in other markets? And we have to look into the competitive landscape and that we are playing. We're not isolated only in Vancouver. We compete with a lot of other clubs and we want to continue to be a club that competes and is going for winning. And for that we also need to find the right setup. And Don actually can give way more insight into the setups of other clubs, into what has worked with other cities, with other provinces, and what have been solutions.

And that's the thing why he was here. And also with that, obviously, making a little bit of a pressure from New York, from the perspective of this league, that this city and we as a club and our whole setup has to jump, to a next level that this club can compete. Axel, we're still over a week away from the big match against L-AFC at BC Place. That's Saturday, November 22nd. And it will be three weeks between that match and your last match when you closed out the series against Dallas.

And I imagine in some ways your team was pretty happy to have that break. Of course, injuries has been a big part of the story for the White Caps this year. What can you tell us about the availability and the fitness of some of your key players going into the match of LAAFC next weekend? Yeah, of course. We always said as soon as we get to a do-a-die game, I think everyone who can run will be available, and that means

that our medical team and throughout these weeks, also the players and the coaching staff has worked altogether to make Tristan, Blackmun and Brian White eligible for this game and to help Ryan Gold to have more minutes for this game. Of course, such a long break is never ideal, especially also because we have the international break.

Some of our international players are gone, so it's a little bit of a disruption. You have a good wide, you have a good run, and you would like to just continue. But we see it the positive way. We will have more players and more minutes of all players available for this game. And we always have said, If you come to a do-a-die game, what this is, the first one is playoff series for us, really.

We want to have the best possible team available, the roster that is, I mean, other than the long-term season-ending injuries, our best roster. And then we want to compete on the highest level. We have a sold-out stadium. And we want to give LAAFC the biggest fight ever, and we want to win it. and we have won against them this year. We have one against almost every opponent in this league this year. And so we are not shy saying that this is obviously the ultimate goal to be ready to beat them. Tell our listeners about the challenge that LAAFC present

because this is a team that you guys are quite familiar with, having faced them in the playoffs numerous times, but it's a different beast now with Jungman's son in the fold. Yeah, well, we are a different beast with Thomas Miller. So I would say that's pretty much. of course LFC is a top team maybe the other best team in the Western Conference if they have all their players available but we play at home we play on our turf we play in front of 50,000 Vancouver supporters they have to travel here

we have not lost against them this year and we will be ready for it I don't think that we have to be concerned about anything other than that we are not ready and we don't show our best performance. If we have seen last year when we played them in the best of three series and we had to play all three games, that it was an inch that we were missing. It was a game of inches. We won an on aggregate. We won at home three nothing, but we lost both away games with one goal.

So there is no away game this time. There's only this home game and we have to be as ready as we have been last year for our home game. And then if we show our best performance. performance, I am 100% going that we will win the game. So I'm glad that you brought up the home field advantage, because that is the one significant difference between last year's

playoff and this year's playoff. Of course, the other one is that it was a three game as opposed to a one game winner takes all. It's not just a home pitch advantage now, though, the crowd in size and in scope. This is a massive crowd by anybody's standards, specifically MLS. How big an advantage

do you anticipate? And how big is this crowd going to get on November 22nd for this match against LASC? The stadium will be sold out. We will have whatever the maximum capacity is on that day, 53-something with the constructions going on. But I only want to remind everyone we had a similar game this year at home against Miami.

The team that was seen and is still seen as one of the best teams in the league, and we had the first leg in the Champions Cup against them here at home, and they had no chance. And at that day, the stadium and we were one unit, and we fought together and we haven't given them any chance and that's actually what we need and next Saturday again

we need the stadium and the team to be one united thing that is fighting all together to get into the conference finals Axel I love it super excited for the 22nd it's going to be a lot of fun thank you very much for taking the time

to do this today we appreciate it best of luck on the 22nd go get a win thank you very much guys thank you Axel Schuster Whitecaps Sporting Director here on the Halford & Brough show on SportsN 6.50. Okay, since we're on the soccer front,

we've got a couple minutes prior to the break. I do want to mention that Canada did play yesterday in an international friendly against Ecuador, and it was a nil-nil affair, and the match was marred in the fifth minute when Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Ali Ahmed got a straight red for a tackle that was, yes, reckless. But given the context of the match,

