Halford & Brough in the Morning - More Like Kevin BLANKinen

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend of sports (3:00), they talk a big Canucks shutout road win over the Flyers on Saturday (6:00), plus they discuss the top NHL stories of the moment with Sportsnet's Kyle Bukauskas (26:11). 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.

Whoa. Wait a minute. Huh? Hold up. What? Oh, okay. Did we just lose to the f***ing Canucks? You're listening to Halford & Brough. And Vancouver picks up a second straight win. Kevin Lankanen stops all 26 Flyers shots for his fourth career shutout. Soto sends this one to center. That sends Thomas back. Still going back. He's at the wall. It's out of here.

Juan Soto stops and celebrates in front of the Yankee dugout. Let's take a look at this one. Oh, hit him in the butt. It hit him in the butt. Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. It is Alfred at his breath.

It is Sportsnet 650. And we are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough in the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff

that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of this program. Hour 1 is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio.

Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sorfy, what are you waiting for? Kintec. We got a lot to get into on the show today. Very busy weekend in the world of sports. Guest list begins at 6.30. Kyle Bukoskis is going to join us.

Sportsnet NHL host, 32 Thoughts co-host. Him and Freed get a couple of Canucks-related nuggets in the latest podcast that dropped early this morning. Lengthy bit about Elias Pettersson. We're going to play that in the first half hour of the program. Also, they go into a deep dive review on Freed's interview with Philip Hronik. Not necessarily

a media guy. Hronik sat down with Freed, I believe it was during the European tour earlier this fall. So we'll talk to Kyle Bukowskis about all that at 6.30. 7 o'clock, Mike Tan here, our NFL insider from the two deep zone sub stack. We'll get into all this. There's only one undefeated

team left in the NFL now. And I don't know how the Kansas City Chiefs are still undefeated. You know who's an undefeated quarterback? Big Russ. Russell Wilson didn't start out too well. Started out awful. Mike pointed out very astutely in his article this week

that he wrote overnight, obviously, that back in 2014, the Packers played the Seahawks in the NFC Championship. Remember that? Yeah, Aaron Rodgers versus Russell Wilson. If you had told me 10 years later that they would be playing one another on Sunday Night Football for the Jets and the Steelers,

I would have beeners. What happened? Does this annoy you, Bruff, or are you happy for him now? No, it didn't annoy me. I think it's a good story. I don't dislike the Steelers either. I think they've got some... I think it would be complicated if it came down to the Steelers are in the Super Bowl with Russell Wilson. Then it would be a little complicated, but no, it doesn't annoy me.

Complicated is a play way of saying Ruff would be miserable. Complicated. I mean, I hate it. No, no, no, but Russell's been humbled, I think. Or at least he should have been. Well, humbled in the way that he can be. He went through a lot and I feel like I won the breakup.

Why does he wear his uniform all the time now? I don't know. He wears it when he's injured and not playing. He wears I won the breakup. Why does he wear his uniform all the time now? I don't know. He wears it when he's injured and not playing. He wears it at the podium. It's always game day. He's an odd duck. Mr. Unlimited.

8 o'clock, Kevin Woodley, NHL.com, Ingle Magazine. We'll talk a bunch of Canucks with Kev and our new superstar goalie, Kevin, I call him Blankinen. Eh? Eh? I see what you did there. That's why you stole it from me.

No, you had a worse one. Yes, you invented that, A-Dog. You both stole it from a thousand people on the internet. She's actually from NHL.com. I think they used blanketing. Anyway, Kevin Woodley, NHL.com. Here's a fun thing we're going to do all week. We're giving away $100 White Spot gift cards all week.

And what we're going to do at 830, get this, we're going to do callers. What? Not live on the air, just in the show. And I can't actually see what the phone number is here because I've never used it. No, still can't see it. What is the phone number here? It's a 60... Well, it looks like we have our first caller. And I mean ever because this is not a call-in show.

It's 604-280-0650. 280-0650. This is hilarious. And it's 604-280-0650. 280-0650. This is hilarious. And it's a 604 number. I've never had to even look up the number before. It's true. You gotta blow dust off the receiver because it's never been picked up.

Okay, so that's gonna happen at 8.30. We'll shout it out throughout the show when we're gonna do it. But very important. You can't... Andy's very adamant in mentioning that you can't have won anything from this station over the last 90 days.

Correct. That's more important than everything we've got on the show today. So don't call in if you've won in the last 90 days. Yes. Anyway, we're going to do that at 8.30. Dog, have you ever driven over the speed limit? Like, ever? A few kilometers. What, the wind blew you over the speed kilometer? You're like, oh, oh god and then you turned yourself in sorry that i

want to follow the rules oh my god so of course we have a big show today which features rules and regulations for a very very minor contest we're doing at 8 30 we got a lot of other stuff to get to though laddie let's tell everybody what happened hey did you guys see the game last night no what happened What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that?

