Halford & Brough in the Morning - Summer McIntosh & Her Historic Medal Chase

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports including a very busy MLB trade deadline (3:00), plus they chat with former Olympian, University of Toronto swimming coach as well as CBC analyst Byron MacDonald (27:16) about Summer McIntosh and her historic medal chase.  This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to Halford and Brough. Suzanne? Get your pyro on the phone. DiFrance. He swings and launches, left center field and deep. Beck and goes and gone! Sammy Samson, it's Philly. I can let you have him from almost nothing.

Why would you do that, Billy? Because I'm amazing. Uh-huh. Gino's got his first hit back with the Mariners, and he tiptoes in there with a stand-up double. Billy says he needs $225,000 for Ricardo Rico. Please. Yes, I added the please at the end.

Come on. Come on. Good morning, man, cover 6-1 on a Friday. Happy Friday, everybody. It is Halper, it is rough. It is SportsNet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kim, studios and beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning.

Adah, good morning to you. Good morning. And Arash, good morning to you as well. Good morning. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal reduces your debt by up to 80% with no more interest. Visit them online at sands dash trustee.com. We are coming you live from the Kintech studio, Kintech footwear and orthotics working together with you and step. Great intro today, Rash. That was very well done. You're wearing a his hat So I was like, all right Know my audience

Okay I normally just kind of goes through the motions Yeah and basketball Ben There's really long audio clips I hope he's listening right now Basketball Ben I hope he's listening We have a big show ahead on a Friday

Sweet, sweet Friday It's a four guester here Five actually as a matter of fact It begins at 630 We're going to the world to swimming Toronto varsity blues swim coach at the U of T Byron McDonald is going to join the program

Not only one of the most decorated swim coaches in Canada He also competed for Canada In the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich So he's going to join us to talk about Of course, Summer Macintosh Currently competing in the World Aquatics Championship It's not the world swimming championships Everybody

Don't ignore the rest of the aquatics It's the world aquatics championship This is going to remind me of swimming lessons too much talking to byron yeah i might i might have a stomach ache for this interview i get cold i don't like the pool my mom said i'm with you there i have very poor very bad memories of swimming lessons my mom said i always used to pray for a train that it would somehow interrupt our drive cg brown pool in burtabee like a massive yeah like two-hour train or something you want the train to hit the car i'm like if that's what it takes if that's how we're going to get out of this then

who we're going to do. The entire bodily reaction was like, are you nuts? You want me to jump in that water? Well, I remember when they're like, okay, this is the part, you know, you've progressed a little bit and now we're going to throw a ring in the deep end, you'll go get it. I'm like, you go get it. You're doing me PTSD right now. No, I'd be like, do you know all the things that could go wrong on the way there?

There could be sharks over there. What is your plan? What if I just start breathing? What if I just start breathing on the way down? What are you going to do then? And for what? A ring? Yeah, for a ring, what is?

Well, this is how they call. What is the upside here? This is how they call the week. Anyway, Summer McIntosh did all these things as a child. Look at her now. She's got three gold medals. The goal is to get five a feat. Only Michael Phelps has achieved a single world championship.

So three down two to go. We'll talk to Byron McDonald. I've never actually seen her go swim for a ring, though. I bet she could. I'm going to go out of a lot of Miami. McDonald's like, do you do the ring thing with your kids? You still do that? Do you still have colors when you

That used to be the thing, right? When we were kids, swim lessons, you got a color corin. There was a color coordination with every single level that you passed. Do you remember what you got to? Maroon. Maroon was a big separate room over here.

Yeah. I don't know how it went. I know this doesn't make any sense, but the colors got more serious. Yeah, yeah. All the fun colors was pretty good. Yeah, if you get to black, you might die. Right.

They just took karate belts. They took karate belts and they just, applied them to these rings? I think they flipped it somehow because I think there are... This has nothing to do with rings. The colors were the achievements that you got. How old are you?

35. I actually don't know how to swim, but... Also, I get you know how to swim. Better question. Never mind your age. Do you know how to swim? You used to get a badge at the completion of your swim lessons and it was color-coded. So you'd be like, I passed orange. Yeah. Orange, orange was easy.

The hardest badge was at the bottom of the pool he made you die for it. I just had a kid, and he was all blue, and it was like, ah. How funny would it be if one of the things... That's why it was blue? Yes, you're not that good to swimmer after all. How many would it be if these rings were like one of the revisionist history things? You know, we look back and we're like, if we knew what we knew now, we wouldn't do it.

They wouldn't do it. That's what we got to ask Byron, actually. That's a good question. He's like, are you going to ask him about Summer Maccadosh? No, no, no. But the rings, Byron, the rings. Anyway, he's going to join us at 630 to talk about swimming and Summer Macintosh. 7 o'clock AJ from AJ's Pizza on his Broadway.

He got a hold to me yesterday. He insisted, demanded that he interrupt his summer sabbatical to talk about post-MLB trade deadline stuff. So he'll be joining us at 7. That's a reminder that it is Ask Us Anything Friday. The best submission wins a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on his Broadway. Get him in now. Dunbar Lumber text line is 650, 650.

