Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 7/15/25

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they chat with NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh about the new CBA and what it means for the fans, plus new Canucks forward Chase Stillman joins the show! 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. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa The Dominican dominance comes to an end. The Big Dumper is your home run Derby champion for 2025. Still have conversations with Paul and Paul will still give us his insight on how the team is playing, what we could be doing, which will be a great benefit for our coaching staff. It's lovely to be coming in here already with the major and everything else that's happened this year. Good morning, Vancouver. It's six o'clock on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody.

It is Halford at his breath. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studios and beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adon, good morning to you. Good morning.

Basketball, then. Good morning to you as well. Good morning. Halford and breath of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for debt help. With over 3,000 five-star reviews, visit them online at sands-trustee.com. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. Big show ahead on a Tuesday, loaded guest list. We're gonna go all over the place today.

Slow time in sports, still a big sports show here on the Haliford and Brough show on Sports Night 650. At 6.30, we are gonna be joined by NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh. He's gonna join the program a week after the PA and the league ratified their new CBA, a four year agreement, more than a year before the expiration of the current contract.

That means we've got labor piece through 2030. So we'll go through that with Marty. We'll also include some of the more notable changes in this current CBA or the upcoming CBA I should say. Season length, contract length, the playoff salary cap. We're also gonna ask him how this sort of came to be because the majority of stuff that we heard about the CBA being ratified was the ratification.

Didn't hear an awful lot about the negotiations. So we'll ask Marty about that when he joins the program at 6.30. Seven o'clock, Tim Graham is gonna join the program from the Athletic, senior writer for the Athletic covering Buffalo sports. He is the author of a new piece, can the NFL overcome Trump's anti-Canada rhetoric? The bills are banking on it. So in the piece,

Tim writes that the NFL is craving Canada more than ever, but then he asked the questions, are Canadians in the mood to play along? So we'll talk to Tim about his findings at seven o'clock. Maybe if there's time, we can talk about the Bowen Byron contract extension in Buffalo as well. Oh yeah, that's the perfect timing. That happened late last night. In case you missed it, we'll get into that

and what happens, so don't worry. That's at seven o'clock, Tim Graham. Eight o'clock, Micah Awuay from the BC Lions is gonna join the program. Star linebacker for the Lions will get caught up with him after Sunday's big 32 to 14 win for the Leos in Edmonton. Couple of fun facts about Micah, former college

teammate of Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech, and he has a degree in petroleum engineering, petroleum engineering. Perfect. He can stay in Canada and Alberta for anyone when he's done. I have so many questions. First, he can stay in Canada and Alberta when he's done. I have so many questions. First, what is it?

How did you obtain a degree in it? I don't know anything. Mike Ahway knows all these things. Right, you should be like, give us a petroleum engineering problem. And solve it, please. So Mike is gonna join us at eight o'clock, and then at 8.30 we're gonna go from a BC lion to a Vancouver Canucks.

The newest member of the Vancouver Canucks, Chase Stillman is going to join the program. He of course, uh, came aboard over the weekend, acquired from Pittsburgh in the Archer Seeloff's trade. This of course is the second of Corey Stillman's children to play in Vancouver. His brother Riley, of course, was acquired from Chicago a couple years back in the Jason Dickinson trade. And now, of course, Chase is a member of the team, so we'll talk to him at 8.30. So if you're a regular listener of the program,

you know that at 8.30, we normally do what we learns, but we're gonna have to bump that because we have Micah Awuah at eight and Chase Stillman at 8.30. We'll try and do some what we learns at 7.30. Whatever the case, we will still do some throughout the show. So start getting them in now. The Dunbar Lumber Text Line is 650-650. Let us know what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports. I understand. I understand. It was a slow

time in sports. There wasn't a whole heck of a lot going on. This is actually the deadest time on the sports calendar. But there's still some stuff going on. You're talking about the Big Dumper one. The Big Dumper did win. I mean, what else do you need? Well, probably a lot more. And the Big Dumper wins. That's the story of the day.

To cover three hours of programming, probably a lot more. Adog is like a six-year-old that learned a new swear word. Yeah. And he is using it. I throw it into sentences randomly throughout the day now. Yeah. That's great. I wonder what the sentences randomly throughout the day now. Yeah. That's great. So again.