What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. Kevin Lankanen made 26 saves on 26 shots for the Vancouver Canucks in a 3-0 win against the Philadelphia Flyers at the good old Wells Fargo Center on Saturday for the Canucks' second straight victory

and their second victory of the year. As mentioned, it was Lankanen's first shot out of the season, his fourth in the NHL, and earned him the new nickname, Kevin Blankman. Yeah, a really solid performance by the Canucks earned him the new nickname, Kevin Blankman. Yeah, really solid performance by the Canucks. It wasn't perfect. A couple sloppy moments.

Lankanen had to make some saves, and they needed a little bit of luck too. But you know you're playing a good road game when the crowd starts booing the home team. The Flyers, that was their season opener at home. It was their home opener. And the Flyers crowd was on the Flyers pretty early, especially when the Canucks were killing penalties. The Flyers' power play did not look good. And that power play had actually been improved so far this season.

And the Canucks' PK continues to play pretty well. Again, the Flyers' fans weren't happy, and it was the way the Canucks were shutting down Philly's attack that had a lot to do with it. They played a few shifts in Philly's zone and they just like passing it around and killing time off the clock. So the Canucks, two wins in a row now, and they'll hope to finish their four game road trip on a high Tuesday in Chicago. Let's go through some players here because we should start with Tyler Myers. He played his thousandth game in the NHL and he picked up a kind of pretty neat assist on Brock Besser's goal in the process.

He goes behind his back to Besser who scores again. It looked, remember a couple games ago, like Myers would miss significant time with an injury, but the Canucks, to put it in Rick Tockett's words, dodged a bullet with that, and thank goodness for that. Myers also logged a team high 22-30 on the night with almost four minutes on a PK that went three for three. Myers is one of a handful of Canucks who've gone from a real target for criticism to practically like an indispensable member of the team under this coaching staff.

We're all worried when Myers looked like he would be lost for a few weeks. I don't know what happened on that. It looked like he hyperextended his leg, but I guess there was no damage done and he was just able to come back and miss a few days, get back to practice and get back to work. Now he's leading the connection in his time. Now, I don't know if this is

I don't think it's ideal that Myers plays 22-30 every night. I think one of the keys for Myers under this coaching staff is that, well, two. Number one, they've simplified his game, and he needed his game to be simplified, and also they've kept his ice time down,

but that game against the Flyers was an exception because the Canucks had built a multi-goal lead, and by the end of it, it was kind of like, all right, time to give Quinn Hughes a bit of a break because he doesn't need to be playing 27-28 minutes every night so they were able to rest him a little bit and I just thought it was an overall solid performance for Tyler Myers in his thousandth game and you could tell how popular he was in the room based on the way that people talked about him they made funny shirts for him and yeah he was

he was the star of the day. Also, I do want to carve out a moment here to talk about the piece that Ian McIntyre wrote about Tyler Myers over the weekend. And I'm not sure a lot of people know the story about the very difficult childbirth involving his son, Tristan, who was part of the video that they played prior to Tyler Myers' 1000th game. I don't really want to spoil the article or try and paraphrase it on the radio. I would mostly encourage all of you to go to sportsnet.ca and check it out. iMac did a great job with it. It really sort of underscores this very emotional story

that Tyler Myers has, but also you get the sense of, as you were just saying, how beloved he is by his teammates. He's one of those guys, right? He wanted to be here. That's why he signed the extension. The guys really appreciate what he brings to the table, I think especially from a physical standpoint

and especially in the playoffs. He's a veteran. He's extremely well-liked, and that was a very good performance by him on Saturday in Philadelphia. Kevin Lankanen, arguably the Canucks MVP so far. I would say so. Could make a case for Quinn Hughes as well.

JT Miller scored some big goals, but Lankanen is 2-0-1 with a 9.53 save percentage. I don't think you'd expect any better from Thatcher Demko. If Thatcher Demko gave you 2-0-1 with a 9.53 save percentage in his first three starts, you'd be like, yeah, he's one of the best. That's what he does. It's a small sample size with Lankanen, especially with the Canucks,

but he's been incredible. And we're going to talk to Kevin Woodley later in the show, and Kev was talking him up all summer. Yep. And he was saying, like, this is a guy that's a good goalie, and he doesn't have a home right now. And the Canucks eventually waited him out and we're finding out that Kevin Lankanen is indeed a pretty good goalie. I'd be shocked if

he didn't start Tuesday in Chicago. I know Rick Tockett has wanted to go back and forth with his goalies a little bit but the Canucks should be noted don't have a back-to-back until mid-November, at which point we should have some more news on Thatcher Demko, either good or bad. I realize that Talkett won't want Artie Silovs to sit on the bench for too long. That's not ideal for him, but Lankanen has clearly outplayed Silovs so far. And if we're talking about the need to get some wins, you know, you got to give Lankanen, you don't want to overplay them, but, you know, they won't. I mean, Sunday was a day off.

