Halford & Brough in the Morning - The BC Lions Are Back On A Roll

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

In hour two, Mike & Jason discuss the BC Lions' two-game winning streak with 3 Down Nation's JC Abbott (1:35), plus the boys look to tomorrow's NWL Championship series for the C's with Vancouver Canadians manager Brent Lavallee (28:03). 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.

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The kitchen sink. Throw the kitchen sink at the listeners. Kitchen sink Monday. This is just good music. I don't know. We thought Crazy Horns was bad. Well, we got bad stuff for you then.

Oh, here we go. You are listening to the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. I am getting a slight Beverly Hills cop.

A little bit. We've mentioned this before. What's the guy's name? Harold Faltmeyer? I'm thinking like 80s training video for like some corporation. That's all of the above. How to put a banana in an exhaust pipe like in Beverly Hills cop. It's a good gag.

We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio Kintec Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five star Google reviews. Sorfi what are you waiting for? Kintec to the phone lines we go JC Abbott from Three Down Nation joins us now on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650

good morning JC how are you? I'm good morning guys thanks for taking the time to do this. Bruff has been singing your praises all morning about how your 10 thoughts post-BC Lions games is the definitive read after a CFL game. So no pressure, but expectations are sky high. Otherwise, Bruff's going to have to leave the studio without any dignity.

So here we go. Again. Let's start. BC Lions dignity. So here we go. Again. Let's start. BC Lions, Friday night, they go into Montreal. They beat the CFL's best team in pretty resounding fashion. How big a statement victory was that for the Lions? I think it was absolutely huge for the Lions to prove that they can still be the team

that we thought they were at the start of the season. They go on that five-game losing slide. It looked like they were dead in the water. Everything was going wrong for this team at that point. They bring in Nathan Rourke. It's a rocky start, but he seems to have figured it out. And the bigger addition may be Matthew Betts, because this

defense all of a sudden looks like they know what's going on they've got pressure on the quarterback all of a sudden now that they've got their best pass rusher back in the fold and now they've got two straight statement wins against really good east division teams, and the schedule sort of clears up a little bit. This week against Toronto will be tough again, but then you've got a bye week, and then Hamilton and Calgary, which are two very winnable games. We could see in three weeks' time that this is a 10-win BC Lions team that could be atop the West Division once again. So they've weathered the storm here, and when you beat the Alouettes and how good they've been this season,

it bodes very, very well for your great-cap chances. How did the Lions turn the ball over four times and still manage to get a win like this over Montreal? I think they just rallied together in the way that Rick Campbell has been talking about throughout that losing skid. You know, his refrain throughout the entire time is no one's going to come save us, right? We've got to save ourselves. We've got to play complimentary football. And it seemed like every time there was a mistake or an unlucky bounce, and I think on a number of those turnovers, they were unlucky bounces, right?

Rourke's first two interceptions were not his fault. They go deflected off receivers' hands. But the defense stepped up on each of those occasions. And it's worth noting that every time Montreal made a decisive play call, Jason Nass gambling at the end of the first half to make sure they score a touchdown or going forward on third and three or doing an early onside kick, after each of those decisions, the Lions were able to put up points and respond. And that's critical when you're

able to weather those swings and momentum and regain it yourself because you are confident enough and united enough as a team to put together those drives or to make those defensive stops none of those things matter ultimately so I was very impressed by how the lions were able to do that because i think it showed some some real resilience that they were missing when they were losing but clearly they found it now that game obviously meant a little bit more to william stand back what did you think of his performance i thought he was brilliant, right? There was some rocky moments, right? The deflection off his hands, the fumble later on. But for the most part, he was running hard. He's giving the Lions everything that they need from that position,

which was lacking last season. The way he's able to fall forward and gain the hard yards. And that statement touchdown run, I think his quote after the game was, you know, this solidifies who I am as a player. It was a statement for him, right? He felt aggrieved that after helping the Alouettes win a great cup last year, there was no contract offer on the table for him in Montreal, the only city in Canada he'd ever played in to that point.