Hashtag at AUA and put a pizza emoji into your text. You'll be entered into the grand prize contest. at 7.05, Adnan Verk is going to join the program. Now, you might be thinking, wait. Two Adnan's this week? Did you not do this yesterday? And the answer is yes. We did do it yesterday.

We spoke to Adnan before the 3 p.m. MLB trade deadline. And a hell of a lot happened after we left Adnan and then getting it back on the show today. The Padres went crazy. The twins sold everybody. The Jays made moves of significance so to the Yankees and the Astros. So we thought, you know, what, let's get him back on the show. He obliged. She'll be joining us at 705. We'll run through everything that happened at the MLB trade deadline. 730, Landon Ferraro is going to join the program.

So in addition to his budding media empire that he's got with the NHLs Canucks, the HLs Abbotsford Canucks. He's now got a new media endeavor, the 100% Canucks podcast with John Shannon. He gets better guests than we do. Way better guests. They thought, hey, how do we forge our space in this very crowded Canucks podcast ecosystem, and it was to get all the good guests that nobody else can get. They've had Adam Foote, Patrick Elveen, Connor Garland, Braden Coots, Scott Young, and most recently Jake DeBrusk. So we'll talk to Landon about his new podcast and all the guys that he's spoken to over this offseason. That's at 7.30. At 8 o'clock, it's the Moge. Yes, it's the Moge. The play-by-play voice of the BC Lions. No Lions game this weekend.

They're on a buy, so we'll look back at that disappointing loss to Hamilton last weekend. And then look ahead to next week's rematch. We can also get into some other things with Moge as well. Working in reverse on that guest list, 8 o'clock, it's Moge. 7.30, Landon Ferraro. 7.5, Adnan, Verk. 7 o'clock, AJ from AJ's pizza and 6.30, Byron McDonald. That's what's happening on the program today.

A rash. Let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was. We know how busy your life can be.

What happened? Is it? What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance, making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools or resources and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca.ca. We got to begin with Major League Baseball Trade deadline craziness yesterday, right up until 3 p.n.R time.

Trades were coming in like Matt. It was hard to keep track of everything. So we're going to go through the most notable. multiple moves collectively from each team as it all went down on Thursday afternoon and into the evening. Let's begin with the Toronto Blue Jays. While not the biggest mover of the day, the Jays did bring in four, count them four big league players before the 6 p.m. Eastern deadline. They added Sir Anthony Dominguez, who we already knew about, Louis Varlane, Shane Bieber, which was probably the most interesting of all of them, former infielder Ty France.

here's a fun thing about Thai France he is a one-time all-star he made the all-star game in 2022 with the Seattle Mariners he also gets hit by the ball a lot he is the Mariners all-time leader in hit by pitches passing Edgar Martinez

he would get plunked like every second game that Mariners actually put the answer like you got to stop standing on the plate here man but he loves to do it just he loves getting not even allowed to do that They also got a catching prospect by the name of Brandon Valenzuela. Let's hear now from Sportsnet Shai Daviti on the collective, the entirety of what the Jays did at the trade deadline

and what it looks like moving forward. Here's Shai Daviti from yesterday. I think from a Blue Jays vantage point, this was a very two brand type of deadline where they had a few different needs. They addressed them. They didn't necessarily get the biggest names, but they didn't pay the biggest prices either.

You think about the two bullpen pieces that they get in Sir Anthony Dominguez a couple days ago, Louis Varland today, they add a bat in Thai France who gives them a bit more depth. And then in a very difficult starting pitching market, they get Shane Bieber, who has a little bit of upside. And to me, he really makes or breaks this deadline for the Blue Jays because there is an element of risk in his acquisition back. Boring, Blue Jays. Wasn't that boring? It was just safe. Compared to everyone else? It was just safe. Well, here's the thing. Padres?

Here's the thing about the Padres deadline is half the fan base hates it. More than half the fan base hates it. That's fair. They're furious that they sold the farm. The general rule at the MLB trade deadline is you're going to get prospects, but very rarely do teams part with their best prospects. And then the San Diego Padres went, what if we parted with the best prospect anywhere?

Doesn't that make you kind of want to cheer for the Padres? I love it a little bit, right? AJ Preller is a madman. That's the Padres GM. The fans will be happy when they win the World serious this year, though. Here's the thing. They have to get through the Dodgers. Now, ignoring that. But they've got to get through

them eventually. I know. Ignoring that premise is great. Maybe they're just like, well, we're never I mean, they spend money. But maybe they're like, well, we can't outspend them. So we got to take a shot once in a while. Maybe they feel the Dodgers are a little bit vulnerable right now. Or you just say, as you pointed out,

you're going to have to be the best to be the best. Yeah. At a certain point. Like you can't keep kicking the can down the road because there's other good teams. that you don't think you're going to be able to beat. I watch a lot of Padres games. They're a good team. They're a fun team.

