Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 3/26/26

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, plus they preview tonight's Canucks home matchup vs. the LA Kings. 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 the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Cuts into the middle, cross the line, to the left circle. Sark a shot, score! Pass left wing side, Joshua, score! Good morning maker, 601 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford, it is Brough, it is Sportsnet 650.

We are coming you live from the Kintech Studios in beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello.

Halford and Brub of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have payday loan debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut your debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands-Trustee.com. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's Premier Metal Recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle you get paid.

Visit them at 11th. 70 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintech studio. Step Strong with Orthotics and Footwear from Kintech. If you want to text into the show, it is 650, 650, and that is the Dunbar Lumber text line trusted by contractors and DIY champions across Metro Vancouver for generations. Find them at three convenient locations or visit Dunbar Lumber online today. We got a huge, huge sports day ahead of us.

And subsequently, a huge Halford & Breft show. We'll begin with the Duick Morning Drive. That's our morning guest list brought to you by the Duick Auto Group. It begins at 6.30 this morning. Dan Shulman's going to join the program. Play-by-play voice of the Toronto Blue Jays, Happity, happy, happy MLB opening day to everybody, including you. Did you say happy-dy?

Yeah. Well, I was kind of happy-happity, happy-happity, happening day. Happy-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Are you calling today-opening day? Yesterday was a sham. I don't get. That was opening night. Today.

It was a terrible baseball game. And it was a terrible. And they stuck it on Netflix. MLB opening night last night, 11 games across the American League and National League today, including Seattle Mariners opening at home against Cleveland. Dan and the Jays opened tomorrow at home against the A's. So Dan will join us at 630 for a Blue Jays preview,

an MLB season preview. Maybe we can even get into some March Madness talk with Dan because he, of course, calls college basketball for ESPN. Lots to get into there. 7 o'clock, Max Boltman is going to join the program. Detroit Red Wings Reporter for the Athletic. We wanted to check the old panic meter in Detroit today. Red Wings have a couple days off.

There's a busy night in the NHL tonight. They don't play. They have to sit and watch. And the question here, are the Red Wings going to miss the playoffs this year? Follow-up question, if they do, what will the follow-out be? We'll talk to Max Boltman about that at 7 a.m. They've never had a playoff game at the new arena, right? They have not.

Like the last Red Wings playoff game, that non-COVID year or whatever, was, because I can't remember if they were in the bubble in Edmonton, but was that Joe Lewis Arena? Yes. And if the Anaheim Ducks make the playoffs, which they will, and the Buffalo Sabres make the playoffs, which they will, that means Detroit is going to have the longest playoff drought in the NHL by a considerable margin, too. It's going to be that's crazy since I think they were the team that consecutively made the playoffs

the most every year for like 25 years. They sure were. I think they had the record of like the most, they didn't miss. Every year they made it. I thought St. Louis had a long record too. Detroit had 20, I want to say 25 or 26 years or something like crazy. Easter famine. Pardon me? Feaster famine. That's just how they do it in Troy.

Whatever. So we'll talk to the Boltman, Max Boltman at 7 o'clock this morning. 7.30, Parker Burgess is going to join the program. Head coach of the Vancouver Giants. Speaking of the playoffs, there will be no playoffs for the Giants this season. Their year has come to a wrap. So this is going to be an end-of-year media availability, so to speak, for Parker Burgess today.

As the Giants have officially wrapped, their 2025-26-W-H-L campaign. Parker's going to join us at 7.30. 8 o'clock, Randy Jand is going to join the program. Koducks analysts for Sportsnet 650. He'll be on the call tonight. Kinnucks, Kings, 7 o'clock from Rogers Arena. It will be the last of this season-high, eight-game homestand for the Kinnucks, taking on a King's team, desperately fighting to get into a playoff spot.

in the West. We can talk to Rand Deep about all that at 8 a.m. It's a huge sports day. We will get into what's on the horizon later on in the show, but we got a lot to get into. So without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was. We know how busy your life can be. What happened? Missed it? You missed that?

What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies and tools, resources, and safety training, visit them online at BCCSA.ca.ca. With all the things going on, why not start with the Canucks returning to practice, which they did yesterday ahead of today's game against the Los Angeles Kings. Well, believe it or not, the Canucks only have four games remaining at Rogers Arena this season. To reach double-digit wins at home, they'll have to win two of them. Perhaps one of them will be tonight against the L.A. Kings, a team.

the Canucks will see three times in their final 12 games overall. So four home games, eight road games for the Vancouver Canucks. Not really much to report from practice, or at very least, not much to talk about. Hironach Besser and VanderKane all took maintenance days. The latter of Vander Kaine will play NHL game number 998 tonight. I guess Adam Foote yesterday was asked about. about his plans for Evander Kane. And right now, as it stands,

Evander Kane's 1,000's game in the NHL would be in Las Vegas next Monday night. And Adam Foote had thought about, you know, maybe he would keep him out of the lineup. So he gets to play his 1,000s game in his hometown of Vancouver, in front of the home fans. But he said he hasn't even spoken to Van der Kaine about it because he didn't want to provide any, like, injury jinx or something.