And I think he got his pound of flesh. He got his revenge by going out there and sticking it to him. And he's been critical for this team. Even through the losing stretch, he's been their best player. And what he brings to the offense has changed it immeasurably from what we saw last season when the passing game was good, but the running game was terrible. And that will become even more important as we get closer to playoff football

and colder weather. And some of the games that the Lions may have to win down the stretch, if they have to go on the road for a West Division final, I mean, he is going to be the guy that they lean on. Small sample size and everything, because it's really the last two games. But is there something about having Nathan Rourke at quarterback as opposed to Vernon Adams Jr. that's either unlocked something for Stanback or has added another dimension

because his production has really spiked in the last two games? I don't think it's necessarily because of Rourke. I think it's because of the play calling, right? Jordan Maximic has Rourke come in. He's still learning the offense. And frankly, we didn't talk enough about how difficult of a situation that was going to be for Rourke coming in because we all know what he's capable of

at the high end. But he needed to settle down. Specifically after that first game, it was clear that there was going to be a learning curve. And how you settle in, a quarterback who is trying to figure things out well you hand the ball off and they've made a point of emphasis to get it to stand back so that Nathan can find his

rhythm and get comfortable and stand back has delivered every single time and I think it's been certainly a very wise decision by Jordan Maximik to make that a point of emphasis over this stretch and even as Nathan has settled in to keep it as one because Stan Beck deserves to get those touches. We're speaking with JC Abbott, writer for Three Down Nation, covers the BC Lions and the CFL as a whole. Let's take a big picture view at the West Division right now. We got the Lions and the Bombers at 7-6. The Bombers had a slow start to the season. The Lions had that five-game losing stretch.

Can you separate these two teams right now? Is there a favorite to win the division? We mentioned earlier that the Bombers have the tiebreaker. Is that enough to make them the favorite in the race to host the West Final, which would be huge for the bc lions i don't know if you can separate any of the teams in the west division right now and you really haven't been able to all season each of them has had their moments when they've looked unbeatable and each of them has had their moments when it looks like

they've been heading to the basement i mean winnipeg was left for dead at the start of the season they've marched back in the first the lions had their five game losing streak you look at saskatchewan they're winless in the last seven after their hot start all of a sudden edmonton's in the mix coming out of nowhere after going 0-7 to start the season. I don't know, guys, if I've ever seen a more chaotic CFL season, and certainly in a West division that has earned the reputation as being the tougher division, the more powerful division. Usually you've got teams that are running away with it statistically.

That has not been the case this year. Everybody is sort of searching for that consistency. For me, as much as I respect Winnipeg and what they bring to the table and what they've done over the last number of seasons, I think I would have to go with BC as the favorites just because I think they've got better quarterback play at this point. Zach Caleros has been getting the job done with some victory victories as of late, but he has not been good, right?

He leads the CFL at interceptions. He has more interceptions than touchdowns this year. And he is a really struggled when throwing the ball. He has not had those definitive games. Guys, he has the same amount of 300-yard passing games right now in the entire season as Nathan Rourke does in his four starts. They are even at two apiece right now. That's the lowest among CFL starters.

Obviously, for Nathan Nathan there's a reason for that for Kolaris there's really no excuse so this is not the same Bombers team of the last few years they're resilient they're tough they're well coached but I give BC the edge even though they don't have the tie break because I think they can put together a few more victories if they play up to their potential. How important is it for them to actually host that West Final and not have to go back to presumably Winnipeg for another West Final? I think it is huge and not so much because of the narrative around the weather, right? That has been bandied about the last few years that

they're not a cold-weather team, and they can't handle the run, or they can't run the football. Those things are not true anymore. They're a better run defense. They've got William Stanback. But that environment in Winnipeg is the toughest environment to play in in the CFL right now, with all due respect to Saskatchewan and Mosaic Stadium.

Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg is a different beast entirely. It has messed with the Lions' heads the last couple years. And I think to have a home playoff game in your own venue, that would be critical for the Lions in terms of boosting their chances to get to play a home great cup and not have to deal with all that adversity on the road jc this was really good uh i really um appreciate your writing uh helps me prep my show um so keep up the good work on three down nation and hopefully this hit gives you a few more readers because you deserve them i appreciate that.

Thanks for having me on, guys. Yeah, thanks for coming on. That's JC Abbott from 3 Down Nation here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. What a difference a couple weeks can make. It's incredible. God, two weeks ago we were after that fifth consecutive loss. We're like, this season's in a tailspin.

They might not even get to the playoffs. We'll look into the playoffs. But they're not going to do anything when they get there because it just didn't look like anything was going right. And I'll go back to what I said right after they made the second signing of Matthew Betts, because the tandem was Rourke and Betts. You have to give ownership and Amar Doman specifically a ton of credit because there would have been

some people after a five game losing streak that might have said, we're not going to go and pay a huge salary cap penalty to put this team. Yeah. I don't even know how huge the salary cap penalty is, but you're maybe not going to throw good. Well, probably pretty big. Do you know the CFL CBA? So i looked at the penalties that they paid last year okay and the um lions were over the cap by and the most of the cfl by a large margin right and that was after um making like one

edition to make two editions like i mean the one thing with bats when bats came aboard was we were out mojo on the show prior to the signing and he's like i can't see it happening because i don't know how they can fit him in with their salary cap situation because obviously you know the week prior they brought back nathan rourke so whatever the case penalty or no or how big or whatever i think the point remains is that you might have had someone that would have had trepidation about spending that way because they were – Might have said, are we throwing good money after bad here? Exactly, right?