They've got a loaded lineup. Their bullpen was already the best in the National League. And then they went out and added Mason Miller. So if they get into a series where maybe something goes wrong in the early stages and they have to go to the bullpen early, they are more than capable of kind of stemming the bleeding and then playing catch up because they're going to be unhittable when they get Miller, everyone else and then finishing with Suarez

in a game. Give me a Mariners Padres World Series two sad club franchises. The Mariners have never even been to a world series. The Padres have been a couple times. Never won it. Give me that. That would be great. Well, I mean, a

Blue Jays fans were like, wait a minute. Hold on, Jason. What about a Blue Jays Padres World Series? Sure. You're really underwhelmed by this trade deadline. I will say this in the context of what will beber's the key right like right i i i'm those other guys

have to do their jobs but beber is the upside bet they strengthen their pen with two relievers but they're going to be they're not closers or at least if they're forced into closing for hoffman that means something's going wrong with hoffman but the whole key to this thing is shame beber now for those of you that might be unaware didn't listen to yesterday's show on paper the jays just picked up an elite starter. At his peak, when he's healthy, Shane Bieber is one of the best pitchers in baseball. He's a former Cy Young winner,

multiple All-Star. He can really pitch. He's a big dude. He's got good command. The only issue is he hasn't really pitched since 2023. Slight issue. It's a bit of an issue. Now,

he had Tommy John, right? He had Tommy John in 2004, but even in 2004, I think he only pitched 12 innings before he got this soon. not 2004. 2004, yeah. Very young for Tom. If he hasn't pitched since 2004, we got problems.

That's like 21 years between starts. That's going to be an issue. Anyway, right now, the Jay's rotation is Gossmann, Burrios, Bassett, Scherzer, and Lauer. If Beaver can get back and get healthy and get right, he probably bumps Lauer, although Lauer has been good this year and he's got an ERA below three. It could also be Scherzer, who's only started seven games, but I think you want to keep Shures are around for his big game experience in the playoffs. As for

Bieber. I love seeing Bieber trending on social media in Canada. And a lot of people must be very confused when they click on this. Yeah. They're like he got surgery on his elbow, the singer. Anyway. Yeah, Justin Bieber got Tommy John.

Bieber's had a couple rehab starts already. Apparently he's confident enough in where he feels that they've already mapped out a plan with the Js where he might join the rotation after two more rehab starts in the minors, which I find interesting. You know, Ross Atkins, who by the way, because him and Shapiro have so many ties and other guys in the organization as well to Cleveland, they were pretty familiar with Bieber's work.

And I think that's part of the – and then they've made a bunch of other deals with Cleveland as well during their time in Toronto. They're pretty confident that, one, he's going to get right and get healthy this year. And two, like, he's going to be a guy that's going to be in the rotation for them in the playoffs. so if this pans out this once safe deadline suddenly goes to wow they made a really shrewd move

but a lot of things have to go right like not only does Bieber have to get right and get healthy he's got to rediscover the form like there's no magic wand that says you are now a Cy Young winner again like he's 30 years old he hasn't pitched in a long time

and he's going into the heart of the season is there is it more encouraging or worrying that the JAs, remember that hot streak that they were on when everyone was contributing, you know, like

call up a guy from the miners and he'd contribute, he didn't have a big hit or something, is that more encouraging or discouraging looking ahead to the playoffs? That they don't really have a guy that's

like offensively or you can push back on this, maybe they do, that's like, on. fire you'd really have to pitch around this guy my i think what they're hoping right now is that with the season and bo's having a very good season especially at the plate he's been he and especially lately and with vladdie heating up their hope is that these guys are going to uh be at their peak in prime in august and september and that we have added enough around them in terms of

bullpen help and then when we get to the postseason we get later in the season that's when the Bieber effect and not Justin, but that's when the Bieber effect comes in. Now, here's the thing. That's all pie in the sky optimism and it's banking almost exclusively on one guy. Compared to, let's go through some of these other teams. What about the Mariners now? Well, the Mariners

I mean, Cal, do you have to pitch around Cal Rally now? The Mariners lineup, and by the way, the Mariners got off to a nice little start yesterday from the post trade deadline bump with the 6-0 win over the Rangers. Cal Rally, as you mentioned, hit his 42nd home run of the year yesterday. Eugenio Suarez,

back in Mariners' color is very exciting. I believe he scored on a wild pitch, so he chipped in as well. I want to throw this over to some audio from their general manager, Jerry Depoto, because DePoto flat out said it, he's like, we want to give these guys their best shot at winning a World Series, and they did it with the acquisitions of Naylor and Suarez. Here is Seattle Manor's general manager, Jerry DePoto, on what he did to push his team closer to a World Series.

This one, we went a little bigger, and it was, you know, players. to our free agents that here is that, which is a little unique for us. But we felt like this team deserved the opportunity to just go out and see if we win the World Series. We feel like we have as good a lineup as there is in our league, our rotation. If the guys do the things that they do is proven that they can be as good as anybody in this league. And the guys at the back of that bullpen are really good if we give them the opportunity to get a little bit of rest in between. So hopefully we hit on all cylinders moving forward. definitively saying like we're giving these guys

a best chance to win a world series I think it was important because this is an organization I think everyone's well aware and if you're not you know Jerry DePoto's most famous line is the general manager of the Seattle Mariners where he said the goal was to win 54% of our games right this was always an organization that was

I mean accused but accused rightly of maybe not necessarily having that go for it mentality but trying to win enough games year over year to remain somewhat competitive and now salary restrictions they don't they don't relatively speaking their owner is not that rich and they went for and now they and now they've gone for it and look if there was one thing that I totally understand from yesterday about some of the angst and when you yelled oh boring when it came to the jays

it was that at a trade deadline where a lot of the other contending teams made really big bold aggressive moves the jays weren't in lockstep right the yankees completely redid their bullpen San Diego acquired like eight players and if you look at Houston they went out and made the Carlos Carrera trade so there was a lot of different teams that are in the mix that were like we're going for it you know to be damned with the other favorites

we want to get our seat at the table because we think we're a good ball team and that's a mentality approach and the Js kind of played it safe they didn't buy big but they didn't spend big either and it's one of those things where you're left saying okay it's fine let's see how it plays out with Bieber and that's not the most exciting trade deadline. I do want to go to it.