That's fair. Yeah. The hockey gods could intervene. So presumably tonight will be a Tolopilo game after Lankanen made the last four starts. And we got that very interesting explanation from Adam Foote, which I'm still not sure I understand about why Kevin Lankinen made all those consecutive starts. But we'll see if Tolopilo's in there tonight against the Kings. With all due respect to your favorite team, tonight's opponent is interesting. It's been a frustrating season for the Kings

who still have a chance to make the playoffs despite a minus 27 goal differential. Yeah, they can't score. The Kings are probably counting on the three games they have against the Canucks to give them a leg up on Nashville, the team currently in the second wildcard spot. I suppose it's possible

the Kings could catch Vegas or Edmonton as well, but for now they got their eyes. set on the Nashville Predators. The Kings have had a fairly eventful last couple of months, not necessarily on the ice, but off the ice. First, they traded for Panarin, and then they lost Fiala at the Olympics. So it was kind of like, pretty good player in, pretty good player out. All the while, Anzee Kopitar has already announced that he's going to be retiring at the

end of this season. And right at this moment, the Kings don't have a great replacement for the 38-year-old. Which begs the question of whether they'll try to address that issue this off season. I think they will. Now, a couple of reports have linked them to Elias Pedersen, but it's not clear how real their interest is and what it is right at this very moment. I remember there are a bunch of reports, and the Kings are going to be watching closely at the Olympics.

Yeah. Well, the Olympics didn't go terrific for Elias Peders. Maybe they watched that one game where he had two goals. Yeah, it's going to say the two-goal game. Take the tape of that one and send it to Ken Holland. The Kings are in a tough spot, though. They just acquired Panarin, and they didn't necessarily give up a ton to get him, but they did give him pretty big money over the next two years. That's not the type of move you make if you're planning a significant retooling.

That's a win now move. And their general manager, Ken Holland, said as much after the acquisition of Panarin. I was looking back on it yesterday, and here's a quote for you. I guess there's two ways to look at it. you're either compete or you go into this long-term rebuild. We're not interested in a long-term rebuild. I'm not interested in the long-term rebuild, and I think some of the people that we signed are not interested in that.

So we're trying to compete. Now, we have heard similar stuff from the Vancouver Canucks. Not too long ago, the Canucks weren't interested in a rebuild, and then their hand was forced, but I don't think the King's hand has been forced yet. So I'm going to be real curious to see what they do in the offseason. Remember, this was a team that was feeling pretty good about its center depth not too long ago. You know, you had Kopitar and he was still playing at a fairly high level despite being well into his 30s. They had Phil Donneau, but he's not with them anymore.

And his game fell off. And they had Quentin Byfield, who was this young guy who they expected to be, a really good center for them. Well, Dono's not with them anymore. Copatars retiring, and Byfield just hasn't, I mean, he's been fine, but he certainly hasn't panned out like his draft pedigree would suggest he would. They're a super weird team, because if you look at their results this year, there's a couple things that jump off the page.

The first one is the absolutely wretched home record. You want to talk about the Canucks being bad at home? The L.A. Kings are not much better. They have 10 home victories. this season. They're 10, 16, and 8 at home. And that's the second fewest in the Western Conference, only two more than the Vancouver

Canucks, who have been absolutely, like, awful at home this year. So you would think with a home record like that, they have no business being near the playoffs, but the other weird thing about this team, they lost in the shootout to Calgary in their last game. That was the 18th game that the Kings have

lost this year in either overtime or the shootout. So they've got a remarkable number of games have gone past regulation, they just, with regularity, haven't been able to secure two points. So you say, well, if even that overtime and shootout record was closer to 500, which is just sort of like the coin flip down element of it, they'd probably be in a playoff spot, maybe even comfortably by a certain measure. But whatever the case, the final part of all of this right now, and if you go into LA Kings

media and you dig into some of the, you know, Twitter conversations that are happening with their fan base, everything now is like, we're doing. it for Copey. Like we are trying to put, you know, all hands on deck, all efforts forward. We cannot have him go out in his retirement season, not making the post season. I have a question for you. Yeah. Will next season be doing it about not, so this season is doing it for Copey? Yeah.

Is the next season for Doughty? I wonder. Can you do that two years in a row? Can you run it back for another guy? Because I think Doughty's contract is up at the end of next season. And look, he's still obviously playing at a decent. recently high level. He was good enough to play for Canada at the Olympics. But I think Drew Doughty will play hockey until he's like 60. If he could, he would. He loves playing hockey.

And I'm not saying Copatar doesn't. Let's not get that twisted. But, you know, we had Jonathan Davis from Sirius XM Radio who does like the sort of West Coast teams, especially the California ones in his coverage. And he said for a while to us, like there was always an exit plan with Copatar, is that he kind of wanted to make it known when his final season was going to be, I think he wanted to go back home. I think there was an element of returning to either living in Slovenia or just going back to Europe and kind of, you know, putting a bow on his career. And that's why they made the announcement the way that they did, you know, beginning of the year, this is his last year. Here's what was retirement tour.