And to forge forward and say, you know, it almost didn't matter because we're hosting and we owe this to the team, the market, the fans, everyone, that we're going to make a go of it. It's also getting the deals done. Sure. You know, convincing Nathan Rourke to come to the BC Lions. Same with Betts. You know, they didn't have Betts' rights.

And so, yeah, it's exciting that the Lions have started to turn around and we can start dreaming about not only the Grey Cup being in BC with the BC Lions in it, but also that West Final. I thought last year when they kind of blew their chance to host that West Final, that was really disappointing. Yeah. Really disappointing. And hopefully it's a different story this year.

Let's talk a little more NFL. What was your favorite game of the weekend? I know you watched a lot of them. I think I watched every single game. You watched every one. Yeah, I think I pretty much watched it. What did you think of Tyreek's pretty eventful day in Miami? Well, that might have been the game of the day,

given the finish, right? A 52-yard walk-off field goal at the death to win it. Well, Tyreek's touchdown was incredible, too. 80-yard touchdown on a day where he was detained prior to the start of kickoff against the Jacksonville Jaguars after a police incident that eventually led to multiple officers from the Miami-Dade

Police Department handcuffing Tyreek Hill, forcing him to the ground, and at one camera shot, believed to have about five officers in the shot, which seemed like an awful lot for a traffic violation, which is what the stop was about

um calais campbell also got involved there was a third uh miami dolphin player as well which i don't have his name in front of me but um so that this happens and then it's just complete chaos going in to this team because i mean the incident happened do you think scotty sheffler was like that can be tough i mean that was the, that was the first thing that everyone said. Like, it's the Scotty Scheffler thing. It was much more forceful than the Scotty Scheffler situation. And there was a lot more dynamics to it. Did the cop rip his pants, though?

That's what people need to know. So at least one officer was immediately placed on administrative leave right after the incident. So Tyreek Hill, let's try and set this out chronologically. This happens before the game. It's obviously all over the news because it was very close to the stadium. So all of the television cameras were able to pick up the majority of the event. A lot of cell phone cameras as well. They get to the stadium.

Drew Rosenhaus, power agent to the stars, is left to do the pregame media availability for his client, Tyreek Hill, in which he says Tyreek's fine. He's obviously upset by the incident. He's going to go play. In the game, which, as you mentioned earlier, Jacksonville was in control of,

Tyreek Hill scores this crazy, which, as you mentioned earlier, Jacksonville was in control of. Yeah. Tyreek Hill scores this crazy, pivotal 80-yard touchdown catch and scamper. As soon as he caught the ball, too. He's gone. Goes into the end zone and then does the handcuff celebration. I think it was with Jalen Waddell afterwards. Gets the crowd all fired up. Miami comes back and rallies.

They get, as mentioned, the, what was it? Automatic Jason. Is that what he was calling him? Automatic Jason Laddy. Was that the phrase that we used in the intro? Automatic Jason. What's that? The kicker's name. Oh, okay.

He's automatic. And that's like you. You're automatic. I don't know what you're automatic at, but hey, you're automatic. Hot takes. Yeah, there you go. So anyway, then in the aftermath, Tyreek Hill speaks. We've got a snippet of his post-game media availability here.

Tyreek Hill after a very eventful day on the opening Sunday of NFL Action. Did the police put you in handcuffs? I have no idea, for real. No idea. No idea, man. It's crazy. No idea. It wasn't disrespectful, you know, because my mom didn't raise me that way. Didn't cuss.

Didn't do none of that. So, like I said, I'm still trying to figure it out, man. It was adding to the chaos when he spoke afterwards because he was genuinely confused about what happened because the incident occurred. He was released shortly thereafter, and then he went and played an NFL game. So his focuses were all over the place, right? So I'm sure we'll hear more about this in the coming days, especially about all of the officers involved with the takedown.

I have a fun take for the first week of all the rookie quarterbacks. The guy who had the best week was Michael Penix. Yeah. Yeah. Because Kirk Cousins looked pretty mad. Against a good Steelers defense. We have to admit that. The Steelers are an elite defense. TJ Watt is a force.

You can double that guy, and he's still going to make an impact on a play. But for what they're paying Kirk Cousins. But regardless of that, given the context... He looks old, man. He's 36. Given the context,

given where the game was played, that was in Atlanta. A lot of Steelers fans. Given the fact that the Atlanta Falcons went the entire second half without scoring a single point at home in a very winnable football game because you know their defense played well they didn't let the stealer score a single

touchdown it was a nightmare situation for cousins in terms of starting with a brand new team yeah awful like there were some really um worrisome performances at quarterback in week one. We already talked about Deshaun Watson. That's a problem. Bryce Young in Carolina. That's starting to look like a problem because you can't have that bad of a start after a really unimpressive rookie year, I think. They looked awful. I would say Danny Dimes with the New York Giants.