It was Atlanta a couple of years ago that made like so many moves. And that was former Jay's executive, Alex Anthopoulos. He rebuilt the team, basically. The whole outfield of it replaced. Yeah. I do want to get to the tennis before we go to break. It has not been a great NBO in Toronto and Montreal for Canadians, but Victoria Mboko is doing as much as she can to change that.

Her magical run in Montreal continued yesterday. the 18-year-old won her third round match against Marie Buzcova, who I know absolutely nothing about until last night. Despite losing the first set, 6-1. Got absolutely smoked and then returned the smoking. 6-3-6-0, 6-0, 6-0, as they call it, in tennis. On Thursday night, to not just advance and be the only Canadian woman left in contention, she now gets a chance to play Cocoa golf.

On the weekend, Saturday's center court in Montreal, let's hear the very understated English final call here's Victoria Mobocco's win from last night to move on to the fourth round if she can to take on the top seat next in Cocoa Golf

Victoria is victorious once again Mbocco delighting the home crowd keeping Canadian hopes very much alive here I watched this last night I love an understated Englishman on the call Yeah, so it's like, and the world has had to talk. Well done, young lady.

Yeah, this is going to be cool. This is going to be, I mean, last night was a moment for her, but I hope she's prepared for what awaits her when, like, the hype is building big time, and now she's got Cocoa Goff, center court. This is the match of this tournament so far, and it might be, you know, depending on who wins it might be the biggest match everyone talks about she played golf earlier this season by the way it was in rome on clay though so yeah how'd she do she lost yeah uh it was a three setter though so she pushed golf and if you look at what mbocos done this year i believe this is

her sixth win against a top 50 players so it's not like she hasn't gone up against good competition throughout the year there's a reason that she's ascended the rankings as much as she has but again for a tournament right now where um you know no i don't think anyone expected Jeannie Bouchard and Vachik Pospicil to go very far. They were kind of doing their retirements and they bowed out early. You know, Leila Fernandez bowing out early, Bianca Andrescu getting hurt. And then on the men's side, you know, Chapo and Felix dropping out as early as they did. There's an added pressure here.

Diallo's still. Diallo's still in, for sure. But Mboko's really become the story right now, in large part because of the opponent. Like this is a girl. Well, she's also 18 years old. Yeah. And this is. Not the opponent in Bolko is.

No, no, no, I know. But the opponent that she's, everyone, look, when we were talking about yesterday's match, I don't think either of us knew who she was playing. But we knew that if she was going to win, she was going to get to Google Bay and it's Cocoa golf. And that was going to be center court Saturday night in Montreal. It was going to be a really big thing. Okay.

Sorry, I got one more I need to do, by the way, because I know we got a couple of minutes. I don't want to mention that there was a Hall of Fame exhibition game in the National Football League yesterday, even though it kicked off. the season, and even though it was a 34 to 7 win for the Chargers backups against the Lions backups, I'm not going to mention that. I am going to mention the fact that we got rid of the chain gang officially yesterday and the NFL has implemented its virtual measurement system. Did you see it? Is that for the whole season? I thought it's definitely for the whole season. Okay, it's not just for the Hall of Fame game. They weren't just trying it out. It's the new

virtual measurement system. It's here. Say farewell to the chain gang. So like I don't need to see the chain gang. I know you like the chain gang. Here's a, you know, it's a total waste of time. You know what? You just get these and it seems so unscientific. It's just like, what are we doing here? When they, when they take out the the pocket card from their, their back pocket and they slide it between the football and the chain to show you that

there's a gap between that. That was always the, the biggest everyone knew this was not scientific. But that was the best part. We'd be like, hang out. Like, where's the spot? I'm like, first of all, who did the spotting? Right? Like the ball is hidden from everyone because it's like underneath 12 massive dudes and some referees like, I think it was right here. It is amazing that in a league that is on the cutting edge of technology, they were still relying on a 78-year-old linesman named Walt to run out and be like, I think it was there. Right there. But then it would sometimes change while he ran out there.

Well, I had to dodge a little to the right. So actually, it's right here. And then a crew of approximately 18 guys to pull a chain and all look at it together and be like, yep, we got it right. That's a first down. So how this actually works is there is a chip in every NFL football, but the chip isn't used for this. The chip is used for next gen stats tracking. Okay. This is Sony's Hawkeye technology.