I don't get the same vibes around Doughty. Yeah. I think Doughty will just play until the wheels come off. And then it'll be like, okay, I'm done now. But I can see, I can see Doughty getting annoyed playing on a bad team. Yeah. And that's the big. Like really annoyed.

I think. A little bit grouchy. I think they're in making big swings like uppercuts as an organization right now. And that's a risky way to be. But you've got so many eggs tied up in all these different baskets, including the Pan Aaron one, that you're almost forced to take a big swing this off season. But you have to try something.

They're going to see Elias Pedersen three times down the stretch. And, you know, I'm not saying it's going to be. That's a good point. That's scouting. Is it a scouting mission? I don't know. Because at this point, I think everyone knows what the player. is I don't know what you could possibly see in a good way.

I know what you can see it a bad way, but there's not a lot of centers available. Right. We've talked about the lack of them in free agency. And that's where the Kings and Ken Holland have done some pretty significant shopping over the last little bit. And the in the argument to go for Pedersen is he wouldn't cost much, except for cap space. Like if you're going to try and get Robert Thomas out of St. Louis. Well, that's what I wonder.

Like you're going to spend, you're going to spend significant assets to get them out of there. And I don't know if the Kings have the assets to give up necessarily. Yeah. They gave up a top prospect to get Panarin. He was a first round pick. I mean, by their... One of their top prospects, right? By their standard, he was one of their top prospects.

I don't think he's got, like, huge potential in terms of being like a star. So I don't think we need to talk too much about the Kings this morning because we're going to see them three times down the stretch. We're getting it out of the way. Well, yeah, let's save a little bit. and see what we get from them. Quiet night last night in the NHL. The Leafs beat the Rangers. I didn't watch that game,

but I'm enjoying the Leafs putting some wins together down the stretch, although they're already out of the playoffs. They're doing it for Joe Bowen. I did watch Boston and Buffalo, and that was a big win for Boston, who won it in overtime. But while I was watching that game, a question came to mind, because of one of the things that was said on the broadcast,

So we all know that the Sabres general manager, Kevin Adams, was fired a few months ago, and as soon as he was fired and Yarmelkekeleine and took over, the Sabres took off. And they've been one of, if not the best team in the NHL since then. So let's say the Sabres are legit and they win the cup or come close to winning the cup over the next couple of years. does Kevin Adams deserve credit for the roster that he built? Great question. Great question. I mean, what if the much maligned Kevin Adams? What if this season the Sabres going to run, they win a few rounds, or even win the Stanley Cup?

Like, how would Kevin Adams be remembered? Would he be remembered as the guy that put their roster together? Or would he be remembered as the guy that they needed so badly to fire because, of reasons. Yeah, okay. I thought about this when you brought it up last night. Believe it or not, we do do some prep for the show. You know what I got major vibes from in terms of Kevin Adams was Dale Tallinn as the general

manager of Chicago Blackhawks. That's what I thought. Yeah. So for those that don't remember the story, back in 2009, the Chicago Blackhawks demoted, and I'm air quoting that right now, demoted Dale Talon from general manager to special advisor. It was a lateral move. It was a lateral move in the truest sense of lateral. So what happened was, Dale Tallon, while building this great dynasty team in Chicago, had one major screw up.

It was the now infamous Fax Gate. You remember that? Yeah, yeah. He failed to send the qualifying offers. I think it was Christopher Steig and Cam Barker. And he failed to send in their qualifying offers in time to the national. Hockey League because I guess he did it by facts and the facts either got jammed or

I don't know if there was like a PC load letter issue with the machine His tie got caught in it. Perhaps you know there's a number of... He faxed his tie. And it cost them Cam Barker. No, it didn't cost them Cam Barker but It almost cost them a fam you guys. It looks like a tie pattern.

I'm very confused by this. What am I looking at here? It's just a bunch of salamanders. I don't know what it is. Anyway, what happened was the delay and then not hitting the qualifying offers essentially rendered these guys unrestricted. So it meant short answer, short story, like long story made short. They had to pay them more money than they would have and they were really pressed

up against the cap because Talon that summer was the one that went out. And I think that was the summer he got Marion Hosa and John Madden. So he had made big moves. Yeah. He got demoted. Stan Bowman comes in. Stan Bowman becomes the general manager as we go through the history books now. They were like, Stan, do you know how to use a fax machine?

He was like, I do. And if I don't, I can learn. And then he took them, took them to the, to the. the great, you know, Stanley Cup winning teams in Chicago. And when you go back through the history books now, it's Stan Bowman's the general manager of those dynasty teams in Chicago, not Dale Tallon. But the real ones know that Dale Tallon was primarily the architect for that team.

I'm not mistaken, I think a few writers actually, or whoever picked the GM of the year back in the day, you know, kind of tongue in cheek gave Dale Tallon some votes. Yeah. After he had been removed as the general manager to win general manager. to win general manager of the year. Anyway, there's a long roundabout way of saying, I get those vibes with Kevin Adams.

