Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 6/9/25

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at a big weekend in local sports, as the Abbotsford Canucks sealed their first-ever trip to the Calder Cup with a big victory, the BC Lions won their home opener with an impressive performance, and a depleted Whitecaps squad shut out the Sounders, plus the boys tell us what they learned. 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. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa anna. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Canucks still pouring it on. Here's Hirose the blue line. Rishut scores! Max Sasson for the first time in franchise history. The Abbots for Canucks have won the Western Conference. Canucks head to Martian. Can he call the series? And he scores! Brad Martian in overtime and the Panthers win game two. Good morning Vancouver 601 on a Monday. Happy Monday everybody.

It is Halford, it is Brough, it is Sportsnet 650. We are coming live from the Kintec studios in beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Ladi, good morning to you as well.

Hello, hello. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for net help with over 3,000 five star reviews. Visit them online at sands-trustee.com. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices

on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling metal recycling they recycle you get paid Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver We are coming to you live from the kintex studio kintec footwear and orthotics working together with you in step got a lot To get into for a hot weekend hot. It was hot in sports. It was hot weather wise did anyone sleep last night Yeah, I did. I've done Amazing air conditioning and a fan see my fan rager. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I've got amazing air conditioning and a fan. Ragger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

I slept with cold socks. One amazing sports weekend for the local teams. It was pretty great. Yeah. We're going to get into that in the entire first hour of this program. All Halbro, no guests. The guest list today begins at seven o'clock. Our good buddy, Steven Wynow is going to join us. NHL writer for the Associated Press. He's going to join us live on location from Florida for the Stanley cup final game. Three goes tonight between the Panthers and the Oilers. You can hear it right here on Sportsnet 650 beginning at 5pm after

Canucks central. Uh, we're going to ask this question throughout the show today and feel free to weigh in on the Dunbar lumberumbertex message in basket at six fifty six fifty with your answers to said question. Is this the best hockey that's ever been played in a Stanley Cup final? We're not just doing that for clicks. There's no recency bias here. I think it's a legitimate conversation that not just we're having.

A lot of people are having that have watched the first two games of this series. And hey, if you say no, it's not Then tell us when it was good good I think you're gonna say tell us why but you said tell us when well when you have an amazing sunburn It's really burned. I'm really burned. I was We have a bright red on On our microphones and my forearms are the same color as the as the bright red on button on our microphones and my forearms are the same color as the bright red on button.

I actually have the same sunburn. It's this. It's this right here because my sleeve came up. It's a tan line with no tan. Call it a burn line. You guys are me after that Seize game. I did not even consider getting out of this time either. You know there's sunscreen, right?

You could put on sunscreen. I was just like you know what I'm already there. I'm already in Burnville. Population? Me. Is there a team out there with their main colors? Are black, white, and red? I'm sure there's a few. Yeah like that's me. That's me. Yeah yeah. Okay. Stephen Wyno it's 7 o'clock. 8 oclock, JC Abbott is going to join the program. He's our CFL regular during the CFL season. BC Lions writer, CFL writer for Three Down Nation. What a kickoff weekend for the BC Lions. First the Snoop concert, then a 31 to 14 win over the Elks

in Buck Pierce's head coaching debut. Jason Bruff was in attendance, so too is JC. We'll talk to JC about everything that happened for a very, very exciting Saturday night and afternoon at BC Place, including the lineups outside. JC Abbott's gonna join us at eight o'clock to talk about that. Final half hour of the program. We're gonna get a little wacky here

on the Haliford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. Instead of doing what we learned at 8.30 like we normally do, we're gonna go and speak to St. Ricketts from the Whitecaps. He's also a former Canadian international and there's lots to talk to him about there. The Whitecaps won on Sunday, three nil. Canada beat Ukraine four, two on Saturday. And then get this this morning and we're going to try this. The gold cup is going to be coming in studio live. It's got its own personal handler and everything.

Sue me, he's wearing it. If he's not wearing a tuxedo with white gloves, I will be bitterly disappointed. So the Gold Cup is gonna come in live in studio. Gold face paint. Yeah, right? It's like, play the part, Gold Cup handler. So he's gonna come in studio with the Gold Cup.

For those of you watching on the live stream, you can watch us react to it coming into the studio line It's a trophy. Oh gold. That's weird. It's silver. Yeah Was expecting more Anyway, we're also gonna give away eight tickets every day To the gold cup match between Canada and Honduras. We're gonna be giving away two four packs every day Not eight individual tickets that would be thank you. Very annoying. We're gonna be giving away two four packs every day. And not eight individual tickets. That would be very annoying.

We're not gonna do eight individual prize giveaways. It would take a long time and it would tie up our phone lines. So what we're gonna do is in that eight o'clock hour, we're gonna take the callers, we're gonna announce the winners while the gold cup is in studio. And again, if you wanna watch us react to it and everything,

you can check out the live stream at Sportsnet Plus. Okay, that's what's happening on the program today. We gotta tell them them when to call in though 805 and 815 805 and 815 Yeah, we'll be doing that. I'll remind everyone throughout the show as well 604 280 650 that number again 604 280 06 50 so working in reverse on the guest list 830 to st. Ricketts 8 o'clock JC Abbott 7 o'clock Steven. Why no, it's a big show There's a lot that happened over the weekend, 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?