Daniel Jones. The Giants fans were not happy. They're like, first of all, it's raining. Second of all, we're watching this garbage. That does not look good, especially since the guy he lost to was a retread quarterback in Sam Darnold, who actually did look good. Again, you don't want to overreact too much from week one because it's the sort of classic fool's errand, right?

But we're fools fools so let's do it but um there were some there were some situations out there where we were already skeptical going in and that's the thing right like everyone was skeptical of this thing in atlanta working for kirk cousins there was a lot of people that were saying daniel jones ain't it in new york and now with Saquon Barkley out by the way I don't know how many people saw Friday Night Football and from Brazil but Saquon Barkley sure looked the part for the Philadelphia Eagles there um you know there's the there's a real question there about how much longer Daniel Jones has I've already seen on ESPN.com they got their

hot take factory and one of the questions is how long is it until Deshaun Watson is benched in Cleveland after that opening weekend performance? And they turned it to Jameis Winston. So of the ones that we were really skeptical of, a lot of them did not do anything to disprove or to take away that skepticism. Rookie quarterbacks this week, we talked about that a little bit with Mike Tanier.

Caleb Williams got his win. That was good. He was not, although he didn't turn the ball over that much, so that's okay. Jaden Daniels, the numbers were fine. He ran around a little bit and made some things happen. Bo Nix, I'll tell you what. First blush for me, I was not impressed.

It's his first game. It's a tough situation, loud stadium yep and i he had some more he's he's athletic like that run that he had was good but the throws were pretty bad pretty bad the seahawks could have had a lot more interceptions than they did and uh and so to circle one of the most frustrating things when you watch a guy in the secondary and you're like that's why you're not a receiver. Yeah, you can't make catches. Right at you. Stone hands.

You can knock the ball down, but you can't catch the ball. So you might be right. No better rookie quarterback might have had a better week one than Michael Penix. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. How screwed are the Packers right now? So Jordan Love has an MCL injury.

It's not expected to sideline him for the entire season but it's their oh and one but it's gonna be a tough division it's gonna sideline him for a while and um the question is gonna be at what point does the season slip away to where if they're like three and six and he's ready to come back let's just i mean i'm throwing this out purely hypothetically or let's say it's earlier in their one and four and they rush him back and he's not ready to go do you run the risk with a franchise type quarterback do you punt on the season it's crazy that you're having that conversation who's the back of it they brought in malik willis right yeah and And he came in for a Hail Mary late at the end of that Packers-Eagles game and promptly got sacked.

And he's not, I mean, in terms of backup quarterbacks, he's not a proven guy. He's more along the lines of like Trey Lance in Dallas, who's not even the backup by trade. He's a third stringer. But, you know, he's not a proven NFL entity. Okay. Prediction for tonight, and it's going to be a simple one.

It's not a win-loss. It's will Aaron Rodgers look good or bad? Bad. Bad. I find it extremely hard to believe that a quarterback on the wrong side of 40 can miss an entire year of action and come back and play effectively. It was almost like Nathan nathan rourke in that first game with the lions just you know contextually like you don't play for a long time

rourke wasn't like you know 100 years old coming off right killie's injury coming off a massive massive injury that limits your mobility i'm really curious to see though i mean greatness you sometimes have to give the benefit of the doubt and say what you will about Aaron Rodgers as a person. You cannot like his politics, whatever. You cannot deny

that he has been a great quarterback in the NFL. This is a four-time MVP. Maybe he gets the benefit of the doubt. Okay, I need to now do the Canadian football report

brought to you by Securian Canada, the official life insurance partner of the CFL. So week 14 of the CFL season now in the books. It kicked off on Friday, as we mentioned, with a signature win for the BC Lions. We just talked about that with JC Abbott from Three Down Nation.

37-23 over the Owls in Montreal. On Saturday this past weekend, the BC Lions' next opponent, the Toronto Argonauts, suffered a pretty healthy beatdown in Ottawa. 41-27, the Red Blacks ran it up on the Argos.

So great news for the Lions. They now get an Argos team that's lost two in a row. That drops them to 6-6 on the year. Also on Saturday night in the Canadian Football League, Jason mentioned this earlier, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers kept pace with the Lions with a 26-21 win over the Saskatchewan Rough Riders. So that win pushed the Bombers to 7-6 on the air

and they're now tied with the Lions atop the West Division, as Jason mentioned earlier as well. It's kind of a two-horse race now in the West. That was the Canadian Football Report brought to you by Securian Canada, the official life insurance partner of the CFL. And now finally, before we go to break, I need to tell you about Tile Town. Mom, Dad, can we go to Tile Town? Sure we can.