I thought it was a ridiculous decision to send him off that early in the match in a match that was a friendly had no malice or anger to it within the first five minutes. I think that was the first foul, if not the first, the second foul that was called in the entirety of the match,

was a friendly and had no VAR available, which is common for a lot of these international friendlies. What it meant was Canada was then forced to re-address its style and its approach. They did have a glorious chance to go up when they'll shortly thereafter, but Taniolo O'Shea, he couldn't beat the Ecuadorian keeper. And in the end, it was a nil-nil draw in which Canada maybe got something from it because it learned how to play a man down for almost the entirety of a match.

But at the end of the day, I think everyone there wanted more out of that match. And unfortunately, a very harsh, officiating decision, a referee's decision in the early stages of the game through the whole thing off kilter. It was kind of disappointing. If Adam Futt was managing the Canadian National League, he would say that was. was a resilient performance. It was resilient. To go down a man early and still find a way to hold on for the nil, nil draw.

But, and there was a lot of it and shockingly people on Twitter took umbrage with some of my spicy hot takes. There's some idiot name Wayne King on Twitter. I don't think it's his real name. He just drives me nuts. No other reason that he just, I just wanted to mention that. Why would he choose the name Wayne King? I don't know.

I don't know. Anyway. It sounds like his real name. I'm going to be honest. Anyway, if it is, Wayne, you stink. So here's the thing I understand I understand that

there was a recklessness involved with the challenge and I understand that I'm old and the way that I watched the game and played the game growing up it's a lot more it's a lot different now I don't want to call it soft I just think that a lot of the

Just say it no but I think a lot of the recklessness that especially with the flashing of the studs which is where the serious injuries happen they've tried to curtail that so that anytime studs are flashed in a tackle, they just make the decision for a red. Now, the problem is that the red is so inherently punitive, it can throw an entire match

and that when you make that decision five minutes in, you really alter the outcome of a match. And I felt like, as an official, if you're tasked with managing a match, which I think is part of it, you have to take all those things into consideration when you're going to make a decision that large and that significant five minutes into it, right? You can't make that decision hastily or willy-nilly or just, you know, go and flash a red and show someone the gates that early. People push back in there like a red's a red. It doesn't matter to the contact.

It doesn't matter to the match. All this kind of stuff. And I guess I have time for that argument. But at the end of the day, I still think it's a ridiculous decision. And it kind of ruined what was supposed to be a platform game for both these teams who were headed to the World Cup.

What I'm hearing is that you're advocating for the introduction of something between a yellow card and a red card, maybe an orange card. I don't think it's going to go that way. Maybe you just sit out for 20 minutes. I think that's what it's going to be. Yeah. is instead of sitting out for the entirety of the match

and playing a man down, there's a section of the match in which you sit. Maybe it's a penalty box type situation. I don't know, but I know that there's been a look at the rules of the game and the laws of the game and with how significant going a man down is, they are looking at the fundamental structure of it

and saying, are we being too punitive, especially in the early stages of a match? And are we throwing a match into complete arrears by doing this? I don't know if I agree with it. I think that's something that makes the sport the sport, and I don't know if you want to change it. Penalty box in soccer. Now we just have to change the ball to a puck.

Give them some sticks. Yeah. We're good to go. Yeah. But this is what happens, right? I remember when the 94 World Cup came to the U.S. And there was a push from a lot of the American organizers to change it to a four quarter instead of two-half type thing. And people were appalled, right?

And this was back when the American broadcast thought it could push its weight around and changed the idea of how the match was presented. They're like, no, we're not going to do that. And it never got anywhere. But, I mean, we've seen it across all sports. People are more amenable to change now than ever, right? I mean, look at the way, I mean, the baseball postseason, I think, was very reflective. It's look at the way that it looks now.