I wonder what the big dumper would do. A reminder. Get your text in. Dunbar Lover Text Message in Basket at 650-650. Tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports. We'll sprinkle them throughout the show and give you repeated chances to be on the radio. Working in reverse on that guest list.

830 Chase Stillman. 8 o'clock Mike Awe. 7 o'clock Tim Graham. 630 Marty Walsh. That's what's happening on the program today Ben let's tell everybody what happened what happened is Brats you by the BC construction Safety Alliance making What happened? Missed that? You missed that? Whoa! 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. It is big dumper season, as per ADOG and everyone else. Cal Rally can add yet another title to a season that's been full of them already. Home run derby champion, Seattle Mariners catcher and switch hitter, Outslegged Junior at Caminero. Not to be confused with the Canyonero en route to winning the annual home run derby last night. Let's

hear the winning call. This is with Caminero at the plate, needing a couple more jacks to get on pace with Calrallyigh. He falls short and the Big Dumper wins the 2025 Home Run Derby. Here's what it sounded like. No, it will not get out. The Dominican dominance comes to an end. The Big Dumper is your Home run derby champion for 2025. So what an incredible, incredible story this season is turning out to being for the 28 year old first time all star who has been amazingly not just the story of

the Seattle Mariners, not just the story of the American League, the story of Major League Baseball this season. It's, it's incredible. And the cool thing about the home run Derby, um, unlike the NBA dunk contest, which has kind of just been, I don't know, does anyone watch the NBA dunk contest? I guess, like it's, it's, it's just, it's not actually don't even anymore because there's no stars.

It's not the stars. It's not the stars. So you completed my thoughts there. You complete me, basketball Ben. If you look at the names of the players that have won the home run Derby, it's hall of famers and future hall of famers, you know, I know that, uh, he became Cal, Cal Raleigh became the first, uh, Seattle Mariner to win it since Ken Griffey Jr. won it,

and I think Griffey won it like three times. 94, 98, and 99, the kid won it. You know, you've got recently, fairly recently, I guess Aaron Judge won it back in 2017. It was cool, I remember saying this same thing when Vlad A. Jr. won it, it was cool because his dad had won it for him and you know you just joined this long list of amazing hitters that have won the home run derby

yeah and what he's been able to do this year as a catcher so for those that are maybe like not 100 up to speed with what's been going on here. Rally is hitting home runs from a position where, just to put this in context, the previous high for a full-time catcher at the All-Star break was 28. Rally smashed that by 10 already. He's the best home run hitter in baseball position regardless right now.

And yesterday was very cool. He had his dad, Todd, throw in the pitches on the mound. He had his dad Todd throwing the pitches on the mound He had his younger brother Todd jr Apparently they're into monosyllabic names in the rally household Todd Cal and Todd And then he went out and just ripped and just match and he did it from both sides of the plate Which is very cool So first catcher to ever win the home run derby first switch hitter to ever win the home run derby and I'm not gonna lie We are absolutely guilty here

at the Haliford and Brough Show for not paying enough attention to the Seattle Mariners. We have our reasons for it, right? I mean, we do a lot of Jay's coverage on this show for sure. And I think that dominates the majority of the baseball conversation. Also, we've had our issues with the way that the Mariners have run their organization

in the sense that they've never really gone out and acquired the hitting that they need. They've never made that big push. They've been out of the playoffs for so long. They've kind of been- We cover them way more if they're consistently good. They've kind of been boring. Not out of the playoffs every year,

but when they make them, they don't last long. Yeah, and they've kind of been boring. It's kind of been a boring team to cover. That's just how I've been. They're cheap. Boring and cheap can often kind of correlate there. But this was a very cool story and kudos to Cal Raleigh and the crew for making history at last night's Home Run Derby.

And I think that's about all we're going to be able to squeeze out of that one. We will move on now to the other news of last night. And it's got a local tie to it very much. So the Sabres avoided arbitration with Vancouver born defenseman Bowen Byrom. The team announced late last night that it agreed to a two year contract with Byrom worth 6.25 million per year.

I've actually got audio of Bowen Byrom coming to terms with the Buffalo Sabres. Ah, fine. They did. I thought you actually had real audio lined up. Look, I was really looking forward to that. They did manage. God, you're dumb.