Today is, they're not, they don't have a game today. So, you know, two days rest between games. I can't see why they wouldn't go back to Lankanen against Chicago to try and finish this four-game road trip off on a high. So after the Philadelphia game, Tockett was asked about who's going to start the next game, and he obviously played coy about it. I think the more interesting post-game remarks from Tockett about his goaltending were how much praise he had for Lankanen compared to the remarks he had for Seelovs after the first two games. He didn't try and sugarcoat what happened to Seelovs,

especially after the Calgary game. But even after the Tampa game, I noticed that he was just sort of like, he's fine. I don't think he loved the second goal that Seelovs gave up. Remember, it was a drop pass from Gensel to Braden Point. The whole Canucks team was backing up, but that also included Seelovs, who looked like he was backing up into his goal there. Well, more about what, and that's true.

That's exactly what it looked like. And that is interesting because I think Talkett is more about, like, vibes and eye test when it comes to goalies as opposed to the individual movements and everything. Just kind of said, like, Lankanen's just more steady when we're running around on our end as opposed to Seeloff's.

Here's what he had to say in full. Rick Talkett following the Flyers game on Saturday. Listen, you know know we got good goaltending here but it's still early and um you know he's put some he's put three good games for it together um and um he just looks really solid even when we were panning i shouldn't say we're panicking but even when we were running around a little bit you know he was in his net he looked he looked big in his net like he wasn't flip-flopping all over. He was just really steady.

Laddie loves that. He looked big, Laddie. He was playing big. He wasn't just flopping around everywhere. He was looking good. You know exactly what he's saying. He was backing up. He looked small.

He's flopping around. Not this guy. Yeah. That was the problem with Seelov's on that second goal. Too much flipping flopping. Small in his net. So one thing to watch for today when the Canucks practice in Chicago is whether or not JT Miller will be there.

Don't panic if he's not. I don't expect him to be there because Miller hurt himself on the opening faceoff. Actually went down the hallway and looked like he was going to the room right off the opening faceoff. I'm not exactly sure what he did, if he jammed one of his wrists or something, but he came back into the game and he continued to play,

but he wasn't taking any faceoffs. So you know he's dealing with something there. So obviously something to monitor. There's been no indication that he's going to miss Tuesday's game against the Chicago Blackhawks, but just something to monitor there. Elias Pettersson picked up his second point of the season after setting up Nils Hoeglander for a tap-in.

Connor Garland, as he does, did some good work down low to get Petey the puck in the first place. I don't know what the Flyers were doing defensively there, but they left Petey wide open. They also left Nils Hoaglander wide open for Petey to feed him a pretty easy pass, but it was good that Petey had his head up and made that pass. It feels like those three, Hoaglander, Garland, and Petey will get some run together going forward. Petey also made some nice defensive plays, so the progress continues for him. That's

two decent games in a row for him. The lines, if you missed it, DeBrusque no longer with Petey. He's with Miller and Besser now. Petey again was between Hoaglander and Garland the third line a couple of newcomers Sherwood and Heinen were on the wings with Teddy Bluger Sherwood has been hitting everything in sight lately and Bluger has had a really strong start to the season. Heinen was kind of trying to find his spot and maybe he's found his spot on this third line.

Sherwood scored his first goal with the Canucks as well. Yeah, Daniel Sprong was back in the lineup in a fourth line role with Nils Amon and Pugh Suter. Again, I just thought it was a solid performance by the Canucks to go into Philly and really frustrate the Flyers team and the Flyers crowd. It wasn't perfect. There are still some things that they need to clean up. Games rarely are perfect, though. Kevin Lankanen is providing them with good goaltending right now. It's making us feel a little bit better about waiting for Thatcher Demko. I do want to play a little bit of audio right now. And this is just, we'll get to some of the other local teams in just a bit.

But Kyle Bukoskis is going to join us in about 15 minutes. And he is the co-host of the 32 thoughts podcast with Elliot Freeman. And fridge was essentially given an assignment. He was given an assignment to find out what's going on with Elias Pettersson. And I guess he made some calls. He did some digging. And if you want to listen to the podcast in full, please do that.

Here's a snippet of what Elliot Freeman friedman had to say about elias petterson i think petterson is one of those guys that he reads everything or he's aware of everything that's said about him and honestly kyle i think that's one thing that he's gonna have to move past because i think in moments like this when you're struggling and you know hey i always say about markets like vancouver the rewards are high but the risks are high right yeah and so when it's going bad like like one of the best stories i ever heard was jamie baker the former nhler um now in media he here in ottawa told yes he told me a great story of when he got traded to the toronto may police wendell clark pulled him aside and said understand this you're never as good as they say you are and you're never as bad

as they say you are you've got to ride a flat line as much as you can you can't go up and down it can't be peaks and valleys you got to ride the flat line and i think and i suspect this is my opinion because i think patterson is well aware of everything that is said about him um i think he rides the peaks and valleys and I think that that is the thing that he has to get out of his system when he's struggling and it's not going well I think it really it's something he's really aware of what's being said about him and he has to stop that and that's my constructive criticism for Patterson you know Kyle one thing about players is players used to say, like you guys in the media, we don't understand.

