Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 3/9/26

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports, including an interesting trade deadline for the Canucks, plus they speak with Hockey Hall of Famer and NHL on Amazon Prime analyst Chris Pronger ahead of tonight's 'Nucks matchup versus the Sens on Amazon.  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. Josh Morrissey. Tonight on Rock Bottom. 3-2 and a flare. Back up the middle. That one is through the... Good morning, makeover 6-1 on a Monday.

Happy Monday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming live from the Kintech Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning.

Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning. Alady, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford, in Brought of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have CRA debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut your debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands.

That's trustee.com. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle you get paid. visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintech Studio New Year, new opportunity for comfort with orthotics from Kintech.

Got a lot to get into on the program today. It's our morning guest list of Doick Morning Drive, brought to by the Duick Auto Group. Before Gester on a Monday, it begins at 6.30 this morning. Adnan Verk is going to join the program. MLB Network, Amazon Prime, NHL coverage. Adnan's in town. He's in Vancouver, working at tonight's Kinnock's game.

A reminder one, it is an Amazon game, and two, it's a six o'clock start from Rogers Arena tonight. I also want to ask Adnan, of course, being MLB Network's very own Adnan, Verk, about the world baseball classic, which I watched a lot of this weekend. And we're also watching it right now in studio. For the thousands of listeners that are hanging on the Korea-Australia score, I won't spoil it for everybody. But the game is in the bottom of the ninth. You know, I love my Korean baseball. How you enjoy it?

Got it in the studio. I'm so happy. 7 o'clock Anthony LaPlanta is going to join the program. Minnesota Wild TV play-by-playman on Fan duel. Trade deadline is come and gone and Quinn Hughes's team is locked and loaded for a postseason run. How high are expectations for the wild? What could their Achilles heel be in the playoffs? Do you know why I wanted to book a wild guest?

It was because last week we came to the conclusion that this is maybe the first time ever. that we've been like, well, I can't wait to see what the wild look like in the playoffs. For the first time ever, the first time ever, right? They're interesting. Yeah. I've called him yet again, Anthony Laplanta. I've done this before. Come on, Albert.

Damn it. That's not his name. It's Anthony La Panta. Tony La Panta. It's better that I do this now than when he's on the air and I butcher it. When he's gardening, he's Anthony Laplanta. Tony L is going to join us at 730. It's 7.30 or sorry, seven o'clock this morning.

730. I'm not going to mess up this name. Chris Pronger is going to join the program at 730. The Hockey Hall of Famer himself is also working with Adnan on the Amazon broadcast. And Pronger caught the attention of Canucks fans and Canucks Twitter yesterday, fielding questions from the fan base via Twitter. Lots of talk about the rebuild, building culture, and what the Canucks need to do to get back to prominence. So we'll talk to Chris Pronger about all that at 730.

Do you know on X now how they, use maybe AI to write like a headline of what's going on on social media so the headline that they came up with

was Canucks fans dream of Chris Pronger leading rebuild Oh I did see some of that Yeah I saw a lot of that Well your lead question should be Would you be interested

in the general manager job If it was presented to you Should we start with that? You should Oh you'll have to stay tuned To see what question First question Yeah first question

Not even high Coming on a bit strong guys He's like hi to you as well. You're wearing a bow tie to impress Chris Pronger. Chris Pronger is going to join us at 7.30. 8 o'clock Satyar Shah is going to join the program. Canucks Central, Canucks pre-imposed game host on SportsNet 650.

Canucks played a pair of games over the weekend. 6-3 win in Chicago on Friday, 3-2 loss in Winnipeg on Saturday. Tonight marks the first of an eight-game homestand for your Vancouver Canucks. Sat's going to join us at 8 to talk about that. Finally, we are doing giveaways every day this week, Golf Town. mom, dad, can we go to Golf Town? We sure can with a $250 gift card as part of their

Golf Town Trade in Days event. Caller number 5 at 8 a.m. Every day this week, we'll get the gift card. As mentioned, Monday through Friday. We're doing it every day, so don't worry if you don't win today. 604-280-650 is the number. That number again, 604-280-0-650. Got a lot to get into, not going to run it in reverse

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 to best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca.ca. The NHL trade deadline came and went hours after we got off the air on Friday. There was a lot of reaction to it Friday and over the weekend, but we will begin. Now with the league. at wide at large, but the Vancouver Canucks

and what they didn't, didn't do at Friday's deadline. Well, the Canucks made a couple of trades on Friday and played a couple of games this weekend and things are pretty much the same. The rebuild is on and now we play the waiting game. It's boring. Yeah, the waiting game

sucks. Let's play hungry, hungry hippos. Following the Connor Carlin drade to Columbus on Thursday, the Canucks on deadline day were only able to add a pair of sixth round picks for Lucas Reichel and David Kemp. Not surprisingly, there were no takers for Evander Kane.