What happened is brought to you by the BC construction safety Alliance, making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. With everything that was going on locally over the weekend, we're going to start with what happened Sunday night and maybe the most prolific of all of the results. Max Sassen, as you heard in the intro broke a two two tie with about eight minutes to play in the third period and the Abbotsford Canucks shout out to Manny Malhotra and the Abbotsford Canucks.

They won their first ever AHL Western Conference championship with a four to win over Texas in Abbotsford and that punches their ticket to the 2025 Calder Cup final. Shout out to the Abbotsford Canucks. What an impressive result. Yeah. I mean, I'm just really happy for Abbotsford because I know that like the city and the fans out there, I know when AHL hockey first went to Abbotsford, you know, it was like, it was the Calgary Flames.

It was their farm team. I remember thinking, this is going to be really weird. Everyone in Abbotsford, well, not everyone, but like what, 99% of people in Abbotsford are going to be Vancouver Canucks fans. Yep. And you're going to bring in one of the main rivals, if not historically, the main rival of the Vancouver

connection, you're going to be like, boy, I hope their prospects pan out because that's good for Abbotsford, right? It was always a weird mix, but ever since, you know, it was a number of moving pieces, the heat had to move out, Utica had to move out of Utica and come to Abbotsford. And that took a little bit longer than everyone expected

Or wanted to but now that it's here It's amazing to see I haven't been able to go out myself, but it's amazing to see the pictures of the arena And the towel power there like that's one thing you get like, yeah, of course we're going to do towel power here. We're part of the Vancouver Canucks organization. And to see everyone so excited, see all these excited texts coming into the Dunbar lumber text line, I'm just really happy for, um, the people of Abbotsford and the surrounding areas and

everyone that's gone out and supported this team and felt right about supporting this team as opposed to like, yeah, I want to support Abbotsford, but I also don't want to support the Calgary Flames. Yep. And it was a huge night for Abbotsford, huge night for Surrey as well. Surrey BC natives, Archdeep Baynes and Jujar Kyra accounted for the other Canucks goals in the third period. Baynes got the empty netter after scoring the first goal of the game early. Kyra got the game tying goal. So Abbotsford actually went into that third period down, but outshot Texas 17 to four in the final frame.

Overall, 40 to 25 were the shots already. Seal of now 12 and six over these playoffs. Twenty three saves in the win. So this is the first time in ten years that an avid that a Vancouver Canucks HL affiliate is going to the Calder Cup finals. Back in 2015, it was as Jason mentioned, Utica. But it seems so much better, right? It's a million times better. So much better that it's in Abbotsford and we can get local coverage of the team. I remember when Utica went to the final and it was great. I mean,

we're all happy for the, for the Canucks organization and happy for the players. But I was like, I bet Utica's hopping, you know? Like I, I just think it's awesome that there's a local team doing this. Yeah. For everyone out there that's like, oh, it's just AHL hockey.

I grew up in an AHL town. Hamilton, the Bulldogs, they were my team growing up because we didn't have NHL. And 18 years ago, they made a glorious run to the Calder Cup Championship. They won it with a teenage Carey Price in goal. And that memory sticks with me. I was 16 years old and it was some of the loudest buildings I'd ever been in. It was amazing hockey and it still sticks with me to this day.

So I understand what everyone in Abbotsford is going through. Yes, it's just a shell hockey, but it's so exciting. Going to the Calder Cup Championship is an amazing feat. Before we move on, before we move on to the Lions, can we hear our guy Brandon Astle on the call here? So the game winning call, this is the clock struck zero. And the Abbotsford Canucks punched our ticket to the twenty twenty five Calder Cup final, where they'll be taking on Florida's HL affiliate.

So the Florida Panthers doing the business this postseason. Here is Brandon Astle, our guy Abbotsford Canucks play by play voice, counting it down as the Abbotsford Canucks moved on their way to the Calder Cup final. 10 seconds left. It's tied up in the corner. The Abbotsford Canucks are going to skate away with a 4-2 win and they can continue skating to Charlotte, North Carolina for Game 1 of the Calder Cup Finals.

Let's get out of here. The Abbotsford Canucks just called series. For the first time in franchise history, the Abbotsford Canucks have won the Western Conference. Shout out to Brandon. Brandon tweeted last night as well, the tickets have already sold out in Abbotsford for the Calder Cup final, which is amazing too, right? So good on Abbotsford and good on the Abbotsford Canucks. Okay. Let's turn our attention now to Saturday night. Nathan Rourke throwing for 324 yards, three touchdowns also picked up 54 on the ground. BC Lions open with a slow first half, but a good second half and a 31 to 14 win over the Edmonton Elks. That of course was preceded by the Snoop concert at BC place, which had

over 50,000 people in attendance. Some logistical issues outside, but that should not take away from what was a terrific night for the organization, the city, the fans of the team, and a tip of the cap to the owner, Amar Doman, for what he was able to put on Saturday night. Yeah, I wanted to be in the building for this, so I called up Matt Baker,

he does a great job for the BC lines and said, give me a seat in the press box. And I went down there. I said, please. And I w I walked, I live in Mount Pleasant. So I walked to the stadium and it was wild downtown. And the BC lines game might've been the most eclectic group of fans I've ever seen there.