You know, like very important video review on calls that normally in past World Series would have been just decided and you would live with the results of whatever an umpire made in a split second and no next year we're going to go even further with balls and spikes spike strikes sorry there we go review i almost got that one out so sports are changing in those directions and i do wonder if that's going to be the next iteration for like international football if there'll be a 15 or 20 minute penalty box type thing i don't know again i'm a purist at heart so i don't want to see it go that way but i'm also a realist and know that most of them do change So I guess we'll just, as I love to say, see what transpires.

We're up against it for time. We've got to move on. We got an open segment coming up. We are going to dive deep into the Jim Rutherford interview with Ian McIntyre. It just went live a short while ago on Sportsnet.com. Jamie's been parsing through it like crazy. So we'll get into that in an open segment. We'll also do some Ask Us Anythings.

A reminder, get your Ask Us Anythings in. Dunbar Lumber Text Line is 650, 650. Hashtag at AUA and put a pizza emoji into your text. You're listening to the Halford Inbrough show on SportsNet 650. Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Strance. Get your daily dose of Canucks talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on Sportsnet 650. Or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. 735 on a Friday.

Happy Friday, everybody. It's a Fiesta Friday here on the Halford & Brough show, featuring Jamie Dodd on SportsNet 650. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Get out of the penalty box of debt and back into the game with a financial fresh start. visit them online at sands dash trustee.com. We are in our two of the program. We're at the midway point of the show.

Hour two of this program is brought to by Jason Homonock at Jason. 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.com. There's a lot going on on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650 this morning. In addition to everything else that we've already covered, talk to Axel Schuster about the big, Big changes coming to MLS, going to a winter schedule in 2027.

This morning, in case you missed it, an hour one of the program, we played some hot audio from Elliot Friedman on 32 thoughts about the health of Thatcher Demko. On top of all of this, all of this, with a Canucks game looming this afternoon, 4 o'clock puck drop, by the way, in, Raleigh, Carolina Hurricanes, Vancouver Canucks. You can hear it right here on Sportsnet 650. There's a new Jim Rutherford interview. it's up on sportsnet.ca right now penned and orchestrated

by our very own Ian McIntyre and Jamie Dodd has spent the better part of the last 45 minutes parsing through it. I basically tapped out of the show for the last 45 minutes. But that's for you, the listeners. He didn't contribute. He contributed in his own special way

and now he's going to take the torch and he's going to run with it. It's a doozy though, right? Yeah, there's a lot to get into and we'll build up. We'll start with some of the shorter term stuff and then we'll build up to some of the more interesting long-term conversation than I did have to laugh because IMAC wrote at the start

of the article. We thought it would be a good time to sit down with Canucks President Jim Rutherford and ask about rebuilds, injuries and what the heck happened to that help at center. Always a good time, IMAC, to sit down and talk about those things with Jim Rutherford. And on that topic, the incredible lack of depth at center of this team went into the season with, that was a good portion of the start of this interview, an article. And he asked, Imec asked, did you think in April you'd still be waiting for that trade in November? Rutherford says, no, I did not, but it's not from Patrick's lack of trying. He's calling teams all the time.

If it ever gets to a conversation about potentially adding somebody, the price is just too high. Keep that in mind because that's going to be a theme throughout this interview. Later, IMAX asks them, what do you do to the roster in the short term? Rutherford says, we could make changes, pay heavy prices and trades, and still not be a playoff team. or we could stay the course keep that phrase in mind as well stay the course get back healthy and still have a chance to make the playoffs

but we could also miss the playoffs doing that right we're in a very good draft year and we've got to keep that in mind that's interesting right now as we speak I would say we stay the course with developing our young players and getting our injured players back in the lineup and continue to look for that center we still

really don't know what we've got because we haven't had a full lineup iMac follows up so you're You're not considering his trade chips, guys like Veylander and Pedersen, that's DPD, Jonathan Lekker-Macky, and Braden Coots. Rutherford says that is not in the plan. Okay, so I'm going to jump in here and ask you a question, Jamie. If there was one overriding theme or key takeaway from what Jim Rutherford sees is

direction of this team in the immediate and then not too distant future, what would that one takeaway be? stay the course stay the course that's the plan short term and as we'll get to that's the plan long term as well so no change