Somewhat surprisingly, Teddy Blugher stayed put as well. Patrick Alvin said he didn't get any formal offers for either player, which I assumed to mean that a butler didn't show up with an offer. No. I would like to offer you a fourth round pick. It was underneath the cloiche. He opened it up. Silver platter.

Although it's hard to believe they couldn't have got. something for Bluger, given they got something for Reichel and Kemp. We'll see if the Kinnocks do indeed re-sign Teddy Bluger. That was the rumor, heading into the trade deadline when it looked like the market. Maybe wouldn't develop the way the Kinnock's wanted. He's been a good soldier for the Kinnock's, the kind of veteran player that rebuilding teams often signed in free agency anyway. I don't know, maybe the Kinnock's felt that if they gave him away for peanuts, that he would

never come back to Vancouver, you know? Once you send a Teddy Blugher away, you can't be sure that Teddy Bluger is going to come back to you. So on Friday, Sat and Bick on Canucks Central got Patrick Alvin on the program. And one of the things they pressed them on was this entire notion that they were able to move out guys like Reichel and Komp, but weren't able to move out a guy like Teddy Bluger. It was a, it was an interesting back and forth. I'd like to play the audio now. Sure. Let's play the audio from Patrick Alvin from Friday on Canucks Central with Sat and Bick. play the questions as well, so you get the full scope of exactly how the conversation went. This was on Lucas Reichel, David Kemp, and then, of course, Teddy Blugher.

Here's Patrick Alvin from Friday. And in terms of, you know, a couple of guys that weren't moved, you mentioned that there were no offers on Evander Kane and Teddy Blugher, but you got an offer on David Kamp. That's the one that, you know, I get kind of confused by because you were able to move camp for a sixth round pick, but Bluger who, I mean, in my estimation, is the better hockey player didn't get an offer. Why do you think that is? and what does that kind of tell you about how weird the market was?

And would you have been willing to move Bluger if you did have any formal offers on the table? Yeah, I think maybe they value different things and maybe they value guys higher. It's hard to really sense what teams were looking for and how much it were willing to pay for it. you know, a lot of teams out east didn't do anything. So it seems like it was just a few teams

that were very, very active here today. Did you, were you willing to move Bluger for an offer? Or is he a guy that you looked at and said, if we don't get something we'd like, we'd rather hold on to him? No, I definitely would have taken a consideration, but the offer was. And definitely, if there was an offer, who definitely would have talked about it.

So, I'm going to steal your line here, but I feel the exact same way. Just don't have it in me. I don't have that dog in me to argue about whether they could have something for Teddy Bluger or not. Okay. I just don't have it. Neither do I.

I just don't have it. I can't go back and forth. Sorry, boss. You just don't have it today. You know what? Sats on the show later? We'll just ask him. You can throw that softball up there.

You want to take this one, bud? I can't do it. The Canucks actually picked up. three of a possible four points in Friday and Saturday's games in Chicago and Winnipeg, respectively. Bluger had a goal in two assists in the two games. Good thing they kept him. Linas Carlson also continued his strong play with a goal and two assists of his own. On the other hand, Alias Pedersen's goalless streak reached 17 games, while Evander Cain played just over 12 minutes in each game, offering very little to a team. He no doubt wishes he had

been traded by. So what's left to look forward to? I was laughing when Shorty started the broadcast, one of the broadcasts on the weekend. And he was like, you know, Connucks fans' eyes will focus from the trade guideline and now it goes to the draft or something like that. He said it way better than that. And then he said, but we've still got a quarter of the season left to go. 20 games to go, that's all. So what's left to look forward to? to, well, the Kinecks kick off an eight-game homestand tonight against Ottawa. What a great time for an eight-game homestand to kick off. Maybe waiver pickup Curtis Douglas will suit up for the home team if you like fights?

Yep, I don't know. He can do that. The regular season ends April 16th in Edmonton, still over a month away. It's March 9th today. At which point on April 16th, there should be plenty of discussion about the future. of the management team and the coaching staff. I'm sure we'll discuss it over the last few weeks of the season as well. The draft lottery usually takes place in early May,

and then the actual draft is June 26th and 27th in Buffalo, where there was one heck of a game yesterday. Yeah. Do you want to get into that right now? Maybe that, like that, that's my focus going forward. I mean, we'll still cover the Canucks games. talk about them, but, you know, they are what they are. At this point, we'll try and focus our best on the young players in the lineup, the guys that could be part of the future for the Vancouver

Canucks. But, you know, there's some interesting storylines around the NHL, and, you know, we might as well get hyped up for the NHL postseason. And Buffalo, man, they're so excited for this team. And I'm very happy for the Sabres and their fans, while also a teeny bit, well, actually a lot of bit, jealous of the Buffalo Sabres and their fans, which is kind of a tough place to be, jealous of Buffalo. I know. It's very rare to those words get uttered in that exact sequence.