Should this Buffalo team go on a similar trajectory? And they get a long way to go to get to the great Blackhawks teams of 2009, 2010, 2011, etc. Does he end up being like that? I think he might, because he is the guy that made a lot of these moves and a lot of this stuff happened on his watch. Yeah.

They just needed to get rid of him to get serious, apparently. Well, I mean, Brock from Vancouver texts in, and he said, What about Nones and Burke building a team for Gillis? I mean, Burke did pull off that brilliant trade to get the Siddins for the Canucks. So, you know, I think, I think, I think Gillis changed a lot the way the team operated, and he brought in a lot of new ideas, and he did bring in some players as well. So that one was, that there were still people that said, you know, Gillis is, you know, he's riding the,

Hotels of the previous regime. He's using the core that this previous, and I don't think Gillis necessarily pushed back on that. But he did make a lot of changes. He made a lot of organizational changes, like philosophically and identity wise. That's where, culture wise.

That was the big thing for me. Like, he didn't just inherit this group and then, you know, okay, we're just going to run it back in the same fashion. They tried a lot of different things. I don't think the notion that the text are sent in is wrong. I do think there's some elements of it, but especially in the case of Talon going to Bowman.

And then now, and we're going to wait and see how this plays because it's happening in real time, Adam's going to Kekeleinen. It feels like there was one major gaff or series of gaffes that you had to get rid of the previous regime. I remember when the Burke-K-K-Konis regime ended. There was a lot of people that thought that was an unfair and unjust removal, right?

Yeah. That there was like, you know, they had no reason to go. They were building something here. Well, NONUS had brought in the long ago. Yeah, so there was some very different vibe. So for those that don't remember the Dale Talon story, that's the one that really stuck out to me

because he really truly was the architect of that Chicago team. A couple other things I want to get to. Victor Headman, the Tampa Bay Lightning, announced yesterday, is going to take a personal leave. And they said, listen, this is a private matter. Please respect his privacy. And Headman's last game was in Vancouver, where he only played a handful of minutes,

I think it was under five minutes before leaving the game. Now, things have been kind of odd. around Victor Hedman for a while. And you remember back of the Olympics, wasn't there a game where he barely played? So here's how the timeline went. He missed 23 games earlier in the year, about seven weeks after elbow surgery,

came back into the lightning lineup on February 1st, played a handful of games before he went to the Olympics. Then there was that odd moment in the Olympics where he was said to have a lower body injury, and then he watched their quarterfinal loss from the bench against the U.S., but then he said, like, I was, you know, I could have played, I was ready to go. No one was quite sure what was happening.

The official reason for his exit against the Canucks earlier last week was an illness that he left four minutes into the game or after playing just over four minutes in the game due to a illness. I wonder if this is just a combination of health issues that is maybe led him to need to take some time away because there was the elbow surgery. There was a lower body injury. Then there was an I don't know exactly what's going on. But it sounds as though he's really struggling with his health right now. Hopefully everything's okay for Victor Headman. But certainly something to keep monitoring. The draft lottery date has already been reported,

but it has now been made official. And this is going to be a big day for Canucks fans. And hopefully a good day, the 26th NHL draft lottery will take place on May 5th. And it can be seen on Sportsnet and Sportsnet Plus. Everyone knows the deal. This has been the case since 2021. The first two picks in the draft will be determined after two draws.

The team that wins the lottery can move up a maximum of 10 slots in the draft for the Vancouver Cucks. Assuming they hold on to that last place spot, which they're going to, they will either pick first, second, or third. Actually, the odds suggest that the most likely, slot is number three, but we were obviously hoping for one or even two. I kind of want two, I'll be honest with you, because I'm scared of failure. No. I'm a weak man and I'm scared of failure because if the connects win first and they choose poorly.

No, you can't. Take McKenna. Go up. Get the first overall pick. Take McKenna. I'll say it right now. If McKenna doesn't turn out, the Halford and Bluff, the Halford and Bruff show, we will not blame the organization whatsoever.

That it won't be their fault. We might if they develop them badly. Nope, no, it's not your fault. Preemptively telling you, like goodwill hunting, it's not your fault. You did not do this. There needs to be a clarity and vision here that you want the first overall pick. You want to make it with confidence and you want to take McKenna and not mess around and then get to the very important first part of this rebuild.

I think the here's my nightmare scenario for the Canucks. So I just simulated the lottery on Tankathon. First overall pick goes to Winnipeg. Wow. Second goes to San Jose. Yeah, there are some teams. There are some, like, quote unquote, good teams that could win the lottery. Like, I don't know what happened to Winnipeg this year, but, you know, the New York Islanders weren't a horrible team.

And they ended up getting Schaefer, who's going to be one of the best defensemen, probably in NHL history, the way it's starting. Second went to San Jose. So, you know, McKenna goes to Winnipeg. Stenberg goes to San Jose. and then on Tankathon, it has the Canucks taking the right shot defenseman, Keaton Verhoff. Here's the nightmare scenario.

The Canucks fall to three and then reach on a player that's like a center. Ah, yes. They're just like, well, we've already got some defenseman. And we've got Philip Peronix. Drafting positional need. That always works out well.