As BC's favorite hockey team kicks off a new season, receive 20% off any regular priced in-stock tile. Visit them now at mytiltown.ca for details. You're listening to the Alfred and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. 7.33 on a Monday. Bangers only from Laddie today. You are listening to the Halpern and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Halpern and Brough for 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. Jay in North Delta with a text. How can the Seattle Seahawks not go back to those beautiful throwback uniforms? Best in the NFL. Top five in all pro sports. Look at my man's hat. Look at it.

Yeah. Jason is wearing a throwback Seahawks hat right now. It's gorgeous. Those were... It's funny how it's a similar conversation between the Seahawks throwback jerseys and the Canucks black skate. Yep.

Those things are awesome. Why don't they just wear those all the time? They should. I am on board with both of those. Those were, those are great. Those uniforms they're wearing were great. Yeah, they were cool. You know what throwbacks weren't good?

New York Giants throwbacks. Oh, I didn't see those. Oof. They kind of were like Montreal Canadiens-esque, but like the throwbacks that they wear with the brown pants and stuff, they weren't good. You know what jerseys I like? Canada Sockers.

Simple. Can you buy those anywhere? Yes. Do they have the suppliers? Friend of mine. Figured it out? Yep. It is a bit of a task, but you can't.

I have a friend who. Why is it so hard? I do. Everything with Canada Soccer is just so hard. It's hard. Can I buy a jersey? Can I buy a jersey, please? It's hard to get something from Canada Soccer.

That's weird. The answer is yes, but with a but. And the easier answer is no, with you shouldn't. Anyway, okay. So quick reset here. We were giving away tickets all last week for the Vancouver Canadiens playoff series against Spokane. That gets underway on Tuesday at Nat Bailey Stadium.

Joining us now to preview the Northwest League Championship Series, the manager of your Vancouver Canadiens, Brett LaValle joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Brett. How are you? Morning, guys. Doing well, thanks. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on and taking the time. We appreciate it. So let's do a quick season recap here. A very interesting split from the first half of the season to the second half of the time. We appreciate it. So let's do a quick season recap here. A very interesting split from the first half of the season

to the second half of the season. For those that don't know, that's how the Northwest League playoffs works. The winner of the first half plays the winner of the second half, except in this instance, Spokane won both halves. But you guys had a very good turnaround from a sub-500 first half to a very good second half, which booked you guys a spot here. Walk us through. let the listeners know,

what changed from the first half of the season to the second for your Vancouver Canadiens? I mean, really, we started getting some breaks. We played tight games throughout the first half, and some of them we came out on top of, but more so than not, we came out on the wrong end of those close ones. But, you know

anytime you get the chance to to play in pressure situations like that it makes you better no matter what the what the outcome is that evening so a little bit of bad luck a little bit of you know just not getting the job done in the first half but we were competitive nearly every night and just you know if you stick to it and you keep working and doing your job those things end up going your way and you know honestly we just kind of got hot things started going our way and uh but one thing is we never let the frustration or the doubt creep in so it was kind of one of those ways to have that that first half we kind of struggled but um never lost faith in what we do and what our guys do well. And then it started going our way and ended up where we're at now. I mentioned that Spokane captured the first half and second half title.

So how big a challenge does this team present to you guys? Yeah, they're a really good team. They've got a lot of pretty high draft picks there from this year and last year. And, I mean, they work just as hard as we do, and they prepare well. They play fast. So if you're not alert and you're not aware, they will take extra bases, and they've got some really talented players at the top of the lineup, especially.

But, you know, we've played, you know, in a 16 league, you play everyone a pretty substantial amount of times. So they haven't moved many players yet from the position player side. So I feel like we know who they are from the offensive side where we've had quite a bit of influx of new talent or new players from low A. So, but our last series against them, we went four and two at their place in a big series we needed to win. The squad's pretty excited to get rolling against these guys again because we've had our share of tough ones against them this year. Nothing but confidence from our side, but definitely a few things to pay back as we've lost some close ones.