But that's where we're at. The Buffalo Sabres won an absolutely wild one on Sunday night. An eight-seven victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning, bookended by goals from Josh Stone, who scored the opening goal. the first and the eighth goal in the game. But that really, and amazingly, for a game that had 15 goals and finished as close as it did,

8, 7 for the Sabres, the story really wasn't about the offensive explosion or the fact that the Sabres won this very important game. It was the fact that the teams combined for over 100 penalty minutes in a game that had five fights, a scrum post game, and some of the fights were real interesting, including the one between Darren Radish and Sabres' captain Rasm, Dalene in which Radish was feeding

Dalene shots after Dalian had gone to the ice. I got to say it was pretty dirty cheese from radish dirty cheese from radish hitting them on the ground like that. There was also a fight later on I believe it was in the third period where

Corey Perry got knocked out by Beck Malinstein and that one got the Sabres faithful to their feet as well. Delta Zone? Yeah, Delta Zone and Beck Malinstein. The lightning is such a goon show. It's so funny to see how they've developed under John

Cooper. Yeah. You know, like they, we knew that that time where they got knocked out by Columbus and they're like, wow, we got to play a little tougher. I mean, I don't think they'd take it to this extent. They lead the the, the NHL in penalty minutes by

a large margin. They, so something, I don't know if it was like their Joker origin story, but after they kept getting trounce by Florida and that rivalry took up, they brought in like, Scott Sabrin who can fight. Like, Hegel's always pretty tough. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. He was in there. Like, everyone was fighting on the weekend. Paul and Byron got in a fight. Like, that's how, that's how, like, spicy this one was. We got the audio from Rosmust Dahlene, too. I want to play, I want to play this audio from Rosmust Dahlene. And it's not exactly like a WWE promo.

But listen to the Sabres, great defenseman here. And how excited he is that the Sabres are finally on, the right track. I mean, this is why I play hockey. This is the best part. It's just finally. Finally, we're here and we're doing good things. So I don't take this for granted at all.

I'm so fired up. I'm so happy. I'm so happy for Buffalo as a city for all the fans, too. And this means it's the world. So there was a video floating around on social media yesterday. I think Matthew Boewe from WKBV in Buffalo posted it. And it's the energy and the fans spilling out onto the concourse in the atrium at Keebank after that game yesterday. And everyone's just buzzing, right?

First time in 14 years that the Sabres, again, it's not done yet, but it looks like they're finally going to get back to the postseason. So there's a combination of the excitement of playoff hockey, but also the end of this. embarrassing drought. And you can't really understate what that means to a fan base. When you've been like kicked and, you know, punched like the Sabres fans have over the last two decades.

And they keep kind of getting kicked because Colton Perico was like, yeah, I don't want to go to Buffalo. That's a good point. So for them to be able to have this right now. And it was funny, the clip you were talking about was like, it's not a WWE promo.

And it wasn't by any stretch. But there was a sense of like, relief like finally finally. Finally we get to do this. And for Dahlene who's already at 500 games played in the National Hockey League, this is a long time coming and you know I think we've sort of

unofficially adopted Buffalo is the team that we're going to root for in the playoffs given there our sad club brethren and everything. Understanding the risk that we're taking. For sure. You know? But I think it's a great thing and I really, really hope that they get there and the building is electric and they make some noise when

they get there. It might have a whole nice advantage in the first. They're first in the division right now in terms of points. It's a really cool story, and I'm very much looking forward to it. Okay, some other stories from the National Hockey League over the weekend. You made this appointment viewing yesterday, and the Edmonton Oilers delivered with a four to win over the now slumping Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday. Leon Drysiddle just continues to take this team on his big German back. Fifth goal in the last five games, McDavid to assist. The Oilers now quietly have won two of three.

Here's an interesting thing to monitor, Laddie, is you're our goal. goalie guru, I think Connor Ingram might end up being the guy in net for them. Wow. Which is insane. He's got like identical numbers to Stuart Skinner, which is the hilarious part. Connor Ingram. It might be, he might be the guy. It may be a good story for Connor Ingram, but wow. If they had to announce their game one playoff starter right now,

and I know there would be no reason to do that, but if they had to do it right now, I think they would go with Connor Ingram. I really do. Pod Colson scored a nice goal on that game. So, Pod Colson's got 15 goals this year. That's a career high for him. Just throw it on the pile. Throw it on the pile. Why not?