There were the traditional CFL fans, there were the Snoop Dogg fans, and there was some sort of like Danish rock band playing at Rogers Arena. So I was like, hell is going on here? Um, so, and it was a beautiful, hot, summery day, um, and so I, so I got in there and, um, it was wild outside and I was, I was feeling lucky that I was able to sneak in the media entrance because, and we can talk about this a little bit later, but like BC

Place has got to figure out how to get people in that stadium more efficiently. Yeah, that seems to happen a lot. Yeah, yeah. So I was, so I know people are like, I'm worried about the World Cup. Don't worry about the World Cup. People have control of that. That'll be a completely different way of getting into the building. There'll be a security perimeter and everything. I mean, I don't think it's going to be like, all right, BC place.

Well, we'll leave it up to you to handle all this. Right. Like they won't do that. They know FIFA isn't, but you know, I was at the, I went as a fan to the Whitecaps Miami game, the most recent one where they won and Messi actually played and I got caught outside and yeah, should I have arrived a little bit earlier?

Okay, but like still I was there like 20 minutes before the game time, which should be plenty of time to get in a stadium and not only was it, you know, not only with the long line lineups it was completely disorganized so there was kind of like whoever can shove the hardest can get in right like there were nearly fights breaking out you can't have that but anyway I don't want to you know I think hopefully BC place knows that but the Lions you know their attendant there this is one of the issues they've got there they don't have

control over the stadium so they can apologize for it, but it's not their fault. It's B.C. Place's fault. And anyway, I didn't want to start with a complaint, but I did. The Snoop concert was incredible for so many reasons. I know Snoop Dogg isn't for everyone and you can question, you can question if you want whether the language is age appropriate for a crowd full of kids and older people.

But you got to take some risks and you got to deliver something memorable in these situations. And Snoop definitely delivered a memorable performance. I cannot tell you how entertained I was at the game from both the perspective of Snoop's performance, which was really good. Play the hit Snoop. And he did. And it sounded good. Yeah. It sounded good in the stadium. But the best part was the people watching that I got to do because I was in the press box which is right above, you know, all the long time season ticket holders, not the youngest in front of us.

Sure. And I couldn't stop laughing at them. Like their reaction, you know, they were, they weren't like disgusted or anything, but confused maybe a little bit. The video you panning down from the screen to the people in front of you, like the old dudes in front of you, sort of like, what is going on? I watched this one guy who watched the screen

and he actually never actually looked at the performance. He just looked up at the big screen and he just sat there with his arms crossed the whole time. He wasn't mad, he was just... Just waiting for the football to start. Yeah, he was just like, this is crazy. I mean, some of the tracks that Snoop played, I know 50 Cent did the same thing.

I wasn't there for that. But I think Snoop is a, Snoop's songs are a little more popular than 50's all over. 50's, 50, 50, 50 cents. Just keep plowing through. 50's music. I feel like Rick Dollywall here. It was just really fun.

And there were a lot of young people there that came because of it. It was a fun crowd. Now it's too bad that the Lions waited until the second half to actually start playing. But I mean, the Buck Pierce era started with two turnovers on downs on short yardage. And I'm like, that's not a great way. So, you know, some people did leave, but Nathan

Rorick on the night looked really good. Yep. 27 of 36 for 324 yards and three touchdowns, plus five carries for 54 yards on the ground. And that's another thing that we can credit Amar Doman for, is bringing in marketable players like Nathan Rourke. They had to bring him in first and they lost him a bit to the NFL, but they made sure if he's coming back to the CFL,

he's gonna be a BC line, he's gonna be a BC, hopefully for a while. Yep. It was, it hit a lot of right notes. And I noticed sort of doing the national media scan over the weekend, everyone talking about the show that they put on in BC. Because when, look, there is a certain expectation when things like this happen. When you have a big concert and you spend a lot of money and you bring a lot of people into the arena,

there are 54,000 people there. There's an expectation you have to deliver. You have to deliver a good show. You have to deliver outside and you have to make sure everyone can get in. Like there's higher stakes when there's this amount of eyeballs on you. And I think in a lot of ways,

they ticked a bunch of boxes, which is great. Like the first half, was it sluggish? Yes. Could you probably make a bunch of excuses as to why? Yeah. They had a very elaborate and lengthy pregame concert and it was a slow start. But the two biggest stars of the night, if you want to break it down, we're Snoop and Nathan Rourke. Both of them showed out. And that's a great thing. I want to play some audio from Rourke post game

because if we really want to get down to the nitty gritty here, one of the stars of the night for the BC Lions was their defense. They held the Elks to just 248 total yards. And Nathan pointed out that a big reason that they were able to stifle Edmonton had to do with the fact that they had so many people in attendance that were making it really difficult for Edmonton to try and run their offense.

And it all goes back to the atmosphere that the owner, Omar Doman, put together on Saturday. Here's Nathan Rorick following a 31 to 14 win for the BC Lions over the Elks from Saturday. It's fun. It's fun when the fan team can get, you know, play a part in the game, you know, it's not every every, I know as a player who goes to some of the a part in the game, you know, it's not every, every, I know as a, as a player who goes to some of the environments here in the CFL, you know, Winnipeg next week and a couple of days really. And then sometimes Sask, going on silent is a, is a real difference maker and, and when the other team has to go on silent because of our crowd, you know,

that's incredible. And so we're very appreciative to the fans for showing up. Again, appreciative to Mr. Doman and his staff for putting that type of event together. And it just helps us out tremendously. So we're really appreciative for that. So I didn't know much about Amar Doman when he took over the Lions. I knew he was from a famous, pretty famous BC family

when it comes to business. But I was like, okay, well, we'll see how this goes. And he talked a big game, but you always have to deliver. And at this point now, it's just really nice to see hard work pay off. What I really like about Goldman and what I've always liked about him from the start is there's no entitlement to fan support. I think that was a real problem with the

CFL in this market for a long time. They were living in the past. They were living in the eighties when BC plays first opened and the Lions were the talk of the town, maybe even more popular than the Canucks. And basically the argument to support the Lions were the talk of the town, maybe even more popular than the Canucks. And basically the argument to support the Lions was, you should.