Hey, Brent, who are some guys on your squad that have made some big strides this season? Any that come to mind that you want to shout out on the radio? Yeah, I mean, we've had a lot of guys do some great things this year, especially guys in their first full season of the pro. Jace Borfin playing center field, right field for us, hitting at the top of the order. I think he was voted our MVP this past week. But Jace has had a terrific year and a huge turnaround, field for us hitting at the top of the order i think he was voted our mvp uh this past week but

jace jace has had a terrific year and a huge turnaround maybe about a month and a half ago he was probably hitting below 220 and uh just finished above 250 with 14 or 15 homers so jace has been terrific um you know i probably don't have time to talk about them all peyton williams was with us at the end of last year, broke his wrist in the playoffs, had to have surgery, missed over half the year, and came back and made his presence known. He was one of the best hitters in this league.

And expect big things from him in his future there. But, yeah, Jays, Peyton, Jackson Hornung, who's kind of started the season catching for us, has moved to first in left field. He had a sneaky good year, hit about 260 with, I don't know, 6'7 home or something like that. So, you know, for Jackson and Jace, it's first full season, so this is a challenge in itself.

Javon Ward is a player we picked up as a free agent out of independent ball. And he's kind of turned his career around and made a name for himself in our organization. So really happy for each of those guys. And no reason we're having success here in the second half. How do you balance the responsibility of developing ballplayers for the big club and winning games? Yeah, that's a tough one. These guys are competitors, so we really don't have to go out there and I don't want to say talk about winning, but if we do our work,

if we commit to the things that are going to help us improve and become big league Blue Jays, when those lights turn on, we compete. There's no question. Not that I – it's not hard to differentiate between the two. One thing we kind of like to say is, like, as a hitter, once you put your helmet on, you're in fight mode. So, you know, in BP, in the cage, pregame, you're not wearing your helmet. You're just wearing your hat.

But, like, once you put that helmet on, it's kind of – you know, that's the switch or that's the – that's sometimes the thing that kind of turns it on for you. So, no, we are here to develop. We're here to develop people, professionals, players, and competitors. But I think the competition side of it's easy. These guys have all – no one wants to lose. No one wants to work this hard every single day and not come out on top at

seven o'clock eight o'clock whenever it is so um but no we're we're here to win but ultimately we're here to get these guys to the big leagues and become blue jays uh best home record in the second half of the season in northwest league 23 and 13 and at bailey stadium so obviously you guys benefit from the home cooking and you've got the first two games of the series at home. So what are you expecting in terms of home field advantage, crowd advantage, all that stuff as you guys try and take two here to start the series against Spokane? Yeah, Nat Bailey is just, it's electric.

The fans have come out hard all year, even back in April on a Tuesday. I mean, they're there supporting us. You can tell there's love for the game out here, and it's electric. It's just like the ground shakes. We were watching one of the videos the other day after we scored, and the stadium cameras were shaking. You can't keep the video still. And as a player, you can feel that from the moment moment first pitch. So hope we're hoping for a

sellout. I don't know if there's tickets left or not. Our website would probably have that, but these fans are great. These players feed off of it. Spokane probably wasn't too happy having to come here to start because that's you know, it's just a tough place to play. And especially when the fans are in it and every pitch matters. We've been lucky enough this third year in a row in the playoffs, and it's just an excellent experience to be at Nat Bailey

with a bunch of passionate fans in a playoff game. You're a North Delta guy, right? I am. So what does it mean for you to be the, I mean, you're the manager of the Vancouver Canadiens. You probably went to SEAS games as a kid growing up. Yeah, I went to many, many, and have many memories of going there with my family,

family and friends and everything. It's surreal. It's pretty cool. Something I never really dreamed of. And, you know, I was a hockey player who played baseball to stay in shape and get ready for hockey season. And then it was like, well, you can get a scholarship to this game

and kind of went that route. And coaching the C's was never even a thought of mine. And then kind of got into coaching in college and, you know, long winding road, you know, after that. And my phone rings and they offer me to come work for the Blue Jays and the C's. And pretty, pretty cool experience. Something I don't take lightly. This is a kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity to manage your hometown minor league team.

You know, I've been lucky to coach my alma mater in college and now manage the Vancouver Canadiens. So it's kind of coached my two favorite teams for the last about 10 years or so. But yeah, it's just a cool experience to see family and friends and that nostalgic stadium. And then they're getting renovations to it, so it's only getting better.

But yeah, really, really cool experience. Is there anyone on the team you can talk hockey with if you need to? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We've got a bunch of – well, Ashley Stevenson, our bench coach, she's a Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer. She's also a heck of a hockey player. You know, Canucks lease kind of argument every day, so we kind of get under each other's skin.

I think you guys know where I lay if I'm from Delta there. Big Canucks guy, and she's a huge Lease fan. And then we do have some Northeasterners, Northeastern Americans, a lot of Pennsylvania, Jersey, a lot of guys that know some hockey. So, yeah, there's quite a bit of hockey talk in that clubhouse. You get the Dominicans on board next. Yeah, we're teaching some of the Latin hockey football season now. So we've got nothing but fantasy football drafts

and everything on Sundays. But yeah, teaching some of the guys from the Dominican Republic about hockey and football. So it's been fun to teach some of that stuff. Tickets still available. Go to canadiansbaseball.com now. It's Tuesday and Wednesday at Nat Bailey, the first two games of the Northwest League Championship Series.