Now, would you feel differently if the player that they reached on was Caleb Malhotra, who could be the first center off the board? I would be disappointed if they reached for anything. Yeah, yeah. Anything. Verhof's going to be a player, I think.

Go and find the best player available and bring them into an organization where you don't have a lot of best players. In fact, I don't think you have any. I just add talent. I'm not advocating for that. No, but I know exactly what you're saying. I'm throwing out this scenario. It's like we went through all this for, I don't want to call Kilimel Malhotra, a middling prospect, but he's not McKenna, he's not Stenberg, and he's not Verhof in terms of quality.

Even Chase Reed, who's a right-shot defenseman, some people have been wondering if he might go in the top three. Don't Galaxy brain it. Just go up and pick the best guy available with the highest pick that you got. That's some good old-fashioned logic. Yeah, passing on Verhof at three would be, oh, man. I mean, they've already done this like five times in my lifetime where they've passed on a guy that was like sure fire and turns out he was really good.

That would be hilarious though. Well, not hilarious. Because it keeps happening with this team. They keep passing on this obvious choice and take a swing and miss. Can you imagine, though, if they were like, no, we already got Vielander, and Vielander's like, you should take Veroff because I'm not that guy. Yeah, Verrov. Have you seen this guy? He's huge, and he hits people, and he's got a bomb of a shot. I'm more of a Kobe Seeger who's going to play in the league for a long time. I don't know if I'm going to win a Norris or anything. Okay, we got a lot more to get to on the program.

I think it will be. I think he will be. Okay. Okay. Are you done? Are we good? Are we all done? Hey, Andy, break. I just want to be positive. Break. We've got to go to break. We've got to go to break. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford and Brough, Sports Night 650. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have payday loan debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut that debt up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at sands.com. We are now in our three of the program. Our three is brought to by the Duick Auto Group.

why nobody beats a Duick deal and why nobody has since 1926. Visit Duke GM on Marine Drive. Visit them downtown, visit them in Richmond, and visit them online at Duwokato Group.com. We're coming to live from the Kintech Studio, Step Strong with Orthotics and Footwear from Kintech. All right, we're going to do the smart decision brought to you by Crow right now, your trusted accounting and tax advisors for over 55 years.

My smart decision for today is decision that the Seattle Seahawks and John Schneider made in giving Jackson Smith and Jigba that monster contract, which caught the eye of some people in the football world for the amount of money spent on the star wide receiver because it was a lot of money. It's a record deal making him the highest paid wide receiver in football. But according to the general manager, John Schneider, it's all cool because Jackson, Smith and Jigba isn't just a great football player, Jason.

He's a great person, too. I got the quote here. this is a really exciting day for the Seahawks organization. This is me being John Schneider right now. Say it with a little more gravita. When you go to ownership and you ask for an investment like this, you always have to be cognizant of who the person is. And I'm just so proud of Jacks.

That's Jackson, Smith, and Jigba. And who he is as a person. Then he turned to Jackson Smith and Jigma and said, your parents did a great job of raising you, man. People forget how young you are. That was nice. And then J.S.N.'s parents were like, can we have some money? You got some now.

24-year-old's a rich, rich dude. Now, whatever... Do you ever feel like this entire show is just about Petey? Everything we talked about. Oh, is that where you were going to go with this? Everything we talk about. Or the culture of the Canucks. It's everything.

We're talking to Parker Burgess about the culture of the Vancouver Giants. and, you know, deciding between, you know, talent and, I know, the buying in and all that sort of stuff. And it's just, it all seems like, what do they call it, sub-tweeting? Is that, is that a thing? Like, everything, everything is about that. Like, I mean. Well, you're sub-tweeting right now because you're making it's about-pity. So that didn't come up in your mind.

No, I'll tell you what can. Because someone texted in. Because I think I know what he's sub-tweeting. Okay, someone texted into the show this morning. It was an unsigned text, but it said, John Schneider's JSN press conference yesterday had some interesting comments. He said, you better be sure about a player's character before you present a monster contract to your owner.

Yeah. Well, you know why. Who do you think that was about that text? Well, the text, yeah, but that's because we're in Vancouver, and it's too myopic in scope. We're only thinking about, I guarantee you, John Schneider. I bet he didn't think once about Elias Petterson when he was signing the contract

I'm going to go out of him I'm going to go out of the way How can you say that? You don't know I don't know I mean I'm not even just talking about Pederset I'm talking about like JT I'm talking about everyone anyone that the Canucks sign long term