You don't know what it's like to have 16,000 or 20,000 people or if you're playing football, like 80,000 to 100,000 people booing you. But you can't use that line anymore because now in the social media age, if people are mad at us or people don't like us, we hear it like it comes right at us. We get the same vitriol athletes do. Everybody does. So I know what that's like to go through that.

And I understand how you have to start to block it out and the techniques you have to use to block it out and the techniques you have to use to block it out Because if you let everything get to you if you get every tweet or every ex post or every Instagram comment get to you You're gonna go insane and I think you get healthier as you learn those Kyle I know everyone loves you so you never get this hate but as someone who's been on the end of it beforehand i understand how you have to learn to weed it out there's a difference between constructive criticism which we all need and just pure savage savagery right so um i think that's one thing i think petterson's gonna have to get better at is blocking that out. And I think it'll really help him. So this is what Petey signed up for in Vancouver when he signed that eight-year deal.

There's going to be criticism. Sometimes it's going to be brutal criticism. And you can sit there, either Petey can, or you can sit there at home and think all the attention he gets is unfair or even insane at some points. And you might be right. You can call the market toxic or whatever. And some points. And you might be right. You can call the market toxic or whatever. And at some points you might be right. But here's the thing. The market is not going to change.

Canucks Twitter is not going to change. It's like wishing you didn't have a crazy family. And we all have crazy families, right? It's not something that can be controlled or solved. Obviously, it's a lot easier said than done to say, oh, just ignore what's being said about you. But there are techniques, as Elliot Friedman says, to do it. And it's on Elias Pettersson and the Canucks, frankly, to work together and figure out if this is a problem. And from what Elliot's reporting, I don't think he's just coming up with this off the top of his head to figure it out.

Staying off your phone is usually a good start. Let's move on to some of the other local teams because the big news yesterday with the BC Lions was that Vernon Adams was going to start against the Montreal Alouettes, and we wondered on this show, well, how's that going to go? A little late, isn't it? This is the last game of the season. They're going to change quarterbacks right now?

Well, Vernon Adams put up a pretty good performance against the Montreal Alouettes, and now he's going to be the starting quarterback for the BC Lions when they go into the playoffs in a couple of weeks. 393 yards and two touchdowns with two interceptions. 27-3 victory for the Lions over the Owls at BC Place. So it's the season finale for the Lions who finished their 2024 campaign at 9-9.

It is not the finale for the CFL, though, because they have one more week left. So the Lions have punched their ticket to the West semifinal. The West semifinal is going to be on Saturday, November 2nd. That is 12 days away. So they have 12 days now to sit and wait and practice and get ready to go they don't know who they're going to play yet that'll be decided in the final week of the season there were some very telling quotes that came out of that game um from some of vernon adams teammates keon hatcher

was saying um you know i just feel like it was VA's team. And I think you could tell that and sense that tonight. He said, you know, Nate, Nathan Rourke, Nate's a great quarterback. He's a great person. But I just think this year it was Vernon's team. So the narrative, if you're following, is that Vernon Adams gets off to a great start to the season. The Lions are, what, 5-1? Gets hurt. He does have a couple of tough games before he gets hurt. But he gets hurt.

The Lions bring back Nathan Rourke. And some of the Lions are probably thinking, wait a minute. Nathan Rourke left us. He left this team. He left the BC Lions for the NFL. And we don't begrudge him, but he did leave. And Vernon Adams was here, and he's got relationships with the players.

And then Nathan Mark comes back, and he's going to be the starting quarterback because VA got hurt, and he was available. I think there were some hard feelings. And then it's not that they disliked Nathan Rourke, but it really does sound like they felt like VA, Vernon Adams got a raw deal on this. And now Vernon Adams was back and lo and behold,

look like a better effort against the Montreal Alouettes. So after the game, Rick Campbell did indicate that Adams is going to start in the West Division semifinal in 12 days' time. Farhan got the quote. It was, quote, I want to give him a chance to finish what he started. So you can expect over the next 12 days there will be a fair amount of media wanting to pin down an answer, and once they get it,

all eyes are going to be moving forward to a game which now gets a lot more interesting. I'm not going to lie. Because if Vernon Adams had gone out and just had a pedestrian effort against the Montreal team, let's be clear, had nothing to play for. But whatever. If he had had a pedestrian effort, then there would have been a question about what you do going into the playoffs.