I don't want to do this. We're not going to relitigate, but I don't want to do this. We don't have to relitigate, but no, he's found a spot there. He found a spot in Edmonton and on a good team. You know, sometimes everything looks better. You know, and when you've got the opportunity that Paul Colson had, and he's learned a few things in the NHL of the Van Gogh. Vancouver Connects. He went to a team that has really good players and an opportunity for him,

and he has made the best of it. I just want to add him one more thing on that game, though. I got to keep, we got to keep an eye on Vegas now. Yeah. Something is not right with that team. I don't know what it is, but they just haven't looked right all season. You know, it's funny. You said, you made that appointment of viewing, and I did. I had a bit of a busy day yesterday, but I said, okay, I'm going to watch, I'm going to sit down and watch and prep for the show and and watch the Vegas Oilers game. And then I'm watching the game and I'm like, oh, I should have like prep for during Buffalo and Tampa Bay.

That looked way more fun. Both teams, I think, came into the Edmonton Vegas game thinking like, we've got to play a little defense. And the message from Oilers head coach Chris Knoblock after was, it was nice to see that sometimes we can sacrifice some of our offense to play a little better defense. And I think both teams came into that. Like the first period, I was like,

oh, this is going to be fun. And it was like, that was really cagey. Yeah. It was just. And it still gave us six goals of offense, but it wasn't too bad. It still do. I mean, they are still who they are.

But it wasn't necessarily the high event type of hockey that I thought it was going to be. You know, I'm not particularly bullish on either of these teams in the postseason, given the strength of the teams in the central, but, you know, they're probably going to have, I mean, I don't see how they wouldn't have very winnable first rounds, and chances are they're going to meet in the second round. There was another big game yesterday as well.

It's hilarious that a Central Division rivalry is also a matchup of the number one and number four teams overall in the NHL, but that's what we had at Ball Arena on Sunday when the Colorado Avalanche beat the Minnesota Wild 3-2 in the shootout. I watch bits and pieces of this one. Very entertaining game. If you're looking ahead to two of the big dogs in the West in terms of the playoffs, these are the two. Tons of eyes on Colorado on this one because this was Nassim Kodry's return to Colorado.

He was met with a loud ovation. It seemed like... And they celebrated by Gabriel Landis God being heard again. You know he's week to week. Yeah, that's right. They're like, this is great. This is not good. they announced the lower body injury right after that game as well

here's the thing we got off the air on Friday and the cadre to Colorado trade happened about three hours after we were off the air that was probably the biggest final splash of trade deadline that one came in really late really late I realized that one after my nap yeah to the point where I was like at what point do you close central registry and like no like you can't there's no more I the queue is too long

We can't do this. But anyway, the abs went big, went big, and really addressed that center position with Nick Waugh and Nassim Khadry. And it is hilarious to see that arms race in the Central Division because all the teams there, like they made moves at the deadline. I don't think anyone was as aggressive as Colorado, but it's not like Minnesota sat on its hands and waited. Like they added some pieces.

Nothing is big again as what Colorado did. And then Dallas went out and added Tyler Myers. So, like, they all loaded up. Is Cadre even going to play center for them? I don't know. I don't know if you will because they got Brock Nelson who's having, like of a year, Nick Waugh, who they got from Toronto's the center. And then they got a guy like Jack Drury that can play center.

I mean, you don't want, I thought they might go McKinnon, Nelson, Codry down the middle, and then have Nick Waugh on the fourth line where he was for Vegas. Yeah. When they won the Stanley Cup. Yeah, yeah. But maybe they feel that they want. they want him as their 3C and Cadre up in the top six. Maybe they feel

that at Cadry's age that he's better suited to play at the wing now, but they got an embarrassment of riches up front there. So Niqua and Nazim Kadri, the thing they have in common, of course, is both used to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs. And we will end this opening segment with a little bit of Shaden Freuda because while we are

adopting one team and cheering for them in the Buffalo Sabres, we will also relish the opportunity to laugh at some other Canadian teams. The Maple Leafs, Boodaw, off the ice this weekend after a seventh straight loss in which Craig Barouba had to address the booing in his postgame media availability noting that the fans the ones that were there anyway pay good money to watch us play and come see us win and they are not doing that right now and there are tons of rumors right now about what's going to happen to Toronto in this off season did you see how

Bradtree Living went up there and took a lot of bullets for his team and he said it starts with me accountability Jason it's a big thing yeah especially from your executives it is important isn't it Now, Brad Tree Living might not be long for that job. Although I couldn't really tell if he got like a pseudo vote of confidence or if he was so emboldened by the fact that he's going to be back that he was willing to go up there and say the things that he said. I just wonder if they're going to get real and look at their lineup, look at their prospect group and realize, man, we got to go into a rebuild.