to the direction to the philosophy it doesn't seem like it and there is this kind of theme of we're just going to keep doing what we're doing and almost let the chips fall where they may mentality

and you hear it there right like hey we could make a trade and still make the playoffs or we could do nothing and get lucky and make or still miss the playoffs I should say or we could do nothing and get lucky and make the playoffs

which is true enough but can't don't you want to tilt the odds one way no don't you want to be active in some way rather than just kind of sitting back and saying well we'll see what happens let's see okay let's see how this plays out so um this is why I think the conversation about rebuilding

is so infuriating for people and it's and I know people are screaming for it and they make these great legal defenses as to why it should happen and I think maybe the most frustrating part is that all that effort and energy and time and thought it's beyond wasted.

It is a complete waste of time and people don't like having their time wasted. They don't like feeling like their efforts and energies are for naught and that is especially prevalent in fandom is that when you give and you give and you give and you commit a significant part of your life to following a team, talking about a team,

having an emotional investment in the team, you want good things to happen to it. And when you, it's not just that you see a path that's going in the opposite direction. It's the steadfast refusal to acknowledge that there are other paths to be taken. And that's, I think, the real frustration here. And again, so later on in the interview, I'm at Sportsnet.

So what's the best case scenario from here? The best case scenario is we get our players back. We stick with the priority we've had for six months to get another center. And then we see where we're at. Take a run at making the playoffs. And if you get in the playoffs, you just never know. And if that doesn't work, then the downside of it is stay the course, stick with what I just said, and we miss the playoffs.

So we win the draft lottery and get a top five pick and keep building a team that is relatively young where most of our players are in their 20s. Just keep adding good players. you'll notice there that the plan does not change at all. Right. Best case scenario, worst case scenario. Are you going to react to whatever happens for the remainder of this season? Nope.

We're going to stay the course. You'll also notice that in both the best case scenario, which is, by the way, in the words of Jim Rutherford, you take a run and making the playoffs, in the best case scenario and the worst case scenario, the president is explicitly relying on a huge dose of luck, right? In the best case, it's you get in and, hey, who knows what can happen? in the worst case it's well if we missed the playoffs maybe we'll win the draft lottery no luck involved there that would be an extraordinarily lucky accomplishment so again either way it's well we're just kind of we're just going to got to sit here and cross our fingers and and hope something awesome

happens to us hope something really really lucky happens to us and i'll get to the rebuild stuff here right because i know a lot of people want to hear about that even though as you said we've gone down this path so many times there's a new way to approach it for sure sure keep going and so Imac asked them, but not a full rebuild. And Rutherford says, Rebuilds can work, but you have to understand rebuilds take a long time.

There has to be a lot of patience. And for the teams that take the biggest jump and ultimately rebuild and win a cup, they usually have a first overall pick. And you still have to get lucky on that. I did think you were just talking about winning the draft lottery, but that's fine. Yeah.

I'm not naming teams, but some have tried to rebuild and had a ton of draft picks that didn't turn out. So a rebuild is not something that we're going to look at doing. Like I said, we're in transition, but we're not trading all these players for draft picks. that may or may not end up playing someday. And there's another part of the disconnect for me.

It's like, well, what? You want us to trade players for draft picks? There's so much uncertainty with draft picks. They may never play. That's wild. But then you hear him talk about Leckermackie, Vellander, Braden Coots, D.P.D. None of those guys was a top 10 pick.

How did you acquire those players that you are now absolutely unwilling to trade unless it's for a complete unicorn player? I think it was through the draft. It was with draft picks. So you are implicitly acknowledging that draft picks have a lot of value and can be a really effective way to get good young players in your organization while also saying we have no interest in acquiring more draft picks.