Right. The fans should support it. It's a CFL, you know? Why is everyone supporting the NFL? Aren't you proud to be Canadian? You should support the CFL. And the same went for the media should cover it Where is the media all you guys do is talk about the Canucks you talk about the Seahawks more

than the Lions shameful and it was kind of that attitude of like if You don't follow the CFL as a fan or if you don't cover the CFL as media followed the CFL as a fan, or if you don't cover the CFL as media, then that's their fault. It's the media's fault. It's the fan's fault. It couldn't be our fault. It's not our fault. We're the CFL. We're the BC Lions, right? And I always got that sense, even from some of the people within the organization on the media relations side, it was like, you know, it's like, God, you know, like, how could anyone support the NFL more? Well, they put on a hell of a show.

Well, you know, and now, now we've, we've, we've brought someone in local and their attitude is we have to work to get the fan support. Almost like a real business. There's no greater example than, you know, putting money where their mouth is, although not necessarily money, but you, like you spoke at length about how you really wanted the Canadian Football League to work and you wanted the Lions to thrive. This was under the previous ownership group

and that when you were drummed out and dialed out on what they were doing, you wanted to be back in, but you needed a reason to do it. And as soon as the reason showed up and it's mostly almost primarily a Mardomin, you were back. It was a dreadful experience going to a Lions game. It's very interesting what they're doing right now. It was awful. I'll tell you, it's very interesting what they're doing right now because it's reinvigorated the local market, but it's also provided a blueprint

for successful ownership for a league that is at times feels like it's hanging on by a thread. And I think that a lot of these other markets and you could look at the opponent on the weekend in Edmonton because the CFL is going through a real tough time in the province of Alberta right now with the two Alberta franchises. And if you want to go even further, there will

come a time where the heartland of the Canadian football league, specifically Winnipeg and Sask, they'll go through this as well, where you can't just feel that people are obligated to show up because it's what they're supposed to do. There were a ton of empty seats in the riders opener. So I know they had, they said they sold 25,000

and I know it was on a Thursday and people in Saskatchewan were like, it's terrible doing a game on, on a Thursday. What about all the people from Saskatoon? It's like, well, it's your thing. I mean, that's a great example though. They, it's their thing. And traditionally they've, uh, you know, a lot of

the league has leaned on that is that it's an institution and that'll bring people in. And what Dolman's done is said, no, we need to. And Stuart Johnson had an article up. The new CFL commissioner is in the province over the weekend. He said, Amar, Dolman has sparked something that was maybe simmering, but hasn't been there in a long time. And it's a great cost to the organization. It is not cheap to bring in 50 cent, to bring in Snoop, to bring in LL Cool J,

to do these sorts of things. You got a free concert for people an hour and a half ahead of kickoff. It's a big, big investment. And what you're doing is you're saying, we understand that this is an entertainment product along with a sports product. And we are going to try and deliver on that front as well,

which is an important thing in a very crowded sports landscape, especially locally. Like we talk, yeah, it's a Canucks town and everything, but there's a lot of other entertainment properties out there that people can spend their money on and spend their time and invest their time into. So what Doman's been able to do has been terrific on that front. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Okay, so it was a great local sports weekend. Abbotsford wins, the Lions win, and the most surprising win of all was the Vancouver Whitecaps because before the game, it looked like they were gonna have to play a bunch of kids. So the Whitecaps on Saturday officially announced their list of injuries, outs and questionables

for the match. They were set to play the Seattle Sounders on Sunday night, 6 p.m. kickoff at BC Place. And on Saturday, they announced that, as we all knew, nine regulars were going to be missing from the lineup due to the getting called up for international duty. One was going to be out with an injury that lingered throughout the entire year. That was Brian Gault and seven players were listed as questionable because of the gastrointestinal virus that they picked up while in Mexico

for the infamous five nil loss in the CONCACAF Cup final to Cruz Azul. All seven of the questionable players were able to participate yesterday and all the Whitecaps did, despite being so depleted, was go out and win three nil to extend their undefeated streak in MLS play to 11. Now the game was an interesting one. Amazing storylines throughout. We talked about how the Abbotsford Canucks got a boost from Suri with Jujara.

What a freaking boost. Jujara, Kara. I said Kyra earlier. Jujara, Kara and Archdeep Bane scoring in their win Young Jeevan Badwal the teenager who great story played his youth soccer in Surrey came up through the Whitecaps Academy He started to feature more prominently in the team this year scored his first ever MLS goal Right behind me in my seats in our section was his entire family. Oh, I went nuts. It was so loud It was great. It was so loud. It was great.

It was a really cool moment. So he put them up one nil. That eventually stands as the match winner. And then when Jesper subbed Jeevan off in the second half, they got him to do the walk all the way around the pitch down through the tunnel. And he got to walk off to this like massive standing applause throughout throughout the BC place crowd. So that was cool. Two red cards for Seattle.