Even if we've got Austin Matthews, we have to do it. And maybe that's, maybe that's by trading Austin Matthews. certainly no shortage of rumors out there right now. A lot of smoke around that right now. Maybe that's trading William Neelander. Or maybe it's trading both of them. You know, look, read the tea leaves. Yeah.

Like, it's not, it's not, it's, it's not going to get better. Get real. Get real. Seriously. I like it. Get real. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.

Our next guest is an Olympic gold medalist, a Stanley Cup champion, a hockey Hall of Famer. And now working tonight's broadcast between the Canucks and the, and the Senators for Amazon. Chris Pronger joins us now on the Halford & Breath Show on SportsNet 650. Morning, Chris, how are you? Morning.

Doing fantastic. Thank you. How about you guys? We're well. The first question is, of course, the most important one. What did you think of Dan Murphy's palatial estate last night? Well, it's not my first trek up to Northman, but it's always nice to get a home-cooked meal. How did the Pronger brothers become?

friends with Murph? Murph, way back in the day, went to University in Ottawa with a number of local Trident friends and one of which turned out to be my brother's wife. Okay, I see that's the connection there. So, Murph helped out with your brother's book. You didn't want him involved in your book?

Which is called, by the way, Chris Pronger's book, which comes out in April, it's called Earned, the true cost of greatness from one of hockey's fiercest competitors. So I'll ask you, what was the writing experience like when you, did you work with anyone, or did you just sit down and type out the words? Yeah, no, I worked with a company that actually an AI company, funny enough, that I'd been asked over the last probably 10 or so years to, you know, if I wanted to write a book and what.

not and it just wasn't the right time. And as I kind of started to digest my career and, you know, life clarity and things of that nature, you know, I felt like the timing was right for a book. And, you know, I wanted to be able to impart some of the lessons I learned over the course of my career. And then, you know, I think more importantly, my post-playing career and, you know, try to, whether it be former athletes, you know, people that are going through career changes, people that are just looking to,

you know, be difference makers and looking to level up and what have you. So, you know, part part of the book is, you know, it's part memoir, part walking through my journey and my past. And we all have our own unique journeys that people really, you know, try to act like we're all on the same path, but ultimately we're all on our own unique journeys. And so walk through my minor hockey experience and then junior all the way through pro and then obviously through my pro career and then post playing and whatnot and then a lot of life lessons gleaned from those experiences and you know we go we go into a lot of detail about about all of it for those that are thinking in their head geez I wonder if this is in there it probably is so so the

word that comes up a lot um in the description of the book is adversity. When was the first, what was the first real bit of adversity that you faced in your hockey career? Did it come in minor hockey or was it after you were drafted second overall in 1993? You go to Hartford and maybe people there expected a little bit more and maybe you were like, oh, this is not going to be easy. I don't know.

yeah no i uh you know i think like most most athletes you know we're we're kind of uh unique in that path in that we fail a lot and uh i'm no different uh you know early in my my hockey career you know post post riding days trying to map out uh what that might look like i got caught from a you know a regional um team ontario training camp you know and and by uh by uh by good fortune, a scout had two wild cards available to bring people down and he had seen me play in the, I played high school, you know, for those that don't know, I didn't play, I didn't ever play AAA. I played high school hockey and then I went and played junior B, obviously major junior and then, and then started playing pro. So I didn't take the typical path and, you know,

I think those people that have kind of heard Connor Helibuck's journey and, you know, very similar to that where I didn't play AAA and just kind of did my own thing and for my own reasons, but I got caught from that team and really kind of had to take a look in the mirror and figure out if this is something that I wanted to do and how invested did I want to be and what was I willing to do to fix the apparent issues in their eyes, whether it be holes in my game or my character or my inability to prepare properly and things of that nature. So adversity started at a young age, and you mentioned one of the first. of the bigger moments of my life getting drafted into the Arford Whalers and then struggling

mightily for a couple of years there and getting booed on home ice relentlessly and feeling like it was going to all be over once I got traded and got a new start and it actually got worse in St. Louis, not realizing that Brandon Chanahan was a 50 goal scorer and was becoming the face of the franchise in St. Louis and that was a much bigger deal than maybe I thought it was going to be and they don't have to fight through a lot of adversity in that city in that market my first year to turn the fans attention away from booing me into cheering me and ultimately we're able to do that. So the Cedines here in Vancouver also had a pretty tough start when they were drafted by the Vancouver Canucks second and third overall. And you know they've said a few times that