Like they better be damn sure about their character But let's not talk about hockey You know what he was doing here right John Schneider You don't I think he was talking up his player No he wasn't This was when you talk about sub-tweeting someone

or trying to get one in on sly. He's talking about the also 24-year-old star wide receiver of the Seattle Seahawks fiercest divisional foe, the Los Angeles Rams. Oh, yeah. And he's talking about... We heard stuff going on with Puka. Do you think it's coincidence? Let me ask you, caustic listeners out there. Do you think it's a coincidence that on the day where Jackson Smith and Jigma meets with the media to announce... that he signed the richest contract for an NFL wide receiver ever, that John Schneider uses the remarks that he uses about how he's a great person

and your parents did a great job of raising. What a man you've turned out to be. While that's going on, a woman in Los Angeles files a civil lawsuit against Pukinakua, alleging that the Rams wide receiver made a quote-unquote unprovoked anti-Semitic statement. and later bit her on the shoulder. Now, the backdrop of the Nakua situation, of course, is that given that he's the exact same age

as Jackson, Smith, and Jigba, he's longer tenured in the NFL, but he is also in line for a monster contract, maybe even more than JSN, because for his greater... She's tighter way, J.S.N. has not bit any women that we know of, and he's looking good. And then he checked his phone. He's like, yep, can't confirm. No bites. Yeah.

So I think here, obviously because of the rivalry between the Seahawks and the Rams, and of course, I don't know if you all remember this or not, but the Seahawks defeated the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC title game to advance in the Super Bowl. And then I don't know if you remember this, but the Seahawks won the Super Bowl on the strength of a great year by Jackson Smith and Jigba. I like to think that maybe there was a little bit more than just praising your guy that went into that. I don't know. I think Schneider was still referencing Petey.

Yeah, or he was just talking about it. Or we just talking about Petey. By the way, confusing with multiple John Schneiders. I don't like it. Very. Yeah. I don't like it. There's a lot of John Schneider. As a Blue Jays fan on the West Coast. It's very confusing.

Yeah, Laddie perks up when he hears John Schneider, and then he's like, ah, it's about the Seahawks. They're like, GM, John Schneider. Okay, so this was what a smart decision to not bite women on the shoulder? That was what your conclusion was? You know what he's right? That's always a smart decision. Don't do it. Don't bite.

Don't be a biter. Don't be a biter. Coma Kai's like, we don't like this smart decision. It works for toddlers and NFL wide receivers. Didn't they say something like Nakuas, natua, whatever you were. Pooka Nekua. Didn't he say the representative's like,

yeah, it's just a little horse play. Yeah, he did. Horses do bite sometimes, though. You would know. They do. Yeah, yeah. It's possible. All right, let's finish this read.

Did she have an apple? All of this. Some levels unfortunately. All of this, some levels unfortunately, was brought to you by Crow Smart Decisions, lasting value. Learn more at crow macaille.cai.com. We've got the entire hour open here. So if you want to weigh in, Dunbar number text line is 650, 650,

we're going to do what we learns all hour, correct? Okay. Can I do whatever you want? Share some anecdotal. I'm going to share an anecdotal story. Okay. Yeah. Right?

It's just an anecdotal tale. I think it's just an anecdote. An anecdote. Can you have an anecdotal story? Right. Isn't that like a story story story? Right. Well, redundant thing.

First of all, my brain was bogged down with like, don't say antidote. You know, I was like, I wanted to get the story thing right, first of all. And anyway. You're sharing an antidotal story. What about an artichoke? I have heard from multiple people that they're canceling their Canucks season tickets. Oh. And I'm always skeptical when I hear these stories because I was like, I'm pretty sure you told me that last year,

that you're going to cancel your season tickets. A little performative, perhaps. And then, and then, you know, they obviously don't. But I'm really, really curious about this offseason in terms of the season-ticket holder base. And, you know, there's an article up right now on citynews.com. That you can read.

And the headline is Canucks season ticket holders outraged over price hike next season. Yeah, we're a little late on this story, too, by the way. A lot of people were talking about earlier in the week. No, I know. I don't know what we were talking about. I know, but I just find some of it, it's hard to report on because there's, like, the, the silent, or the loud minority will just be like, I'm canceling my season tickets and I'm outraged. But there's a lot of other people that are like, I'm not happy about the price upgrades, but I love hockey.

And, you know, if you're a business, you're just like, I want to take my clients to games. But I really do wonder if there's a couple of things at play here. Number one, they're just upset of the way the hockey team has operated over the last little while. That's fine. And number two, the people that I know that have season tickets, usually they don't go to all the games, right? Like, I mean, it's a lot. It's 41 games or whatever. It's a lot of hockey watch.

But what they do count on is being able to unload their tickets on the secondary market. or at the very least being able to give them away to a client or a friend or whatever. They make a nice little gift. Not this year. It's been hard to do. I've got a buddy that is like,

listen, I can't get rid of my tickets. And he's spending time texting people. Like, do you want to go to the Knucks again? And then it's like, ah, I'm washing my hair tonight, right? You know? And he's like, again? And if you're, if you're, if you're, let's say you have these tickets for for business reasons, right?

Yep. It's so easy to just buy them on the secondary market now. And if you're not paying a lot of money to buy them on the secondary market, then why wouldn't you? Yeah. It's interesting, right? Because the escalation and price of, and it's not just going to the game, I think that's a big part of it, is that if you say, like,

especially if you're going to gift the tickets, to someone that's got kids or something. It's not a free night. It's very expensive to go. That is true. Like if you get gifted tickets, like that's great, but it's going to be expensive. You gave me a bill. Yeah, you gave me a bill.