Now, Rick Campbell got a win there in a lot of different ways because now he can confidently say we're going to go with the guy that threw for nearly 400 yards and two touchdowns in the season finale. So we can talk more about this story and also the Whitecaps. Oh boy. Seahawks. That's embarrassing.

Seahawks. We'll talk about those stories after we chat with Kyle Bukoskis in the next segment. And you're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. It's Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and Satyar Shah, your destination for everything Canucks. Exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the postgame show. Listen 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app. 6.31 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford Ruff, Sportsnet 650.

Do some freestyling. Go for it. I will not. My name's Mike H and I'm here to say The show is off to a rough start this week. Would have been off

to a rough start anyway. All right. Yikes. You're listening to the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. A-Dog and Sway in the morning is over there. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda.

Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the freestyle. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver.

To the phone lines we go. Co-host of the 32 Thoughts podcast, Kyle Bukoskis, here on the Halford & Breff Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Kyle. How are you? Morning. I'm good. How are you guys doing?

The freestyle going early. My goodness. 6.30. No better time to spit some bars than 6.30 in the morning with A-Dog and Laddie. We've already played a portion of the 32 Thoughts podcast on this show. I'm not surprisingly the chunk about Elias Pettersson and his struggles so far this season. We got first question is, were you the one that sent Elliot

on the deep dive mission to find out what was wrong with Elias Pettersson? No. If you remember last week, he said, give me a week. As everyone was kind of watching how he started the season. He didn't want to weigh in

on things too deeply then. And I said, all right, spend a week. Where's your head at? I thought he looked a bit better against Philadelphia on Saturday. I was watching that game back a little bit yesterday. I was working the game in Toronto Saturday night. But, yeah, it's been obviously surprising.

I'm sure the discourse has been well regarded out your way there already, especially as the team's kind of still trying to find its footing. I mean, a big couple of wins on the road, of course, to wrap up last week. But I just think there's so much there, of course, when he's going at his best. And it's just, yeah, it's a bit puzzling to see. I thought Justin Bourne did a really good job during the Tampa game, just highlighting some video last week and looking at just going, it's a player that just doesn't look like we're accustomed to see in there, right?

So, I mean, as I say, I grew up on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. I lived through, you know, the early part of my childhood, the West Coast Express days, and then, you know, the years where they were contending for a Stanley Cup, the latter stages of the 2000s there, and culminating on back-to-back President's Trophies and lived through how great that market can be when the top guys are playing up to what they anticipate they'll be.

And I have no doubt that Pedersen will get back there because he is such a joy to watch when he's at his best and you can see the joy in his game. Yeah, just for his own sake and, of course, the team, yeah, it would be great for him to find that they're sooner rather than later. You've got to enjoy this whole thing as you're going along, right? It's always easier said than done. It's a long season, but just to have something fall his way at some point,

you've got to think how it shakes whatever has been kind of constricting him a little bit here and limiting some of the production in the early going of the year. One of the things, one of the snippets we didn't play, but I was listening to it, where you were talking about a conversation you had with Pedersen previously where he described himself or referred to himself as a bit of a lone wolf. And you said that always stood out for you.

What else do you remember about that conversation? Why did that line stand out to you so much? Yeah, I guess because naturally, I suppose you're such a team environment, right, in this sport. It's a conversation I've had with multiple players over the years. Just that idea of if things are not going the way you hope, is it a teammate you lean on? Is it a sibling you reach out to?

Your parents, your partner, some other important people in your life just to talk through whatever may be going on? And we said, you know, a little bit of a lone wolf. It was like, well, okay, well, I totally understand. Sometimes you just go on, I'm going to sort this out my myself here um but that that's kind of why it it it stuck out a little bit i just hadn't heard that type of of answer to you know a question i had asked um you know a few times i say over the over the years so um yeah that's why it's it's always resonated with me and and and now um seems as as if he's working his way through not an ideal start to his season.

I wonder if that continues to be how he goes about things or if he's leaning on teammates or whoever in his life whose opinion he really values a little more. That's all I was thinking when that kind of came to my mind

as we were discussing him on the pod. We're speaking to Kyle Bukowskis, co-host of the 32 Thoughts podcast here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Another Canucks-related tidbit from the pod was that Elliot had a sit-down interview with Philip Hronik, and that was noteworthy because he had an interview with Philip Hronik, not that was noteworthy because he had an interview with Philip Hronik, not necessarily the most media-friendly guy anyone's ever encountered. You got to watch it, and you said it was a good interview.

What were some of your takeaways from it? Yeah, I just thought I enjoyed the fact that, you know, you saw a bit of the personality come out, and as Elliot alluded to on the podcast, his sense was he needed some convincing from the team to do something like that. But it was just great to see. I imagine it's really good for the Canuck fans

to see him in that light because, you know, as Elliot noted, and certainly you see it, you know, in many cases each season in different teams that you spend a bit of time around, like there's players that, you know, maybe just aren't comfortable doing the media thing. They don't like it. They don't see a value in it.