Never seen that before in all my days of going to white cast matches. I've never seen a team finish with nine on the pitch. They finished in a three to three formation. Just tough to play for the two midfielders. Did they were they two yellows that earned a red or straight red, straight reds, last man back on a trip. The first one was pretty cut and dry. There was not much of a complaint whatsoever. The second one,

it did look like the contact was kind of iffy, but it was still a last man. The last defender taking a guy down that was a break in on goal. So the whitecaps took care of business from there, finished the match three nil, given where they were on Thursday and Friday. And after announcing what was going to be available to them on Saturday No matter what happened with the in match red cards and you know Play and how everything went the fact of the way caps were able to get out of that match with any any points whatsoever was incredible given the guys that they had available to them and

The gaffer yes, personas and said I that the players, what they did today was exceptional. And it was, it was a great weekend for local sports. I thought, you know what? Let's try some new stuff on the Haliford and Brough show. Let's break out of the mold a little bit. So in the eight o'clock hour, we've got JC Abbott joining us from Three Down Nation, Talk BC Lions, Big Saturday for the Lions

with the Snoop concert and the 31 to 14 win in their home and season opener against the Elks. Then at 8.30 to St. Ricketts when the Whitecaps is gonna join us. We're gonna talk Whitecaps, Canada soccer, and then after we talk to St. the Gold Cup is gonna be brought into our studio.

And Adog's gonna eat cereal out of it. I don't even know if it's that kind of cup, to be honest. I think if you call it a cup, it better not just be a trophy. Right. It has to be, there's gotta be cup. Imagine if we're just ripping the gold cup while it's here, what will it think?

Friend, this inanimate object is somehow crying. I think- It's blushing. I think you're gonna be disappointed. I don't think it's an actual cup. Now they've changed it multiple times. I did countless minutes of research and the gold cup trophy has changed formats and styles, maybe fonts, I don't know, but it's, there hasn't.

I think it's a cup, man. It might be. You know what we're looking at right now. I'm looking at pictures of it. It's a big ass cup. Okay, it might be, yeah, but it also might have changed. Question, can you take it to 7-Eleven on the free Slurpee day and just fill it to the brim? Very good question. I have been abusing that promotion especially this weekend.

Hey guys I'm back! Is that the gold cup? So because of all of this we're doing what we learns right now at 730 so what we learns as always are brought to you by AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. Homemade dough, premium local ingredients and authentic cooking methods. AJ's is for die-hard pizza people. Dine in or order at ajs.pizza. Jason has the loan, what we learned from our side

of the table, so I will turn the microphone over to him now. Jason, what did you learn over the weekend? I learned that old men are still playing pretty well at sports. We talked about Corey Perry having that big goal in game two for the others to send it to overtime and then who wins it in overtime, but Brad Marchand. And then Cristiano Ronaldo scored again in the nation league's final, or the nation's league final. And it was against Spain. Watched it yesterday.

2-2 after 120 minutes. And Ronaldo scored the second goal. That's correct. And then- Essentially sent it to the shootout, although there was a long time after he scored. Right. So it goes to the penalty shootout. Ronaldo didn't shoot in that, but Portugal. He was subbed off.

Yeah. But Portugal won. Ronaldo is going to have to be on the World Cup team, right? He's going to have to be. He scored. He scored. He scored twice in Nations League.

He scored once against Germany and once against Spain. He is still the emotional heartbeat of the team. Very much so. It's a unique situation because so many of the players now, being in their early 20s, that's their hero, that's their icon, that's their footballing god. He's 40 years old.

They remember a time when they were growing up and cheering for their national team and he was the guy. Now he's not the guy in the sense of the driving force that he was in his prime, but you can't really argue with the results of two goals in a semi-final and final in Nations League playing against two of the top teams in Europe. There was another old guy that had an incredible athletic performance over the weekend and that was me in a fun run. Oh, yesterday.

Yeah, yeah. Nice. Children's Hospital Foundation, some of us get back to. Oh, yesterday. Yeah, yeah. Nice. Children's Hospital Foundation, some of us give back to the communities, others don't, but I met a listener too, Adam. On the run. Yeah, yeah, no, in the warmup area.

I was gonna say. I was stretching and getting limbered up. What did Adam have to say? He just said, are you Jason Brough? And then you could tell he was like, I'm surprised you're at a fun run. Are you here by mistake? Are you picking somebody up or dropping somebody off?

I've done a few of those runs. 5K or 10K? 5K. But there were some hills and it was hot. Yeah, that would have been rough. And the relentless positivity at those runs. It is relentless. It goes against everything that I stand for.

I have done. Like you can do it. Yeah, I have done. And I've seen some people, I'm like, there's no way he can. Contrary to what you said, I have done fun runs. Well, fun runs, singular. Okay. Okay.

You did one fun run, it was not fun, and has not done any more since. The vibe that you're talking about is very interesting though. He's like we're kind of morning. It's super early It's like is everyone ready to run like we aren't really one guy in the back. No. Yeah, we have a certain hungover actually Yeah, we do a fun walk sir Please refrain from smoking at the start of the fun run. There's a certain vibe with our show or like god I wish I wasn't here with everything. That's the attitude that I kind of took to the fun run,

thinking that other people would be on board like, well, I'm doing it, but I'm not having fun. Turns out, most of the people participating are embracing the fun ethos. There's a positivity about it, which is it's actually kind of refreshing. Yeah, I'm like, how many of you are on Twitter? None of us, ah! Oh, that explains a lot. how many of you are on Twitter? None of us. Right.