So that's the same as tennis. That's what you see at Wimbledon. You are correct, my friend. It is six eight K cameras that judge where the ball is. spotted and then you know superimposes the line so they broke it out yesterday a couple times oh it's not like six hawks no watching it not a single hawk to be found which again was disappointed the hawks bring out the chains and they're like the humans are like how did this happen anyway how did we lose our jobs to these guys anyway uh also tray lance man yep

you kind of made fun of them yesterday well i mean why didn't make fun of them you didn't know he was playing with the chargers that was the joke well i said we kind of made fun of them I was like, all right. Don't throw me. Don't act like you were on the Trey Lance band. I was like, I was going to be great under Harba. I was gambling on Trey Lance.

I'm like, you look good. Yeah, he threw a touchdown to Will Disley to start. Remember him? And then Harbaugh. Yeah, and then Harbaugh kept him in the second half.

Dan Campbell was not impressed with this team's five turnovers, but when asked, he said, eh, who cares? Okay, we got to go to break. We've got some swimming talk coming up on the other side of the break. Byron McDonald, former Canadian Olympic swimmer, now a decorated and storied coach of the U of T.

We're going to talk to him about summer Macintosh. That's all coming up next on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet, 650. Halford & Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates, B.C.'s first. trusted choice for net help with over 3,000 five-star reviews. Visit them online at Sands dash trustee.com. I always spent a considerable amount of time this week covering the exploits of Summer Macintosh at the World Aquatics Championships. I guess the big one is this Saturday when she's going to compete in the 800 meter free

and that's going to be the one where she's going head to head with Kate Ladecki. This is being hyped. I was reading an article on NBC Sports, the Olympics coverage, saying that this is the most anticipated, most balanced. Hally Hood's swimming matchup outside of the Olympics in an awfully long time. I don't know how you can get bigger than this, NBC swimming analyst Rowdy Gaines said. It's going to be very exciting on the weekend as summer looks to go for another gold medal. Is that related to Rowdy, Roddy Piper?

I don't think so. They both spell and pronounce their surnames differently. Oh, right. Yeah. But it's a big, big moment for swimming and Canadian swimming in particular. So we thought, let's get a guest on the show to talk about it. our next guest, Toronto Varsity Blues swim team coach at the U of T, a former swimmer who competed for Canada in the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

Byron McDonald joins us now on the Power West Industries hotline. Good morning, Byron. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. Glad to be here, guys. Thanks for taking the time to do this. We appreciate it.

So, yeah, we've, we spend a lot of time covering the exploits of Summer McIntosh and what she's trying to accomplish here at the World Aquatics Championships, becoming the first swimmer since Michael Phelps, and the only one, aside from Michael Phelps, to try and win five gold medals at a world aquatics championships, can you kind of put it into perspective for our listeners that might not be all that familiar with swimming in international competition, where she's at in terms of her peak and her powers, and how rare this is, I know Phelps is the only other one to do it,

but for her to do it at the age that she's doing it at, how rare a feat is this right now? Well, it's absolutely incredible, guys. It's like it's the one thing, you know, the only small clarification is it's five individual event gold medals. Right. Like Michael won or especially at the Olympics, he won't, but that was because the Americans have such great relays and he got, you know, three gold medals on those. But individual events to do five and you've got to do heat, you know, preliminaries, then semifinals, then finals. I mean, it's a lot of swimming and you've got to be at the top of your game.

Obviously, all you need is one person in one event to be a little bit hotter than you want one day and you're not going to get the five. I mean, the fact that over, you know, 100 years of swimming, only one person's ever done it is, is a testament to how amazing it is. And Summer McIntosh is just, it's beyond belief how mature and top of her game that this young woman is 18. She turns 19 in August. But, you know, we've seen this coming and coming, and this is going to be an amazing, amazing battle. The biggest one that she's got to go to try to make this big five is the race on Saturday, the 800-meter freestyle. What is it, or what are the things that make her so good? Oh, you know, like there's, you know, there's basically three or four different things that make

summer, the athlete that she is. Number one, she does have talent. She does have good genetics. Her mother was an Olympic swimmer. So she has that, but, you know, talent doesn't go, only goes so far. You've got to have great coaching along with that. And luckily for her, and I think probably her mother's helped driving this a little bit, although she does step aside.

She doesn't, she's not an overbearing hockey mom, all right? Like we've always seen the pictures, all right? But she has been able to, Summers had to change coaches a few times. She's had perfect coaches at a certain age in her life. And then she was with another coach. And unfortunately, that coach passed away and then COVID hit and she had to move again.

And so she's done the exact right things, but she's got beautiful technique, perfect technique. She's very efficient in the water. She's got great talent. She's got, then I point to two things. I say her heart on both levels. And what I mean by her heart is,

number one, she's got tremendous drive. Like she does want to succeed. She does want to win. But the other thing is, she's got a really good cardiovascular system. She recovers like nobody. Like you and I could go out and run 100 meters or a mile and we'd be dead for probably hours.

And at least I would be. And press 10 seconds and do another one. I mean, she's very, very, I mean, you get that by training hard, but she's very, very efficient. And, you know, some of that is genetics as well. Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of people made a lot of Michael Phelps genetics. And, you know, he had huge feet, And they basically acted like flippers, and it was the lung capacity, too.