Brent, thank you very much for doing this today. We really appreciate it. Best of luck this week. Go beat Spokane. Thank you, guys. Thank you. That's Brent LaValle here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. He and the Vancouver Canadiens are in action tomorrow night.

Two games here, then three games in Spokane, if necessary. They could just sweep Spokane right out of the finals if they win all three. Best of five. Yeah, that'd be awesome. That would be good. Yeah. God, I hate Spokane. Right?

They're too good. You went to the game. Oh, Spokane! You went to the game. More like Spokane. You went to the can. More like Spokane. Didn't you go to the nooner on Friday and they're like roasted? It was very hot. It was very hot.

There was a lot of sun. Did you wear sunscreen? I didn't. Are you serious? No, I raw dogged it. You should have learned from me last year. I just raw dogged it. I just raw.

You look like a raw dog now. Is that where you got your one leg? Yeah, my leg is a permanent different color now. It's like different shade. Yeah, it's like paint. Were you on the third base side? That's where it gets really hot. Third base section.

Stuck to the metal bleachers. Section you, if I'm not mistaken. At the end of the day, it's like peeling off. You can't spell sunburn without you. Yeah, it was toasty. It was fun. I had a really good time, but that was the last

nooner of the year. I had only been to one other game this summer, and I said, you know what? I'm not going to shy away from it. I'm the full gnat

experiencing a sit in the sun all game. That's good. Sun safe. Why do they make the bleachers metal? Have a few adult beverages.

It resonates that heat off the metal. Why don't you just like, you know, you're going to be in the sun all day. metal? Have a few adult beverages. It resonates that heat off the metal. Why don't you just like, you know, you're going to be in the sun all day. Come up with some sort of substance that won't absorb the heat and will keep you cool. Or there's the option of building a roof. Oh, you could do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Or just a bunch of little umbrellas. I know there is a roof there. Yeah. It always felt a little bit wimpy to sit under the roof at Nat Bailey. As a kid growing up, you'd be like, the cool sections are the ones that don't have a roof. Yeah. Those are the guys having fun.

Everyone just roasting. Yeah. That looks awesome. I want to be one of those guys one day. Look how drunk and sunburned he is. All right. What else do you want to talk about? More NFL?

No. You know what we let's pivot back i want to discuss a little bit more of the not necessarily the quinn hughes interview with imac uh that's it up at sportsnet.ca right now uh we talked about it earlier in the show by the way you can download the hour one podcast and hour two will be up for grabs uh as soon as we're done here in this segment. But we should probably lay out what's to come in the next couple of weeks because this week here, the one that we are about to embark on on this beautiful Monday morning, this is when things start to get underway. It's the appetizer, if you will, because you've got the Milford, the Jake Milford golf tournament this week and then um you've got rookies reporting midweek and then of course everything gets underway this weekend when

young stars gets underway in penticton as a matter of fact i was listening to there's a lot of things getting underway yeah yeah and then 960 in calgary was talking about it this morning as well so that's how i knew that everyone's ready for hockey season to begin. And then, of course, after that, everything continues up in Penticton because you've got training camp that gets underway shortly thereafter. The Young Stars is done. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that we are going to talk more and more about your Vancouver Canucks this week,

even though NFL season kicked off on Sunday when we got Monday Night Football tonight. So with the Hughes thing as a jumping off point, we did mention this briefly. It definitely seems as though the talking point from up high all the way down to the coach, all the way down to the captain of the team is that we're better.

We're going to be better. We're built better. We're going to be a better team. And there was a little interesting conversation that you brought up about the bubble team and wondering aloud just simply wondering if there's a fear or a risk or a worry or a concern about there being a step back like there was with that bubble team right that bubble team had a very good showing uh pushed vegas all the way to game seven in that.

It made a very good playoff run, and then things kind of went pear-shaped. Yeah, I mean, it was similar. They won rounds, and ultimately lost in seven to a team that was the better team. And you hoped that next season they would use that experience and take it to another level. But that was a very different time, right?