It doesn't mean they're a bad person or they've got a boring or lame or uninteresting personality nothing like that um some are just much more comfortable with their people away from cameras and microphones um and and just who they they really are doesn't always translate well uh when when speaking on the record and that's totally fine and and and understandable so um you know having said all that you know it was it was neat to see uh you know him discuss things you know like like his teammates and you know the the ribbing that a guy like connor garland and their back and forth you know during practices and stuff and uh talking about you know quinn hughes and and

just the the line at the end of um you know what's something you want people to know about you, and saying that I really like the media. It was good. Clearly, there's a reason why he's so well-liked within the dressing room, even if you don't always see it in a public way, just because he's someone who doesn't traditionally put himself out there. But, yeah, really glad that Elliot was able to have a conversation with him over in his home country there.

And, yeah, I hope if Canuck fans haven't watched it yet, worth looking it up because it does shed much more light on kind of who he is as a person and not just what you see on, on the ice during games. Kyle, always stuff to discuss in Vancouver. And we got to get to a few other stories from local sports. So we're going to cut you a little bit early today. Thanks for joining us today. The podcast with the parts on Elias Pettersson and Philip Peronic,

lots for Vancouver Canucks fans to listen to this week. We will talk to you again next Monday, Kyle. All right, boys. Looking forward to it. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Kyle. Kyle Bukowskis from the 32 Thoughts podcast, Sportsnet NHL host here on the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650.

Jason was right. We do have several other things to get to in the weekend of sports. We didn't even mention, like even going to break, that, oh, by the way, World Series is set. Probably should have mentioned that. That was a fairly big result from the weekend. Yankees, Dodgers, Friday. Yeah, we got to wait till Friday for that. I'm not ready for this.

I'm not prepared to go five days without baseball this weekend. And then you're going to get a lot. Then you're going to get a lot of baseball. Yeah, it's 2-3-2 in the World Series, too, isn't it? That is correct. So it's going to open on Friday, October 25th, because the Dodgers finished with a better regular season record. It's going to open 1-2 and then obviously 6-7 at Dodger Stadium.

The star power in this World Series. Yep. Dodgers' first World Series. It is off the charts. Dodgers' first World Series since 2020. Yankees' first World Series since 2009 Yankees first World Series since 2009 the Yankees what a sad sack franchise

I know God get back to the World Series once in a while the Yankees series against the Guardians for a five gamer that when you go through the annals of great ALCS probably won't stack up because the Guardians only won one game that had so many unbelievably dramatic moments.

Yes. It's actually not going to be done justice in the annals of history. I can guarantee you. Because the Yankees took care of business in five. But the way that the Yankees were able, when they get to that hard line up with Stanton and Judge and Soto, they're so devastating they can just destroy you with one swing of the bat i know it sounds cliched but that's exactly

what they did in that series the dodgers have some hitters too they do that's going to be um the all these days off will be good for the pitching staff too that's how i was just going to get to that that's going to be the big key here is it's not the bats you know what the bats are going to bring unless someone goes stone cold which i don't think they will um it's going to be the big key here is it's not the bats you know what the bats are going to bring unless someone goes stone cold which i don't think they will um it's going to be who can get their pens rested um i think the yankees are going to be buoyed by the fact a little bit that they put it back together in game five after a pretty shaky performance in game four so we'll see so the whitecaps finished eighth in the conference which means they should host the wildcard game against Portland, but they have to go to Portland because what?

Okay. After we got off the air on Friday, I'd say about three hours after we got off the air, the white caps put out on social media would almost amounted to like a bulletin it wasn't it wasn't classified quite as breaking news but it was newsworthy because not a lot of people had put two and two together a few had but not a lot had because of a scheduling conflict with motocross at bc place this. Supercross, supercross, supercross. Dirt bikes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I took my dad to that once. Well, I made him take me when I was a kid. I'm sure it was an unforgettable memory for your father. He was actually, I actually mentioned that to him the other day. He's like, you know what? That was pretty good. You don't know what this is. Motorcycles, dirt track, jumps.

Because it takes a while to build this track bc place is not going to be available on wednesday why is that a problem because wednesday is the day that the vancouver whitecaps were supposed to host their one game wild card playoff match against the portland timbers a couple people had kind of picked up on the, I mean, it's obvious. Yeah, it's on the calendar. If you looked at the BC Plays calendar,

it was out there. Why don't we just do them at the same time? Well, Andy, that was one of the many questions posed on Friday. Walk across in the background and play through it.