The scariest part might be that he's not even cognizant of the double standard that you just pointed out. And it's again, and this takes me back. I mean, speaking of having circular arguments and conversations, this takes me all the way back to the Jim Benning days, right? And elsewhere in this interview, he's emphasizing, you know our scouts have done a really good job and that was always the thing with jim benning and part of the explanation for trading way picks was what we believe in our scouting so much like we're not going to miss those picks we're still going to do a good job and the flip side of that is

always well if you guys love your scouting so much get more picks so you have more more opportunity for your incredible scouts to do his great work identifying talent and guess what they have done a pretty good job i think like dpd is a third round pick that's an awesome third round pick yeah but doesn't that mean you want more second and third round picks so you have more more opportunities to unearth talent like DPD, and it's that disconnect, which just never seems to get bridged. And then I'll read one final quote here,

at least for now, because this is kind of the big one. This is the number one takeaway, right? And so this is coming off the heel of discussion about how they don't want to do a rebuild. Ian McIntyre asks him, Quinn Hughes's future will be a subplot all season. Will his decision next summer,

whether to resign with the Canucks or ask out to play of his brothers, determine which direction the team, team building takes Rutherford. Nope, I don't think so. I think as long as we stay the course and keep getting younger players

that we feel will play in the NHL and contribute to a team that can become a consistent playoff team and a contender, then that's what we would do. So will Quinn Hughes leaving affect the team building direction for the Vancouver Canucks?

And explicitly indirectly, the answer from Jim Rutherford is no, I don't think so. Stay the course. Yeah. Can I just say that's absolutely wild. The subtext of this rebuild, this latest round of rebuilding conversation, to me, it's never been, like people reacted to Patrick Albion and after hours as if they

were expecting him to commit to a rebuild. They're never, I completely understand why that's off the table as long as Quinn Hughes plays for you. That makes tons of sense to me, no problem whatsoever. The subtext of it has always been, well, what happens if this season goes a certain way and Quinn Hughes decides to leave? Aren't you almost definitionally in a rebuild then? And Jim Rutherford for the first time has addressed that question and said, nope, that's not going to change our thinking. What you've seen for the last, certainly

since this regime has been here, but I'd argue it's pretty much a continuation of what Jim Benning was doing as well. What you see is what you get and what you're going to get with the Vancouver Canucks. Yeah, Mark and White Rock just texted in. Rebuilds take a long time. Re-tools are much quicker, signed

2014 Jim Benning. That's there's an immediacy to this organization. that I would say was only heightened by bringing in a president of hockey ops who is now closer to age 90 than he is to age 60. There's an immediacy there. And there is at times a confidence that borders on,

delusional is not the right word, but I'll throw it out there anyway, that you can do something that no other organization in the NHL has done. they point because when they say well this is a no plan plan I think that's a fair assessment because point to me to one who's done this and has gotten through successfully I'm not when you tear when the organization the executives tear down the notion of

well we can't go through a rebuild because the fans won't stomach it not all of them work it does feel like they're cherry picking the certain examples that you know have failed as opposed to looking at the wide breadth of them and saying some of work, some haven't. But the overriding theme, and I think what a lot of people are frustrated about is that fail or no, success or no, there was a plan in place.

We're going to try it this way. And there were executives and front office personnel that were quite frankly willing to stake their careers and their jobs on a plan, as opposed to we'll just wait and see what happens and hope we get lucky. and I mean in those instances the issue with banking on luck

is that when it doesn't break your way the explanation in the aftermath is always like well you know things really conspired against us this year we didn't get a lot of luck with injuries we had some of our best players you know being on the shelf for extended periods of time you want to go back last year you know Jim Rutherford on countless occasions

when he met with the media pinned last year's disappointment almost exclusively on the Pedersen Miller Rift and that he had never seen one in his 30 plus years as an executive, right? More bad luck. We thought we had everything going right. And then lo and behold, two of our star players couldn't get along.

And that was misfortune for our organization. So a few people are texting in Bob and Berneby trying to find kind of the bright side of this, right? Hey, stay the path and get top picks. He said he wouldn't trade young players. So they're trying to find that kind of silver lining if you're looking for more of a long-term approach, which is, hey, doesn't want to trade the first. round pick. I think somebody else had texted in along those lines. There's a ton of text coming in. So apologies for not being able to flag all of them. And I can understand that. But in some

ways, the frustration for me is not so much about, oh, they won't rebuild. It's the desperation to kind of sit in both worlds at the same time, right? To desperately hold onto your young players. And while we can't, we couldn't possibly trade Jonathan Leckermackie. Right. We like them too much. Well, okay, are you going to build around like that time window? No, no, because we don't want to trade our veterans for draft picks that might never play. I think I would have more time for it if Jim Rutherford's philosophy was we've got arguably the most talented player who's ever played for this team in the prime of his career in Quinn Hughes. We've got Philip Ronek who's in the prime of his career. We've got Brock Besser in the prime of his career.