Ah, well that explains a lot. How many of you doom-scrolled the warmup for this? I think that as I get older, I'm trying to be more earnest and genuine about certain, I don't know if it just comes with age, and that it's like, you know, being sarcastic and all the time just is like, it's like an old tire. Yeah, the comic book guy actually lived a pretty lonely life, right?

He was sad Mostly sad no overweight. I'm like we should try a different way. He's got a great life. What are you talking about? There we are anyway so kudos to Christina Cristiano Ronaldo and Jason Brough two of the best 40 plus athletes of our generation mooc Allen I got a quick what we learned slash PSA. Oh, my. Brandon Asselt just tweeting.

Must have been some sort of glitch or something. After all, tickets for all three games were just released. Oh, OK. So you can actually get tickets for the three Abbey Canucks games. Oh, they aren't sold out. Not sold out. No, I mean, I'm sure they will be

very quickly. So if you do want to go to any of the Abbey Canucks. That on me for passing that. No, that was going around though. It was a glitch so you weren't incorrect. People couldn't get tickets. They've just been released. I checked Ticketmaster to be sure. Taylor Swift was like, I can't get tickets to this thing. It's incredible. Something to do a lottery for next year. But I'm sure they will sell out fast so I mean if you want to go to the Colter Cup Finals in Abbey, get your your tickets quick You also need to punch up your pronunciation. Yes, and Astel. Yes, still yeah, the first one wasn't so great

I just thought of that tough. Yeah Astle. You really got to punch the T. It's like my horror pronunciation horror movie You have to really work on the phonetics there cuz one of those movies is a lot different than the other movie Okay, we fired that out matrix. Do we do that? Again all these are brought to you by AJ's Pete's on he's Broadway go visit him 3 to 5 and 3 to 7 East Broadway humanoid editions of what we learns right now. We got a myriad of them coming in This is from Rob in Surrey right now, we got a myriad of them coming in. This is from Rob in Surrey, hashtag WWO what we learned.

What I learned is that the self-proclaimed city of champions didn't really live up to their self-given name this weekend, starting with a loss to Brad Marshawn and the Panthers on Friday, capped off by a big defeat against the Leos on Saturday. We have not spent a lot of time talking about what the Elks did or didn't do on Saturday, but it was not.

Trey Ford is a really exciting player to watch. Not a good thrower of the football. I don't know, there was a pick in the second half that he threw. Um, that was one of those where you're like, what, what did you see on that play? It was, uh, I mean look, he was really exciting. I don't know, Donny Taylor was tweeting out like,

when did Doug Flutie come back? Because it looked like a couple plays that Flutie used to make where he'd go back and then he'd go back even more and then he'd go back even more. And you're like, you're looking at a 40 yard sack right now, so make something of it, but he made something of it. The CFL field, every time I go to a game, I made something of it. The NFL field. Every time I go to a game, I'm reminded of how big the field is.

I believe there was a is massive. I believe there was a 107 yard scoring drive. Yeah, Saturday. Yeah. They're like, what happened? Where did he start? Well, on the three. Anyway, it was a cool story with Rorke and Ford. We mentioned this when we were previewing the game last week.

The first all Canadian quarterback matchup since 1968. So the league went basically 60 years without having two Canadian born pivots. But yeah, Ford in the Edmonton offense didn't do much at all. I think kudos to the crowd, which we played the audio from Nathan Rourke talking about how loud the crowd was and how it forced them to go to a silent count in the Elks huddle, but also the defense. I think they held Edmonton to 264 yards total offense. You just got to work on those short yardage plays.

That was not great. No. JC Abbott's going to join us at eight o'clock. He wasn't super fond of, what's the 13th quarter, the short yardage quarterback, Bryce? Yeah. Wasn't super fond of his work there, but he also kind of put that out there. Well, I didn't like the calls from Buck Pierce. Buck Pierce.

His calls weren't great either. Yeah. Other than that though, despite the fact they trailed seven three at the break, I think it was overall like a pretty great night for the lions, both in terms of the pregame concert and then the game itself. Uh, I like this one from Rich. What we learned, what I've learned is that since you guys use Jiffy, you too sure have a lot of problems continually

at your house. You guys should be deemed unsafe to be by yourself. Classic. House is falling apart, man, I'm telling you. Just classic stuff around the house. That's why you gotta use Jiffy. Promo code sportsnet. $25 off your first job.

Some guy DM'd me asking for that promo code, by the way. Did you give it to him? Yes. No, I didn't. Tough luck bud. Saving that for me. Nick on the drive, what we learned, I learned that Phil Mickelson still has it after seeing his insane flop shot on the 17th hole of the live golf Virginia tourney.

It has gotten to the point that I no longer even think about live or PGA. It's all golf and it's all PGA tour for me. Cause I do not watch Liv, but that was a great shot. It was a great shot. I just played it actually on the TVs and studio here. Did, how much attention did you pay to the

Canadian Open on Sunday? A little bit. I tried to watch whenever I had a chance, but I would say, I mean, it was an exciting finish when you got a four hole playoff, but you know, Rory didn't make the cut. Yeah. And there were, I mean, early on there were a couple of Canadians in contention, but I

don't know if there was ever anyone that really threatened to win it on Sunday. Like I had no idea who Ryan Fox and Sam Burns were. Yeah. Sam Burns is, he's pretty, I mean, he shot a 62. Oh, Foxy and Bernsy? On Sunday. Yeah. Yeah, Sam Burns is, he's a pretty, I mean, he shot a 62. Oh, Foxy and Burnsey? On Sunday. Didn't know either. What?