they talk to each other and they're like should we just go back to Sweden? And I don't know how seriously they considered quote unquote quitting but um was there ever i mean there must have been like a fork in the road where and you kind of already mentioned this where you're like okay i can either quit or or you know go to work and make this happen is what were some of the moments in your life where in your career where you had to make that decision i think you know i've a firm believer that things happen for a reason and all these moments in time where put put there to help build my character, strengthen my resolve,

provide the grit and resilience that's going to be necessary later on in life, later on in my hockey career. And having gone through those moments in Hartford, feeling like you were kind of turning the corner, getting traded again. And, you know, there were moments where you certainly want to quit, where you're not confident,

you're not proud of, you know, whether it be how you're playing and your world's caving in around you. and, you know, fans are coming at you, media's coming at you, everybody around you, ownership, management, coaches, everybody's coming down on top, you, teammates, you know, looking at you, questioning you, you know, why are you playing better?

Why are you better than expectations and things of that nature? So there was a lot of life lessons learned from those moments for sure, but, you know, very similar to the city. There's moments all the time where you feel like you want to take the easy road and quit or you want to take the easy path and find an easier solution. And ultimately at the end of the day, for those of us that stick in there and kind of battle through it all, we come out the other side that much stronger and more capable to find success.

With all of these things that you went through during your playing career, would your advice to younger players be to try and block out the noise and silence it as much as possible or use it as fuel for the fire and that adversity that everybody needs in their career? Yeah, I think it's a combination of both. I don't think you can be immune to it and completely block it out because, as you said, it is. I use it as fuel, you know, but the ability and the wherewithal to figure out a way of using it without having it come down on top of you and, you know, cave in your foundation, so to speak, so that you're not able to really utilize it in the manner that maybe you're trying to.

And that's part of the journey and our own unique path is how we use it, when we use it, how we figure all this out. You know, it is very challenging at times and not easy in those moments. You know, they're very difficult in trying times. And those moments are what really kind of make our medal and provide us with the character we're going to need later on in life. You know, if we can, you know, I think that's why I'm so adamant about you sports and not putting these super teams together and challenging, you know, you want to play against the best. You want to, you know, have that competitive drive and compete against the best to challenge yourself to see where you're at, to see where your game's at. And then, oh, by the way, let's go play baseball or golf or football or basketball or whatever sport you're interested in and not just be solely focused on that one sport that, you know, you may or may not, you know, fall in love with again

or have a passion for you may just be good at. And something else might really, uh, really get your motor going and your juices going because you're just love doing it. You, you love the challenge, what have you. So, um, you know, I think, you know, over the last year or so as people kind of asked me, my thoughts on you sports, I think we need to just kind of take a step back. And, you know, as kids eight, nine, ten years old, they, they should be multi-sport athletes

learning all kinds of new movements and you know the body's kinetic chain is not meant to play hockey 24-7, 365. Yeah, I just wonder if the horse is already out of the barn with that. I don't know. Can you put the genie back in the bottle or some other cliche, you know? Like you used sports as just out of control right now. Chris, was it you that had the line where it's like

it feels like some of these kids, they're not going to play sports, they're going to work? Well, that's what it, you know, that's what it feels like. Yeah. You know, I think you see them. It's like they're clocking in. And, oh, I got to go do my workout now. I got to go do this.

And they're, I mean, at 10 years old, I mean, I get different generation, but 10 years old, that's the last thing I was focused on. You know, I love to play the game. You know, we all had our buddies. And, you know, we're playing road hockey. We're playing on the outdoor rink. We're going down to practice, what have you, playing in your basement, your driveway. You know, but over that winter months, the hockey season, if you will,

and then it was, okay, we're going to go play baseball. We're going to go to the beach. We're going to go be a kid. We're going to go ride our bike. We're going to go do all these different things. And, you know, I feel like today our children's youth is kind of being taken from because it has become like a job. Well, you're going to, there's so much FOMO out there that, you know, this kid's going to miss out

because of, you know, little Johnny over here is, you know, he's 24-7. He's got a trainer and he's got a stick handling coach and a shooting coach and a skating coach and all these other things. It just, it becomes relentless. and it should be more about, A, the passion and enjoyment for the sport. And then as you, because of the Internet and all the things that we have access to now, there's no way that any kid, if they're good, are going to fall out, you know, people aren't going to be able to find them and see them.