Connor Garland, Jake DeBrusk. We've got this group we really, really like. We still believe in Elias Pedersen. And because of how much we like that group, we are going to be super, super aggressive. moving out picks and young prospects to try to do everything we can to make this group a Stanley Cup contender in the next two to three years. Now, would that be an incredibly risky plan? Yeah, it sure would. But at least there would be intention and strategy behind it. Yeah. And instead it just feels like we don't really want to bolster this group because we don't really believe in it. So we

don't want to trade Braden Coots or Jonathan Leckermackie. But we also can't do the other thing. So as we said, it's just stay the course and cross your fingers and hope something happens and I just think that's a really hard way to live in the NHL. I would much rather the team lean hard in one direction than we talk about the mushy middle and the standings. This is the mushy

middle of team building philosophy. Don't trade draft picks. Don't acquire draft picks. Don't trade young players. Don't trade your vets at the deadline. Just stay the course. Yeah, it's a weird bit of inertia from a team that needs to move with what's at stake this year. And there is a stubborn. And there is a

stubbornness involved with it too. There's an insistence. I would go so far as to call it a stubbornness that despite all of the signs that this isn't really working that well, they're going to, you know, staying the course is some wild work.

From a president of a hockey ops that went into the season talking about how they need, the line that sticks with me from Rutherford so much from the off season that has bled into this year was that it's going to be expensive to acquire two

see, but it's going to be more expensive if we don't. And that was about as clear a signal that this roster was inadequate going into the year. And now we're at November 14th. And I know Brough has brought this up a lot too. And whether it was their inability to gauge how difficult it was to acquire one or whether they were just so stubborn that they didn't want to acknowledge it, whatever the case, they went into this year having not solved the biggest roster hole. and then it got worse.

And the answer, as you have pointed out, and as Rutherford has pointed out in the article, is to just stay the course. And I would not be surprised if at the end of the day, the solution to solve the two C problem like so many other ones is hope something falls into our lap or hope something breaks our way. Hope that there's another team that goes through some crazy crisis

and wants to make a move. I guess we have seen on occasion where a team gets so rotten and flounders so much that they're willing to blow it up and you're there to pick up the pieces. But what is that, again, all predicated on, like, so many other things? Luck and fortune going to your way. And again, it's always, it's a little jarring because that's always one of the arguments against rebuilding, right?

It's well, you still need to get lucky in the draft. It's like, guess what? Every path requires at least a little bit of luck. Yeah. It's just this one, you're counting on so much to get lucky. And again, you're always going to need things to hit your way, but you can juice the odds in a certain direction. And that's the frustration. For me, and I think for a lot of listeners coming in, and again, to your point, well, first

of all, on the center thing about it would be expensive not to do it, I don't know how you can maintain that very accurate philosophy, but also say, we're not going to trade Jonathan Leckermackie for a center. Like one of those things, those things are intention of each other, major tension. If having a center was so important, you have to be willing to put your best assets on the table. And if you're not willing to put your best assets on the table, then that's probably a really good sign that you need to take a little bit of a longer view rather than, well, we're just

going to stay the course and keep building and let the chips fall where they may. Okay, we got to go to break. We got a lot more Canucks talk on the horizon, though, because Rick Dollywall is joining the program, Intrepid Canucks insider from Donnie and Dolly on Check TV. He's going to answer the following questions. Will Quinn Hughes play tonight in Carolina? What's the latest on the Thatcher Demko injury? Where are things at on a key for Sherwood contract extension?

And will the Canucks be in on David Comp? all the answers to those questions. Coming up next with Rick Dollywall, you're listening to The Halford & Brough Show with Jamie Dodd on SportsNet 650.