I mean, he had, he had, I think it was, what was it, a long torso and shorter legs? Is that, is, what, I mean, this is all, yeah, those things all do play into it a bit. But, you know, the genetic thing, I mean, you know, there's great, lots of people that have become really, really good swimmers or track runners or whatever, and their parents were useless in terms of athletics, right? So it's the only way to be a success. but Michael's older sister was also a national champion in the butterfly, his best race. So, you know, there can be a little bit of something that does work in your advantage if you're born in the right place.

But you've got to do a lot of things properly. And the other thing is, full marks to Summers sort of support group, i.e. your parents and coaches is, you know, we've seen a lot of flash in the pan, 16, 17, 18-year-old people, guys. And usually more, it's the women that can succeed this early. And then they're gone, you know. and her career has been managed brilliantly and she's moving forward at just the right level and she's peaking obviously last summer at the Olympics at the right time.

She's got another couple of Olympics in her. She's so young. I mean, this is a woman that's going to basically be on the stage for quite a while. Yeah, what are the challenges to stay focused because, you know, 17, 18 years old, it's tough and she's going to go down to L.A. with a ton of attention. I'm sure there's going to be.

endorsements for her and there's just going to be a lot of potential distractions. Well, I mean, it's great, it's a very good point. And, you know, how do you motivate someone who just won three gold medals at the Olympic Games at age 17? I mean, it's a, it's a very, very interesting fine line that they're treading here to make sure that she can stay motivated. And I think what you started to show up by saying the big race is Saturday, the 800-meter freestyle, well, I think what happened is that they basically sat down, summer does not like the 800-meter freestyle. It's a little bit harder to train for. It's a longer, It's the second longest race in swimming.

But the legend in swimming is a woman named Katie Ledecki, who has been basically undefeated in 12, 13 years in her specialty is the distance freestyle races. And I think they dangled in front summer. Summer, if you want to be the best in the world, you're going to have to take down Katie Ledecki because she is the legend. She is everybody calls the goat, the greatest of all time in female swimming.

And I think that just that really got her going. She said, I like a challenge. I like something that most people don't think can be done. and I want to motivate myself with that. So I think it was brilliant that they convinced Summer to kind of go for this. And if you want to be the best of the best of the best, you've got to take on the best. And that's what she's doing. And in an event that she really preferred not to swim for many, many years.

So this race on Saturday will be a great one, and it will be the passing of the torch if summer can take down Katie to the Becky. I mean, it's a huge, huge event. The people in the swimming world are just going crazy over this. They're calling it the race of the century and all sorts of things, because rarely have you had the opportunity to see a woman at the top of her game for over a decade and a young one that's going to come up

and try to eclipse that person. Byron, you've got a long history in swimming and you were a swimmer yourself at the highest level. I'd like to ask this question. What is it that drives these athletes? What is it that makes them want to train so obsessively? Can it be explained? Oh, wow. I think everybody likes to achieve things in their life, all right? And it may, you know, it may not be as tangible as winning a gold medal. But, you know, you do like to, I feel, have pride in yourself and what you're doing and what you're accomplishing, be it small things or big things. And I think what happens, once you start to get into sports, you start to realize that, you know, you can get a little bit more feedback. It's not like being in an office where you don't necessarily get a day, but you still want to do a good job.

and here you can get some real immediate feedback as to what you're doing and in the sport is swimming that's really good because you get real good feedback if you train hard your time is you get a fast time you get to see the results you train hard on a basketball team and you play a team of seven foot five guys and you may not score a lot of points okay so even though you're doing a really good job so it's a sport where you actually really will see the immediate impact of you being in shape and training hard and doing all the fine things that you need to do to obviously perform at a high level.

So I think athletes like the idea of, I think everybody likes the idea of challenging themselves and likes the idea of succeeding in things. And I think the athletes just put themselves in a little bit higher level of trying to be a little bit more perfect and a little bit better and they have pride in that. One final question.

I know we're still in the middle of this championship, but how excited are you and how exciting is it going to be for Canadians to watch summer down in L.A. at the Olympics? Well, I would say that it'll be unparalleled. I mean, the entire world watched Michael Phelps on his big surge in 2008 at the Olympics and even a couple other Olympics, but that was his big one where he also had the three Olympic gold medals in the relay, so he won eight. I think that the Canadian public will just go crazy. You know, watching this woman winning, I mean, everybody likes to have pride in their country,

and Olympic gold medals bring a certain amount of pride. for everybody that's watching. So I think it'll be, it'll be nonstop. And the idea of the fact that it's in L.A., of course, means that it's prime time. You know, it's not, you know, it's not like the problem of 2032. The Olympics are in Brisbane, Australia. And she may be winning at 8 o'clock, but that's, you know, going to be 4 o'clock in the morning BC time, I think, or something.

So this will be right, prime time, right in your living rooms. Everybody's going to be able to be watching it and paying attention. And I think that this woman is so strong that I don't think that if, it will, it can impact some people very toughly. You know, they can have a tough time dealing with that kind of pressure. I really don't think she's going to have a hard time with it at all. I think she's just very, very easily able to adapt to all the kind of things that are thrown at her. Byron, fantastic insight today.

Thank you very much for taking the time to do this. We really appreciate it. Nope. Enjoy Saturday. It should be a lot of fun. It'll be great fun. I love whenever swimming gets covered. All right.