The Whitecaps said that they had looked at alternate venues in the province throughout the Lower Mainland. None of them were up to snuff to host a MLS playoff match. They looked at a variety of other options. I was one to put my hand up and said,

why not play it at a neutral site at Lumen Field instead of giving Portland home field advantage? What about playing it a day earlier on Tuesday where you could conceivably squeeze the game in and still build your dirt track in BC Place. Apparently, none of this would appease MLS and I think to a lesser degree Apple TV, which

means that despite the fact that the Whitecaps played an entire regular season and earned home field advantage in the wild card match on Wednesday, they will now go down to, what's it called now, Providence Park, Jeldwen Park, I don't even care at this point. They gotta go play in Portland on Wednesday. If they now go down to, what's it called now? Providence Park? Jeldwen Park? I don't even care at this point. They gotta go play in Portland on Wednesday.

If they go out like this, and you have to assume that they're the underdogs heading to Portland. I know Portland's not very good, but the Whitecaps form and the fact that they have to deal with this. Portland's got a pretty good home crowd. If they lose this, I honestly can't...

I could not imagine a more embarrassing way to go out. So the way their form was down the stretch, the fact that they couldn't do better than eighth when they were in a position to do better than eighth, uh, not too long ago, uh, they finish an eighth.

They're like, Oh, we can host the wildcard. No, no, sorry. There's, there's dirt bikes.

There's dirt bikes. You got it. Like, what are, what are the players thinking. No, no, sorry. There's, there's dirt bikes. There's dirt bikes. You got it. Like, what are, what are the players thinking? Like, what? We can't host this game because of dirt bikes? I mean, if you watch the match. Yeah, that's right. That's where you are on the hierarchy at BC Place.

They're in a seven game winless skid. They're 0-5-2 in their last seven. So think about this. Was their last win the Canadian championship? Yep. Last actual period. Yeah. We haven't won5-2 in their last seven. So think about this. Was their last win the Canadian Championship? Yep. Last actual period. They haven't won an MLS in seven matches. Just think about this.

They've sputtered down the stretch. They've had injuries on the team. They signed a designated player from Scotland who has been a complete zero in terms of availability and impact. The one I don't even want to call it a silver lining, but the one thing they maybe had going for them

was that they would force Portland to have to travel and play on the turf at BC Place in this wildcard match, and that's even gone. If the players had any positive vibes left going into Wednesday, I'm pretty sure that they've been extinguished. And it's funny because last week on friday i think it was we had an ask us anything but who's had the more disappointing season the bc lions of the whitecaps and we quickly said the bc lions because of what was expected or anticipated or

hoped with hosting the gray cup and being in it and we said it wasn't the whitecaps it was the lions after this weekend i'm not sure that that answer hasn't been changed. I'm not sure that it's not the Whitecaps. Yeah, if they go out like this, that is an embarrassing way to go out. Even if they find a result against Portland, I don't give them much of a chance against LAFC, but you'd at least have that. You get a home playoff game,

assuming there wasn't another like monster trucks or something like that. It's going to force them out. The boat show at this point might bump them. Oh, we win the game. We got another one coming up. Oh, bad news. Boat show. So can you imagine?

Let's just sum up what's at stake for the Whitecaps at this point. If they go out with a loss in Portland, they will not only have had a disappointing season where they don't do anything in the playoffs, they will go out in a very embarrassing fashion where they were kicked out of their own stadium because of a motocross. And they'll also have that messy game to look back on.

Well, let me take it a step further here. You're talking about the team, and we're getting texts flooding in now to the Dunbar-Lumber text message in basket at 650 650 there is a large number of ticket buying of the ticket buying public large percentage of it right now that is saying at the beginning of this year the two biggest things that you probably could have sold me on were leonel messi coming to bc place in a playoff game being at bc place and neither of them are going to happen there's a very real chance that neither of them are going to happen.

There's a very real chance that neither of them are going to happen. Do you remember their season ticket base went way up because of the Messi game? And I'm not talking about oh, this could happen. These were promises. This team was like we're going to be a top four team in the West, and we're just not going to get to the playoffs. We're going to host that first round playoff series. That was the trajectory they

were on. It's been a very very disappointing campaign very disappointing uh the bc are the bc lions won so that was good from a football perspective but the seattle seahawks also got a win atlanta they're good when they go back east those 10 a.m starts i don I don't know. Their record is like 23-7 in the last little while. It's crazy. I can't figure out the Seattle Seahawks at all. I can't. I got no idea what's going on here. All I know is that the Seattle Seahawks snapped a three-game losing streak with a pretty emphatic 34-13 win against the Atlanta Falcons.

How did they do it? Well, there was a good offensive performance, but not a great one. But something that this team has not been able to do all year, play proper defense and turn the ball over, finally showed up. And who does it show up against? An Atlanta team that was on fire offensively over the last few weeks.