Yeah, yeah. I knew that, I know, I now know. Ryan Fox is a Kiwi, isn't he? Yep, that's right. And it's his second win in five weeks on the tour, so he's on a bit of a heater. I think ever since Nick Taylor won that thing. It's tough to follow.

Yeah, it's like, come on. Yeah. There was a couple of What We Learns that came in about Rory McIlroy. Oh. And I have an issue with the joke that was made. The Leafs thing? Okay. Here, here's the joke.

What we learned, Rory McIlroy was knocked out of the first round of the Canadian Open after he was given a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. Now someone made that joke on social media and is being repurposed. Yeah. He played the second round. Yeah, I know.

Like in the second round was what knocked him out because his first round was around even. And the second round, I think he shot like a 78 or something like that, which is crazy for Rory. Yeah. To shoot that badly and to play that badly. So he was actually knocked out after the second round. They're selling his fake news.

It's just, it's just someone needed to craft the joke a little bit better. Cause the second round we were doing fine. Yeah, you just go, uh, you know, Rory McIlroy was given a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, uh, ahead of the Canadian Open and he couldn't get out of the second round. Yeah.

I had the first round. So appropriate. Yeah. You know, there's no, yeah, like. You don't need to lie to. Cut out of the second round. Yeah. The first round. So appropriate. Yeah. You know? There's no, yeah, like. You don't need to lie to. Cut is after the second round and the, and the Leafs have gotten there a couple of times.

They've been to the second round. It was right there sitting for you. Joke makers, joke crafters. Okay. So I don't, I kind of saw this, but I didn't look into the research on it, but Oz with what we learned, justice for Cheech. John Garrett finally, rightfully,

gets the second assist on Gordie Howe's last goal. Congrats Cheech. I know he's been lobbying for this for a while. He rung it around the boards, he's 100% right. Okay, so a lot of people have been lobbying for this. Why it happened now remains a mystery because I asked around and there was a push a while ago to get this done there was I think it was even a hashtag that was going to like justice for cheat or whatever, but for some reason

Whoever was in charge of the NHL NHL statistic bureaus at the time wasn't willing to go there So the movement kind of got dropped and then out of nowhere, it's back again. Now you astutely pointed out what everyone's pointed out was it's clear as day that he got the assist. That there was no- There's video evidence that he got it. Yeah, so the hangup, and no one was really sure

exactly what the hangup was. And Cheech When he went on after hours a couple years ago was pretty adamant that he had got the assistance So I don't know if that started like rekindled the movement or whatever and also they they may have gone for the It was his son that got the only assist on his final goal, right? So I think they were trying to go for like the heartstrings moment, right? Gordie howe assisted by his son for his final goal. And they didn't want to give it to the goalie, maybe?

That would be awesome if Cheech took the assist away somehow. It's no longer assisted by his son. The hashtag was give it to Cheech, which could go a lot of different ways. I'm sorry, it was what? Give it to Cheech. And it was back in 2013. And then when he was in prison. Right. The movement diedech. And it was back in 2013. And then the- I'll been there.

When he was in prison. Right, the movement died. And then it came back. So anyway, shout out to Cheech. A lot of shout outs this morning, but congrats to him. Ben and Langley, what we learned, SGA has moved into the conversation for greatest Canadian basketball player of all time.

Yeah, how could he not? We should probably do some of the hoopies. He's the MVP of the league. He played incredibly well at the Olympics for Canada. And now he's got a very, very good chance of becoming an NBA champion. So I think if he, if he, like if he, if Oklahoma city wins and maybe they don't, but for sure if they win and he's a big part of it he's the greatest Canadian basketball player of all time he's got to win two

MVPs you're such a Steve Nash fan like I think Steve Nash has the most incredible story but SGA will be the best of all time if they win soon as he wins the second MVP. Okay, well, Steve Nash never even made it to the finals. He sure didn't, he sure didn't. It's always gonna be that one asterisk on the resume, is that he never got out of the Western Conference finals. It's tough.

And he couldn't do a 360 dunk. No, and it's funny because if you look at his shooting prowess and his percentage rates from three, if Nash, and I know he's talked about this and I'm not, again, I'm not reinventing the wheel with this analysis, but if he had played in the modern game, he would be such a more dynamic force than he was. Yeah. Because he was a facilitator.

He was in the seven seconds or less offense in Phoenix where his primary job was distribute, distribute. There was games, I remember he put up 48 against Dallas one time and he was a lights out shooter. He was one of those 40, 50, 90 guys. That's where you go 50% of the time. I loved watching him shoot. Yeah, well he was clinical.

Yeah. And it was just repetition that you get there. But also like he was a, he could, I mean, from the line, he was at 90% for his career. From the field, he was 50 and from three, he was 40. Like he would have been a fantastic shooter in this area. Anyway, by the way, on that note, OKC did even up the NBA finals yesterday. It was a pretty easy victory for them yesterday, 123 to 107. They jumped out to a big lead in the first half and didn't look back. So SGA has gone 38 points in game one, 34 in game two, yet I think despite scoring four fewer points, the game two performance was better.