It's like the George Costan's the Super Bowl ticket thing. Like you're giving me a bill for $2,000 to give me these Super Bowl tickets. Yep. I got to get a flight, accommodation, food. Yeah. So there's that part of it for sure. And it is, I mean, I sympathize with everyone that has to bring, even just another person or multiple people.

to the games. It's an incredible... You sympathize them. I do. Like it's a funeral or something? You've got to watch what's on the ice. They got paid $28 for a beer. You get killed everywhere over here. But it's expensive. Look, I do generally want to know, though, like, why would they raise ticket prices this year?

Because they can? But I mean... Maybe they feel that can. But after the season they just had, I mean... And if they are worried about attendance, I mean, maybe they aren't. I don't know if they are or not. But if they were to say be worried about attendance, why would they justify raising the ticket prices? They don't, I don't have justifies the right word. They just think, they just know they can do it.

Yeah. But, but. So they're not, I guess they're not worried then about attendance. No, they are probably not. I, I disagree with that. I bet they are. I mean, I don't know. I'm genuinely asking.

Aren't you making a calculated gamble when you raise or when you set prices for anything in a business? You're like, well, I hope. I hope this works. Like, I get raised the prices after their playoff run, obviously, because there's a lot of hope around the franchise. People are like, hey, there might be a future here. Hey, we understand what you're talking about when the team. when the team is good, you can set high ticket prices when it's not.

It's not as simple as that in Vancouver. They know that they are still the biggest show in town. And people can text in and say like, oh, the white caps are, you know, the lions are. No, they're not. They're not. They're not. They're not, right? Still like professional team in the city.

There is still something to be said for going. And maybe it's not even watching the Canucks. But you get to go watch, you know, Sydney Crosby or Connor McDavid or McDavid or any of the stars that come through town. Yeah. And there is, God, I hate using this word, but there is a premium experience to going to a Canucks game that others can't sell in this market. Two words, but point taken.

I just hate the phrase premium experience because we're going to hear a lot. But to be fair to them, I mean, their in-game presentation is. excellent. I mean, it always has been quite good, and it's definitely even improved over the last five or so years. I think it's falling off the last little while. I think it improved and then it's stale. I think, I think... If I could criticize it, my one criticism would be bring back the organ, and I don't say that jokingly. Okay. I miss the hockey arena organ. Can you tackle him for a bit? Just like take him down. Am I not right? Wrap the knees. Do you not miss the organ? Can I follow up with a question, though?

Oh my God. I feel like we're straying closer. This is a legitimate question, though. This is a legitimate question. I'll bring it back to it on track here. We appear to be getting off topic. Yeah, go ahead. It's not antidotal. You're seeing a lot of headlines saying even though they're in the midst of a rebuild, the Canucks are raising ticket prices. Is this the specific reason why they were so reluctant to agree to the word rebuild

because of this exact moment where they raise the prices? And then the rebuild gets thrown right back in their face. But that's just obvious. So you're going to sell it the right way. Now winning the draft lottery and having Gavin McKenna would be a big deal. That would help. But you talked about the in-game presentation and everything. I saw a discussion the other day online where they just talked about a complete rebrand of the team.

And even when you go to the game, like they kind of play the same music. There's the same rhythm to everything. And I think over the next couple of years, I know they got a lot on their plate right now, but I don't know about uniforms or anything like that. But I think they've got this opportunity to rebrand. Yeah, re-identify. Yeah. Like they, I still, I still feel, in some ways, like I still feel 2011 vibes sometimes when I go to the game.

Just with the presentation that they have. I mean, every year they make the same, in my opinion, kind of like weird video where the Knoch's are like superheroes or something like that. But they need to edit 100 times throughout the year. Those are kind of cool. Yeah, but do you need it? Well, once. I mean, I don't know if I'd have. Exactly.

Once. But I know they do that sort of stuff for kids. But I think they might just want to like rethink. everything about the way they operate. I like the playoff run. Like they had the string quartet to start the game. Like there's some cool stuff that they did during the playoffs. Look what the golden eyes are doing.

Look what they're doing the game presentation. It's a totally different vibe when you go to one of those. Yeah, yeah. You can completely change the mood of the building just from your presentation alone. I like to the playoff run too, A dog. You know what? That might not be something they can bank on in the next little while. So to bring it back to center here, the conversation about season ticket holders

and ticket prices and not having an organ. And not having an organ, the three biggest issues that are facing the club right now. There is a very interesting dynamic at play. Because you talked about the loud minority saying, I've canceled my season's tickets. Look at the screen grab of the email that I sent back to my ticket representative at the Canucks.

And that's great and everything. But there's still probably a large quiet, dare I say, silent percentage that are just going to buy them again because that's what you do. Right? It's like on their credit card. It's set to auto renew. It's like any subscription you have your streaming device baked into the business plan is they're not going to check.