Was putting up 30 plus points with regularity, was winning games. Then they get a home game against this beleaguered Seahawks team. And finally, the Seahawks are able to put it together defensively. So it was Derek Hall with the fumble return for a touchdown. Kirk Cousins got picked off in his final two possessions, which led the way for Michael Penix Jr. to make an appearance on the weekend as well. So it was a very eventful game, but great for the Seahawks.

They moved to four and three. And even greater for the Seahawks is that their division four and three, and even greater for the Seahawks is that their division is hot garbage right now. It is not a good division. The San Francisco 49ers, who many had already anointed the crown for the NFC West, have been sputtering and kicking, and Brock Purdy did not look good yesterday

in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. We'll see what the Arizona Cardinals can do tonight. The Rams did get a win, so anyone that gets a win on a weekly basis now is back in the race in the NFC West. But the Seattle Seahawks, thanks to a pretty impressive win over Atlanta on the weekend, moved to four and three.

And they're now kind of back in the driver's seat, which is weird to say. Their fourth string right tackle actually played pretty well. Michael Jarrell. Yep. We had to look up his name and how to pronounce it. I thought it was Jarrell, but it's Jarrell. Yeah. Throw it to Jarrell. Yep. We had to look up his name and how to pronounce it. I thought it was Jarrell, but it's Jarrell.

Yeah. Throw it to Jarrell. Fourth string right tackle. And, you know, I was reading a couple things from My Seattle Sports, which does a great job with the instant reactions after games, and they said this might have been the best coaching job of the season for the Seahawks because someone on the offense had to coach up a fourth string right tackle and be like, we're going to lean on you today because he had a great block

on the Kenneth Walker Jr. touchdown early. And there were times that Geno had time in the pocket, like that pass to DK Metcalf that ended the first half where they went to the end zone. That was an absolute rope that Geno Smith threw to DK Metcalf. I actually thought, I was a little surprised because I think there was 10 seconds left, and I wasn't sure if they'd go to the end zone.

That was a gutsy call by Mike McDonald because I thought that they would maybe go to the sidelines and get a little quick out and then make the field goal a little bit easier. And Mike McDonald essentially said after the game, he's like, yeah, well, we want to take a chance there. We were confident in the play call and they would have tried the kick regardless from that.

It would have been a long kick though, but they were comfortable taking that risk. Do we actually have the audio of that DK Metcalf call? Because that was like that that was I know it wasn't the deciding touchdown but that was one of the prettiest plays and cleanest plays in terms of quarterback protection that you'll see from the Seahawks all season third down and 15 Gino from the shotgun three-man rush. Geno steps up. He's going to throw to the end zone.

Got D.K. He's got it. Touchdown, Seahawks. What a bullet thrown by Geno Smith. D.K. Metcalf again between two defenders underneath the goalposts. Makes the reception on an absolute dime. Holy catfish. What a play by the Hawks.

They make it 16-7. I need to work holy catfish into my lexicon. Get excited. Speaking of Metcalf, he got carted off the field in the second half. That wasn't good. But apparently he's okay. Speaking of Metcalf and speaking of confident play calling, did you see the second week in a row, sorry,

second time this year they've gone with a gadget play. Jackson Smith and Jigma threw a pass to DK Metcalf, which was amazing on a flare out from Gino to JSN. He throws downfield. So between that and the hook and ladder play that they ran against the Lions earlier in the year, I'm thinking, okay, I like kind of what Ryan Grubb is doing offensively.

For the most part, I haven't had a problem with what they've done offensively this year. Defensively, they've been disgusting. They've been terrible. In the three-game losing streak, they were giving up an average of 36 points a game. Yeah, it's too many.

You can't win games like that. They gave up 29 to the New York Giants, and the Giants are terrible. I don't know if you watched them against the Eagles on the weekend, but that was a revolting performance. Well, Daniel Jones got pulled. Yeah, and Brian Dable was like, we just had to do something different. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't unlike the Rick Campbell, Vernon Adams Jr.

He's like, chips on the table, boys. We're trying something different. So anyway, I just want to say, I do think it was very impressive that the Seahawks, even though they were still injured, even though they had a bunch of guys banged up, they did two things. They held Atlanta to 14 points, and more importantly, they finally won a turnover battle,

because they haven't done that all year. They got picks. They forced a fumble. They scored a defensive touchdown. So that's good coaching. And they didn't turn the ball over themselves. Yeah, so good on Mike McDonald because I was beginning to wonder if this defensive guru thing was legit.

So Seattle hosts the Buffalo Bills next Sunday, followed by the Rams the Sunday after that. Then it's the trade deadline, and then it's their bye week. So they could, two home games, they could head into their bye week at six and

three, but, uh, the Buffalo game is going to be tough, uh, next week in the Rams, the divisional game, who knows? It's hard to predict what the Seahawks are going to give you on a week to week basis. Uh, Mike Tanner is going to join us next for some more NFL talk on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650.