Sure. You know, playing the game at the highest level and giving them an opportunity. They're going to find them. We're speaking to Chris Pranger, hockey Hall of Fame are here on the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. Speaking of young athletes, Chris, I noticed on Twitter, you wrote that Maclin Celebrini should be on every kid's must watch list. Why Macklin Celebrini, Chris? Well, just his motor and his engine.

You know, you just see him out there, the passion with which he plays for the game and the energy that he's like a shark. He's constantly moving, you know, picking, you know, changing pace, picking up speed, slowing down, finding holes. You know, doggedness on pucks, his compete level. You know, we always hear people talk about, oh, he's tough. Well, what is tough me? And tough isn't fighting.

It's how hard do you compete for loose pucks? How hard do you compete to get the puck back? And I think there's no better example than watching that kid play. Yes, he's extremely talented and he's got a, you know, a super high hockey sense and IQ, but his relentless nature with which he attacks the puck. And then when he gets it, you know, the pace with which he plays at and, you know, coming at you and creativity and all that, all the rest of that, you know, that part of it, that motor and that engine can be trained.

You know, that's the part that can be trained. And, you know, much like skills, that relentless nature with which you attack things, you know, can be trained just like anything else. And it's just a, you know, a mindset that you have to instill in yourself and just, you know, you don't, you don't, you have failure, but you don't accept failure. You're just constantly, you know, we can call, what do we look at as failure? Oh, I lost the puck. We don't roll our head and roll our eyes and go, no, you turn around, you go get it back.

And I think that's, you know, Kutrov has the same thing in Tampa. You look at how he plays. He's same exact way. He's on the puck. He's in the fight. He's in the battle. He's, you know, he's not fighting per se or he's not drilling guys into the the boards, but he's competing

incredibly hard on every puck because they want the puck, they want to play offense, but you have to play defense before you can play offense and get the puck back and compete and think of that nature. Yeah, Celebrini's second and third efforts. Like he can, it looks like he's losing a puck battle or

he's lost a puck battle and then he just has that one extra surge and it's like that second effort and it's like, oh, he won the puck battle. Yeah, I think he's, well, I think when you look at that, I think he's not, a lot of times guys are trying to conserve energy. You know, when you watch him, you watch

these guys, they realize that if they exert that little bit more energy, they're going to get the puck back and they're going to force and provide pressure on the defense, on the opposition. And so actually, they're conserving energy. Okay, you had an interaction or a few interactions with Vancouver Canucks fans on social media when you flew out to Vancouver for the game.

game tonight. You talked about rebuilding a winning culture. How do you do that in Vancouver? Yeah, I talk about that a lot in the book too. It, you know, it really, it's just how do you, you know, especially with, you know, a young team. And we're seeing a lot of teams throughout the National Hockey League in retool, rebuild mode. How do you, how do you create a winning culture? You know, it's how you show up every single day. It's, it's, When nobody's watching, what are you doing? All those little intangibles, and we see it all the time. But how do we instill that in the younger kids coming in?

You need key veterans to help provide leadership and teach them how to be true pros, much like I had in Hartford with Brad McCrimmon. And then I get to St. Louis and I've got Al McKinnis. And you have to have those senior guys around to help show you the way and provide valuable insight and direction. But also as a core, you have to show up to work every single day trying to improve, you know, 1%,

whatever the number is. Every single day is daily improvement. And just creating that culture of excellence, not perfection, but excellence. We can strive for perfection. We're never going to attain it, but showing up every day. And, you know, when we come to the rink,

it's about getting better. When we come into the gym, it's about getting better. And just that infectious attitude needs to take over. And then a lot of times early you've got to block out. As you talked about, you've got to block out the noise. There's going to be a lot of nasars. There's going to be a lot of people, a lot of negativity around it. You know, these guys aren't good enough.

These guys don't have a talent. You know, you have to overcome a lot of that negativity with respect to your mindset and how you show up every day. And it's, you know, rebuilding a team and rebuilding a culture is not easy. there's a lot of negativity involved there's a lot of things that there's a lot of scar tissue from whether it's past regimes

past players past failures losses all the rest of it and you know having watched it in St. Louis in 2019 and just you know that franchise went 52 years ago winning the Stanley Cup and you know there was

there was a lot every with every loss there's always that negativity of oh here we go again this team is going to find a way and it's kind of, you know, breaking up that scar tissue and removing the negativity from it and it takes time. It's

not a slow process. It's not an overnight fix, but it's with your daily actions and how you show up every day and ultimately block out the noise and trusting the process and understanding and setting certain goals that you're able to meet so that you know you're on the right path

and once you know you're on the right path, you're doubling down, tripling down, you're constantly trying to move the needle. And ultimately, then you become a good team, then you become a great team, and then ultimately you hope to become a championship team. So one of the questions you got yesterday was, how do you fix Petey?