Thanks guys for doing it. Yeah, thank you. That's Byron McDonald, a Canadian swimming analyst. worked a couple of Olympics swam in the Olympics himself in 1972 in Munich and of course the swimming coach at the University of Toronto. Okay, a reminder, it is Ask Us Anything Friday on the program. It's time to get yours in. Start doing it now.

Hashtag it, A-U-A. Tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports. Now, because it's Friday, and it's Ask Us Anything, if you put a pizza emoji into your text, you'll be entered into the $100 gift card, grand prize contest from AJ's pizza on East Broadway. Best Ask Us Anything wins a $100 G.C to AJ's for some delicious pizza. Okay, do we have any Ask Us Anythings?

We do. Do you want to do a Canucks one? Sure. Okay. Justin Ine's fan, classic, long time, Ask Us Anything. By the way, I don't think you're eligible to win, but we're going to steal your content anyway. Ask us anything. If you could swap a Canucks retired number player with a Ring of Honor player, who would you

So the premise is you'd take someone who's at the upper echelon of Rogers Arena, literally, and then go down a notch and say, we're not going to remove you entirely. We're just going to do the old switcheroo. Now it's got to be Naslin for Luongo. It's got to be a switcheroo. You can't just be like we're knocking someone down to the Ring of Honor or we're bringing someone from the Ring of Honor up. You have to do a one for the trade is one for one. Yeah. Not that I was on this like, Some people were like obsessively upset about Luongo not getting his number retired. But if I think if I were to do it, I would. The problem with moving Luongo's number one into the retired numbers is that Kirk McLean,

number one. Oh, is Kirk McLean in the Hall of Fame? I'm just saying it's a logical issue. You think that's the easiest one straight away that it gets low-werey? I mean, well, it's Burray, Smil, Lyndon, Naslin. Daniel Henner. Yeah, it's who you're going to bump up. Well, okay, why don't we go through the Ring of Honor members?

That's the key. Here are the Ring of Honor members. Orland, Curtinbach, Kirk McLean, Thomas Grenine, Harold Snaps, Pat Quinn, Matthias Olland, Alex Burroughs, Roberto Luongo. So there's only one there. Like, stands out. A first ballot Hall of Famer. But, I mean, the funny thing is, is like, you know, if you'd ask me,

and I have a lot of Canucks trauma. So, you know, it is what it is. But, like, I trusted Kirk McLean more in big games than I did Luongo. But, like, Luongo was an incredible goal. Overall, he was a better goalie than Kirk McLean. Yes. Right? Yes.

I mean, Kirk McLean was a terrific goalie. He had, you know, that save he made in the Calgary game that will stay with me. forever. It was, it was incredible. Dare I say he's objectively a better goaling. Like I'd be hard-pressed to find it. You might be able to come up with some arguments as to why McLean might have played better in spurts, including the 94 Stanley Cup run, if you want to compare that to Luongo's 2011, Stanley Cup run.

But objectively, in terms of the metrics of the day, which is the Hall of Fame induction and the statistics, you know, those very important things, it's hard to point to a lot of them and say, oh, McLean's better than Luonga. Is Naze? is okay if if luongo's going in is nazi the right guy to take out or do you maybe consider smil

you have to consider smeele however however smil's contributions post playing days cementing him as a lifelong connect like the only thing I think at a certain point he ever wanted to be

was like I want to be a canuck I want to be a lifelong Canuck and you know serving in the front office in multiple capacities and doing it Still, to this day, the ambassador work, all that stuff. I don't think you can remove him. Here's the thing with Naslin, every passing year that goes along, his Jersey retirement, you can side-eye it a little bit more. Like, he doesn't age well. You know what I'm talking?

It does ambastic side-eye. You understand what I'm talking about, right? It's like every year you look at it and you're kind of like, mm-hmm, nothing grows his, like, aura or leg. legacy or his, it doesn't grow with every passing year. His accomplishments and achievements, they become less and less impressive every year. Yeah. One, because the metrics of the day don't really hold up. Like, he had some good scoring.

What is the biggest game that Naze ever played for in a Connux uniform? And that's another part of it. And that's never going to change. Yeah. That, that argument remains the same. Also, he's been largely out of sight, out of mind as an individual since leaving the organization. It's not like he's around. He's come back a few times. Comparatively speaking, Lyndon, Smil, the Sedeens, like, and Burry was an entirely different. Yeah, yeah. Because I mean,

Burry was, he was kind of an iconic class when he played and then in retirement, he's kind of been the same. So I don't know. I've got, this is my personal opinion on it is the, and this is just me speaking. And I understand if you don't agree with this because the West Coast Express was a fundamentally important part of this, you know, organization's trajectory. But every year, that goes along. I just, I feel like that was a decision that was made more in the moment without a lot of thought to the future. That's all. Like it was a, well, we got to retire someone. It's been a while. Kind of. Yeah. And they do that with the Ring of Honor sometimes too. Well, there's a text into the Dunbar Lumber text line that says, when I think Luongo, I think

Panthers, not a Canuck. So does he. But that's fine. I don't even, I don't necessarily think that's true. How many, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, How many big games do you play for the Panthers? The prime of his career, the biggest games that he played, the ones where everyone was watching, were in Vancouver at the Olympics and for the Canucks. And the Olympics was when he was with the Canucks.