He needed a lot of shots to get to 38 points in the opener and it kind of, I don't wanna say disrupted their offense because he's their primary scorer, but it felt like he needed to shoot a little bit less to get more guys involved and he did it in game two. And of course they won one 23 to one. I thought you were going to be like, needed to be a more of a team player like Steve Nash. Like a certain two time MVP. Mike, with what we learned Alcara's over Sinner officially brings us into the new era of

tennis, looking forward to a lot more historic matches between the two. This is something that I regret not being able to watch over the weekend because everyone that did watch it was talking about it and marveling about it. Longest final in French open history. One of the greatest comebacks in grand slam history. Alcraz was down two sets, rallied and then

it was I was with you. Like I didn't watch it. I was paying attention on my phone. One of the guys I was hanging out with had an awful lot of bets on the French Open. I was like, that's a lot. Feels like it feels like you're betting on the French Open a lot. And so he was this serve has to go in. Yeah. Like, what exactly are you betting on?

Because it's clear you're not just doing match outcome right now. Uh, but yeah, five and a half hours in the French Open final, as I mentioned, longest final at Rolling Arrows in the Men's side history. Tennis must feel very fortunate that they have, um, you know, gone into this era after, you know, Federer and Nadal and Djokovic and Djokovic, I

know is still, still around and still a force, but to have Alcara's. 22 years old man. He's already got what, five Grand Slams? At 22. It's crazy. I mean, that's the same, I think that's the same total that Rafa had at 22, but that's his hero

and that's his idol and he's obviously on the clay right now. Like it was, I mean, it's great that they've got, that's going to kind of be the rivalry now is Sinner and Alcares, right? They are the two that have established themselves as sort of Alphas on the tour right now. Sasha with a what we learn.

That's all the tennis we can give you. If we go any further, we're going to start to make stuff up. Oh yeah, I apologize. I didn't watch it. What we learned, Summer McIntosh broke the world record in the 400 meter freestyle with a time of three minutes and 54.18 seconds, which apparently is good. She also set a Canadian record in the 800 meter freestyle with a time of eight minutes and 5.07 seconds. I was reading that and I was like, eight hours? That doesn't seem very good at all. I can't believe you can swim that long.

Yeah, she, Summer McIntosh is incredible. I can't, I can't wait to the LA Olympics to watch her. And hopefully she continues her ascent because she could go down to LA and be one of those, I mean, because there's so many medals in swimming in the Olympics, she could come out and just be like, I've got like 15 medals here. That is one of the cool things about swimming.

Who is it? Mark Spitz back in the day. And then of course, what's his face? The American. And now it's, I've told that, Michael Phelps. Yeah. Yeah. Where you get those great iconic Sports Illustrated covers where you get to wear all the medals at once. It's pretty impressive.

She almost beat Katie Ledecky's record in the 800. That's what the big talking point was there. Steve from Burnaby, what we learned, the Abbey Canucks have won more playoff series this year than their parent club since 2011. Yeah. What's interesting about this Calder Cup run for the Abbots for the Canucks is they've already won four series. They should be the Stanley Cup champs. They won four.

We're good. Interesting stat also from Adam Curzon Blatt. Who's running the PK in Abbotsford? Because they are 30 for 30 at home on the penalty kill during this run. They gave up two goals in Texas in one of the losses and it was like the worst that the penalty kill had done in ages. And they also give up two shorthanded goals in a single game and they hadn't done that all year. Outside of that, they've been damn near perfect. And we'll say this again, there

are, unlike some of the teams that they've gone through, specifically Colorado and Texas that are more veteran laden, the young guys are still doing the business and good on Archie Baines for, he'd gone a long time without scoring in the Colt R. Cupp playoffs. He really only started to rack up the goals late in this Texas series. Like good on him. I gotta imagine it was weighing on his like confidence not finding the back of the net

when all the like Carlson is finding with regularity. Carlson has nine goals in the playoffs. Sasson scored some big goals. I mean on the defensive side of things, Mancini's been a revelation in terms of racking up points. Kudriyadzev. Kudriyadzev's been good too. Has been very good as well.

Yeah. Yeah, so Tucson, Coachella Valley, Colorado, and Texas. Next up, Charlotte. That's a murderer's row of hockey cities. It feels like a year ago that we were talking about the hated Tucson Roadrunners Tuxen was that it was that a best of three? Tuxen I think it was The AHL playoffs are hilarious, but I'm glad that they're going because one as you mentioned earlier great for Abbotsford

I know that the fans have shown up In a major way and a lot of people have texted in to the Dunbar Lumber, text message in basket, who were at the game yesterday and said the atmosphere was electric. And secondly, it's great for everybody involved from the coaching staff to the young players, the veterans too, without question, Kara, Blay, all of them, like they've done a great job, but this is really about such a unique experience

for young players, getting to taste this level of playoff excitement, the energy, having that type of crowd behind you, like not all American hockey league teams have that frenetic and energize the crowd, right? It's American. Most don't. Right. They don't, you know, so to have it, I mean, it's still

winning in the postseason in a Canadian market. And I think when you get that energy and that vibe, it can go a long way to understand like what it takes to win, how difficult the playoffs can be, what the energy level needs to be like, as opposed to what you think it might be like. Going through it is a big thing. So, good on everyone from Abbotsford.

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