And you say, that is the $92 million question, isn't it? I noticed you didn't answer it. Do you have any ideas? Because the Canucks are heading into the rebuild, and Elias Pedersen is there, and he's underperforming on a big contract, and a lot of people are wondering what that's going to look like on a rebuild when your highest paid player isn't performing.

Yeah, I think you think back. I remember when he came on the scene, I was in Florida. I remember interviewing him for the draft, and then seeing him come over and how highly skilled he was, how talented he was, and you just you look at that player I think everybody

immediately always goes back to that player and you see the player now and you're like this is not the same player and I think I guess the question you're asking is how do you get back to the other player how do you get back to the second year guy the third year guy

fourth year guy because to me just watching him he does not look like the same player He does not look like he's got the same jump. He does not look like he's got the same creativity and will to, you know, that we just talked about MacLis Celebrini. That compete on hocks and the ability to, you know, hold off defenders and make plays and things of that nature.

At times, he looks a little disengaged. And I think for me that's the most concerning part. It's not necessarily that he's obviously talented. It's that engagement part of how do we get, whether he's, got a mental block, whether he was dealing with injury, I don't know, you know, I'm not on the inside, I don't know what he's dealing with. But to me, just, like, something looks blocked. And I don't, I don't really know what that is. But, you know, it's not a talent thing. It's, you know, I don't know if it's the will, if it's the engagement, if it's the, you know,

I really don't know. You know, there's been a lot of turnover here, you know, since a couple years ago. and I don't know if it's all the noise that's kind of taken place over the last 22, 23 months. But something has happened. And I can't put my finger on it because I'm not in this market. I'm not on this team. So it's hard to digest it and then explain it from afar. But to me, he just doesn't look like, number one, he doesn't look like he's enjoying it. And number two, he doesn't look like he's playing with the same passion that he once did.

that, I guess, is the, to me, that's the $92 million question. What is the disconnect? What is the issue? And how do we fix it? Well, don't worry, Chris. He's a highly talented player. We've been trying to figure it out for like a year and a half and we haven't been able to do it either.

We still don't know. We're out of ideas. We're looking for some fresh perspectives. Hey, Chris, this was great, man. This was really fun getting caught up with you here. Enjoy the game tonight. It is Vancouver. It is Ottawa.

A reminder for everybody. It's on Amazon, and it's a 6 o'clock start, not the usual 7 o'clock start. Chris, thanks for doing this today. We really appreciate it. You bet. Thanks for having me, guys. Take care. Thanks for coming on.

That's Chris Brunger. Hockey Hall of Famer, Olympic gold medalist, Stanley Cup champion, hard trophy winner, James Norris trophy winner. He's done it all in his career. Future Canucks General Manager. And now he gets to call a Senators Canucks game. Yeah, we should have asked him. We ran out of time.

We should have asked him what he wants to do. in his, you know, hockey career, is he happy to be broadcasting or does... Published author now. Yeah. Or does it go into the book game. Yeah. With AI, it was like,

AI's better than Murph. Yeah. It's true. Yeah, no, okay, so yesterday, for those that have no idea what we're talking about here, Pronger did a sort of Q&A on Twitter. And a lot of people were asking,

what would you do if you were the general manager of the Canucks? Or what would you do if you were the president of hockey And he had very nuanced and detailed answers. Yeah, it started with fix the culture. Right. Which then led everyone to be like, why don't you become president of hockey ops for the Vancouver Canucks? Why don't you consider being general manager of the Vancouver Canucks?

So he doesn't have any management experience. But hey, everyone's got to start somewhere, right? Yeah. You can only, you know, you got to start with your first job and whenever that happens. Now, um, I know from his playing days and the way he's. sort of transition to, you know, he does like a lot of like motivational and educational speaking. He's written a book. He's in the broadcast. He has his hands in a lot of different avenues and places in terms of where his career could go. But I do wonder at the end of the

day if it might be something about being an executive in hockey. As we've seen numerous former players do it to varied success across the board, right? There's no slam dunk anywhere with any of these guys. But I don't know for the listeners that just listen to him, speak for the the last 20 minutes. Sounds like a guy that's got a pretty clear idea about what it takes to succeed. And a lot of it is born from an amazing career. Yeah. Where he overcame adversity and saw a lot of teams get built on the foundations of good culture

and leadership and not taking shortcuts, like going through the hard times and going through the adversity, learning from it and getting better. And then eventually winning a Stanley Cup, like he did in 2007. And he played with so many great players too. And he saw how they operated, including on incredible Team Canada teams that won the gold medal. at the Olympics. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.