It was also a very different team. And it was funny. I kind of went back and did. I took a look because I'm like, what? What was that team really? We knew that they overachieved, and I've often kind of praised Travis Green for doing a very good job of coaching an underdog team

to some pretty impressive results. If you go back and look at that team that participated exclusively in the bubble playoffs, there were some not good players on that team. I mean, I don't know how else to say it other than Oscar Fantenberg was a regular contributor on the blue line, and they were still playing Beagle and Roussel and I mean I liked Mott but Mott was what he was Jake Vertanen was a regular contributor on that team Antoine Roussel Zach McEwen got a spin Adam Goddard got a spin like it was not a good team I think it had some good high-end players on it and guys that really played

well in the moment, but compared to what we're looking at this year in terms of roster construction, especially at forward. Yeah. I mean, I would say it's almost night and day, especially in the bottom six,

especially in the bottom six. I don't know. I was not a good, it was not a great team. I think it had more potential than you're giving it credit for, but I think the guys that they lost in the years after that, some of them did the things that don't get enough credit unless it's for me because I'm constantly bringing it up. What happened to the penalty killing units in Vancouver was shocking mismanagement. Yep. Absolutely shocking mismanagement. Yep.

Absolutely shocking mismanagement. You lose guys like, you know, Tanev and Edler. Tanev and Edler primarily. And Mott was a good penalty killer. Brandon Sutter, you know, he had issues with COVID and he wasn't able to play anymore. Say what you will about a guy like Louis Erickson, right? He was overpaid.

It was a bad contract. He did not perform for the Canucks. Decent penalty killer though. Sure. And then all of a sudden you're going into some of these other seasons with like, who's going to kill penalties here? And it was absolutely one of the things that killed Travis Green's coaching career in Vancouver.

The departures after the bubble were really hurt, 100%. It's not one of those things that people would much rather talk about the power play, right? And the power play is going to be something to be talked about because it's fun, right? And you can get creative. I mean, God, I hear Randy talking about the power play sometimes. I'm like, you know, like he loves it. He loves just the idea of it. How are you going to set up?

How are you going to score? It's cool, right? Who's going to be the shooter? You know, whatever. The PK is just as important. And I think you saw the Oilers run to the Stanley Cup final. Their PK was better than their power play. Yes.

Which is saying a lot because the power play is still pretty good. And the power play has been one of the best power plays we've ever seen in the league but it was their pk that i think had the biggest impact on their run to the stanley cup finals the canucks had no clue what to do against the others eventually and some of that was on the canucks yes but i think as we saw i mean la couldn't do anything on the power play. I don't remember the Dallas series because it was so bad for the stars, but I know that the Oilers PK. And it's just one of these things like you have to build a roster

where everyone has roles. And when you lost guys like Tanev and Edler and Brandon Sutter and Mott and these guys that I've mentioned that were good penalty killers they were never replaced and it was kind of like well you can teach guys to PK really yes are you sure about that are you 100% sure that you can teach guys to PK because I think there's a lot of you know you just got that ability to know where you are on the ice in order to pk no one to pressure no one to lay back and i think that's something that is still a work in progress in vancouver like they don't have an elite unit yet but i like the fact that they address some of their losses by bringing in

guys that can do those things and have roles like that so to my point um i want to put that whole bubble comparison slash narrative to bed because to me that team uh was a flawed roster that overachieved and then got decimated in the subsequent free agency. Yeah, it overachieved and then the roster got worse. As opposed to this team, which, say if they overachieved last year or not, the offseason was dramatically different. And you've got a lot of people coming out of this free agency period saying, you know what, I think we might have got better even though we did lose Lindholm,

even though we did lose lindholm even though we did lose zadarov and that's an important distinction because you can't have a team that comes out of nowhere and overachieves and then follow up with a poor free agent period we saw that a few years ago we saw that the impact of the tenev departure and the toffoli departure what it had both on the ice and then i think sort of anecdotally in the room, like how much those, you know, those losses felt. You need to build on it. There needs to be a positive momentum. And it feels like the Canucks found that this off season

with the guys that they brought in. I thought the quote from Hughes talking about Sherwood was hugely instructive. It's like, I don't want that guy bearing down on me when I've got the puck. I want him on our team. Just think about what it means. I guess maybe empowering is the word, but how empowering it is for being a leader of a team and the captain of a team to tell you one of your executives that this is the kind of player that you need.

And then they go out and sign that exact player. Like, that's a good thing. That shows symmetry between the front office and the guys on the ice, shows open lines of communication, but it also shows that everyone's on the same page about what it takes to win. And those are all very important things that the Canucks haven't had, especially in their recent history, right? There was a lot of times where, like,

I don't think I know what anyone in this organization knows about winning. It doesn't seem like much, right? It seems like the coach is on one page and the management's on another page and the players are doing their own thing. The players all look miserable. Yeah, and they don't know where to go. It's very not aligned. So alignment is good,

and that's a big takeaway from that. We can continue this conversation along with other Canucks topics on the other side with Satyar Shah. He's going to join us next. You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.