He played in massive games that the whole hockey world was watching. Some of them went well, some of them not so well. name for the person that says when I think Luongo I think Panthers not a Canuck tell me the biggest game he played for the Panthers and like tell me your memory tell me your memory of that game

and how the whole hockey world was talking about well is Luongo going to come up big for the Florida Panthers like I get one people he started you know he spent time with the Panthers and then he came to the Canucks and then he went back to the Panthers and you're still with the Panthers. Yep, yep.

He played more years in Florida, 11 to the 8 he played in Vancouver. He played in more games in Florida, nearly 600 to the less than 500 he played in Vancouver. I understand what you're saying in terms of making an argument. It's like, does the cumulative games, years, the bookending, overcome the fact that he had? There were so many nothing games when he was with Florida. He didn't play many nothing games in Vancouver. Stevie and Langley. But hey, but to the person that takes it in, like, I can't tell you how to think.

I just think your thinking is ridiculous. Yeah, it's the wrong thinking, that's all. It's just, it's just, like, you have a... I can't tell you how to think, but I can criticize it. Exactly. There you go. You know how they say there are no wrong answers? Well, it's not entirely true.

Stevie and Langley. Ask us anything. I am a huge hockey fan and Canucks fan, so I, like most Canucks fans, have a deep-rooted hate for the Leafs, among other teams. Do you ever feel an internal conflict when cheering for the Blue Jays as they are a Toronto-based sports team? Okay, for the record,

I don't cheer for the Jays as hard as I used to, but I did at one point in my life cheer very hard for the Jays. When they won in 92 and 93, I was over the moon. Yep, same. Yeah, I mean, I have two sports cities where I have a bit of a conflict. one is Toronto and one is Seattle.

You know, like I'm a huge Seahawks fan. I'm a big Huskies fan. When the Sonics return, I'll be a big Sonics fan. And yet, I don't like the Crackin because they're rivals with the Canucks and they're boring. And I like making fun of them, right? It is a little conflicting

because when I cheer for one of their teams, I'm like, wow, I hope their fans are happy too. Right? Because I'm one of those fans, but there's a lot of crossover. You know, like the same people that cheer for the Js, cheer for the Leafs. So I don't necessarily... But it doesn't keep me up at night. I don't necessarily buy into the notion that you hate one, hate all when it comes to markets and cities. I understand that there's some crossover with the actual fans.

Like, I'm sure there are some very annoying Leaf fans that are also very annoying Blue Jay fans. and probably to a lesser degree, Raptors fans. But my loathing and hatred for the Leafs is isolated purely to the hockey team and the organization and the franchise. I know they play in Toronto. And it's just fun. I'm not willing to...

I don't want to cast dispersions on the rest of Toronto. There's some nice things in Toronto. I like Toronto. It's great city. Yeah. Good restaurants. It's a fun vibe. Yeah, it's good times.

They got lots of moves. There's stuff to do there. Yeah. Yeah. It's a novel concept for a city, I know. I think that we... If you're going to hate a city, like I know 2011, Harvard

a lot of ill will towards the city, the collective of Boston. And that's fine if you want to go that route. I've never subscribed to that theory, though. Like, I can very much compartmentalize likes and dislikes per city just based on the team, because the teams all have different personalities and the way they go about things. I remember when there was a time where the Raptors were the scrappy, hard hat-wearing, lovable bunch of workman-like players. And that was a contrast to the Leafs who were all these highly paid and no

perimeter players. Well, it was kind of Kyle Lowry's team. Yeah. You know? And they played in the same city and there was probably a big crossover in terms of media and fans that paid very close attention, shared for both teams. But they were entirely different entities, right? It's not like being in Toronto influenced the style of those particular teams.

And this Jay's team right now, to bring it back, I mean, when you were on vacation, I think every morning when we talked about the Jays, I had to do this disclaimer. Like, this isn't just us putting it on. because it's a slow time of the summer. Yeah. And we're Rogers employees and we're suckling at the corporate teat or whatever. Like we were, I was like, they genuinely play good ball. And they're not reliant on the long ball or.

And you know what? The other thing, too, those past J's teams and their feelings, they did all the fundamentals wrong. Remember how bad their base running was in the playoffs a couple of years ago when they got bounced and, you know, errors in the field and lousy pitching? Like they do all those things very well right now. So it shows a growth mentality and that they play the kind of baseball

that I like watching. They just happen to play in Toronto. I will not hold that against them. Okay, we got to go to break. Hour one is in the books. Two hours left, not that we're counting. 7 o'clock, AJ from AJ's pizza is going to join us. A reminder, get you what we learns in

and ask us anything. Stumbar Lumber text line is 650, 650. Hashtag you're asking us anything and put a pizza emoji into the text. You'll be entered into the contest for the $100 gift card. After AJ, we're going to talk to Adnan Verk to recap the MLB trade deadline.

And then at 7.30, Landon Ferraro is going to join the program. He's got a new podcast, the 100% Canucks podcast with John Shannon. Tons of great Canucks guests already. They're only seven episodes deep, but they've got a ton of great guests. So we'll talk to Landon about that at 730. That's the next hour. You're listening to The Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet, 650.