Yeah. Some people have more money than us. If you make it difficult to cancel where there's like three steps involved, you're probably going to get a renewal because it's a lot to try and cancel it. So there's that part of it. The other part of it is there are people out there that are bending over backwards to take screen grabs of crowds and attendance figures and

use it in the sort of the vein of the conversation right always goes with this sarcastically Vancouver won't support a rebuild and then they show a full building or people cheering and everything else right I disagree with that what do you disagree with that fans wouldn't support a rebuild especially season's tickets holders they're the ones that have been wanting the rebuild for the last 15 years

I'm not sure you're quite picking up what I'm putting down here what I'm saying is that there's still people that are actively going to the games and paying money, there's still support. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. Which is the reason that you could raise ticket prices and not worry about the fact that you're asking people for more money to watch a team that won eight games at home this year. There's not that inherent fear. I don't think it's there. And I'm coming at this from a perspective where if you look at, for example, some of the bigger European clubs, when it's not going well, there's almost a full scale revolt, right?

And people will, I mean, like throwing flares at the owner's bull. is probably a bridge too far, but people will respond in kind by not showing up to matches or actively saying, we are not happy with the product, we are not going to give you our hard-earned dollars

to continue to put this dreck out on the playing surface, right? That dynamic doesn't exist here. It just doesn't. There will be some people, but again, I think you're right, it's a loud minority who are like, not another dollar towards this product,

Not a penny out of my pocket. No way. And that's great and it's very demonstrative in everything. But I think the majority of people are like, it's still a pretty fun time. I know I have a hard time unloading my tickets in March, but at the beginning of the year when there's still optimism and it's still kind of cool,

and it's still a night out and it's still, dare I say it, a premium experience. For some people, it's a bit of an ego thing too. People want to go. I have season ticket holders. I'm very successful in life. It's a big part of North American sports is you go to the game and you have the tickets. Yeah.

And until that, completely. in a very dramatic way whittles away to almost zero or way below where your budget is. But I'm still curious to see how this off-season goes. From what perspective? From the ticket selling perspective. Yeah.

I don't think it's a bit of a dangerous assumption to say like, oh, the building's still going to be full next season. And a couple of thousand makes a difference. When you go to games and you're like, oh, this, there's, you know what? You know what word do you hear? Swaths.

Swaths of empty seats. Certainly so. There is that risk. I hate a big swath. The way you make up for those swaths of empty seats is to raise the prices. Is that how it works? Which they've done actually already. So check that box.

I don't know. I mean, I'll be curious to see what it looks like. In the future, there will just be 500 seats, but each ticket will be $100,000 for the premium experience. That's the way society is going. It's true. In our K-shaped economy. I think that's socialism.

Is that how it works? I saw that on Twitter yesterday. I think that's the opposite. Oh, right. Oh, whoops. No, but you know, where this conversation leads and where the interesting inflection point will be is at the start of next season. Because I will say this, when the season starts in October, everyone's got a certain level of enthusiasm. Because hockey's been gone for a long time and everyone excited to get back in.

The idea of starting at zero. is even if you're going to be the worst team in the league, you still have some optimism at the beginning of the year. You never know, that kind of thing. Who's the guy that we were talking about? God, who's the guy a couple of years ago? He came here and he ended up lasting like eight games, but he scored in his first game.

Oh. God, I'm just forgetting his name. The Dutch guy. The Dutch guy. Daniel Sprong. Daniel Sprong, yeah, there's always a Daniel Sprong you can sell hope for. God, could you imagine if we do that again? We spent a lot, not me particularly.

revolted against it. But it might work for us. Yeah. What about Daniel Sprong? I'm like, what about him? Daniel Sprong. There's a few texts that are saying the ticket prices increases from A, covering the seat cost and B, covering the, I guess, soon-to-be-announced practice facility cost. That is...

And maybe another game as well. All right, I'm trying not to Mountbruff here. That is the dumbest thing I have heard of. Having seats is not an add-on. It's part of the business. Those seats were well past their useful life.

You should be lucky we're letting you sit down. This could be standing room only. The whole idea of selling the we got new seats and like are they going to have a 30 for 30 on the new seats at Rogers Arena? You own an arena. You should have seats that work. And the practice facility is another thing. It is part of.

of doing business. You're not just like, not yet. Well, if you want a practice facility for your NHL team, then you're going to pay for it. The ticket prices are going up. That is the dumbest argument I can possibly think of. You have a practice facility because you want to win.

You want to win. You have seats because you don't want mice living in your seats. You don't want broken seats. It is part. Do you think other, arenas in North American pro sports are like, guys, I know a lot of you have been injuring yourself sitting in our seats, but just for you, because you're so special and we love you, we're going to get new seats. There will be a $10 service charge for every game, but we're going to

do it because we care about you. I don't ever want to hear about new seats ever, ever, ever. again and I want them to get this practice facility built so we don't ever ever have to talk about this again a place for the players to practice crazy luxury in this billion dollar business I on the other hand I want to see them try and spin new seats into the premium experience yeah okay and it's got a cup holder I mean that's memory foam are we living in the future you know how expensive those cup holders are could you imagine getting memory foam seats? Who was sitting here?

It's like we got new seats. Unfortunately, each seat costs us $50,000. All right, we got to go to Braden-crested. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.