Oh, he's Byram. He's the Byram. They did manage to avoid arbitration. So he's probably, both sides are probably happy about that, but this definitely feels like there was a sense of resignment. He wants to be traded. Yeah. He's like, fine, will this make it easier to trade me? Let's get that to your extension done. Now I'm going to make this environment so toxic. You'll have to trade me. I am going to ruin. And then the Sabres will be like, good luck trying to make it more toxic. Yeah. Wait, this could be more toxic? I don't even

think that was possible. So according to Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic, who does a great job of covering the Buffalo Sabres for the team, it does sound as though the plan as of right now is to keep Byram in the lineup and to have him on a first unit pairing with Ross Misdalien, who he partnered for for roughly half the year last year. I guess this is still very much a wait and see thing

for both sides because the two year extension for those that don't know the machinations of his contract, this would walk him right up to free agency, unrestricted free agency if he was to play out the term. And a lot of people look at that and say, hmm, I wonder why he signed that kind of deal. Well, he could still be traded this off season. He could be traded today, right?

I mean, all this really does is make sure the two sides don't go into the one part of the process that I think everyone loads. And that's like, no one has a good time in arbitration. Let's just make that abundantly clear. It's a last resort for the club and for the player. The club has to go in and talk negatively about the player, you know, nerves and emotions often get frayed. So this was sort of a grin and Barrett. Let's sign the deal and let's just avoid that

really nasty part of the proceeding and try and figure out what we're going to do next. Um, it just so happens too, that he's got two years left on his contract and, uh, there's a left shot defenseman in Vancouver that still has two years left on his contract. And there are always talks that the Canucks were interested in Bowen Byrom as insurance

for said Canuck, he's the captain, here's the hint, who just happens to have two years left on his contract. Right. And I know that, you know, you heard rumblings throughout the early stages of free agency and not even so much with the Canucks, although the Canucks were rumored to be heavily involved, but the Byram was one of the most likely

trade candidates on everybody's board, right? At Daily Faceoff, Sports NTS and all of them. I think the Sabres were using Byram to see if they could get Pedersen out of Vancouver. I mean, that's a few things like I've heard Sabres media and Sabres fans talking about, you know, trying to get centers and mentioning Pedersen out of Vancouver. And that's the only way I can imagine that deal working. You know, like who else would the Canucks trade? The Sabres didn't want futures. They didn't want first round picks for Prospex.

God, they're good with that. They need NHL players and they need a center. So who else could have possibly been involved in a bow and buy room trade if that were to go down? So now you're starting to get to where I was going with, there was obviously a lot of teams that were interested in acquiring Byram via trade. And Buffalo was interested in doing as well

because Buffalo is a big hole to fill in their lineup. When Piterka left and he was traded to Utah in exchange for Kesselring and for Doan, that's 70 points of offense. And if you were going to look at Piterka's, you know, rise as a player, you're looking at basically 30 goals and 77, five points of offense. Buffalo thought it was going to be able to address that

with a Byram trade. Now they haven't, at least for now, which means they've got, I mean, if you look at their blue line, it is very impressive. They got Byram and Dullian on their first pair and it would be Owen Power and Michael Kesselring on their second. That's a very nice top four.

I don't think anyone can disagree with that. The issue with Buffalo right now is they need to replace a piece upfront. And I think Byram was supposed to be the ticket to do that. Now issue with Buffalo right now is they need to replace a piece up front. And I think Byron was supposed to be the ticket to do that. Now, back to what you were saying. Were conversations between the two clubs, even if they were minute and very basic in detail, did it sort of have one of those things?

It's like, let's start with, we have Byron and you have Pedersen. And let's see if we can work from there. Now the issue is, the pieces never seemed ultimately fit. No, it never fit because the Canucks have a defense and the Canucks need centers. Like they couldn't even find a second line center. They didn't add a center in the offseason, which you know what is

insane. They actually went into the offseason like, oh we what is insane. They actually they went into the off. They went to the off season like, oh, we got to address the center position. What happened? Oh, we lost Pugh suitor. They traded for a winger in a Vander Cane. They resigned another one in Brock Bester. They resigned a goalie, that's Demko, and then resigned another winger in Connor Garland. Nothing.

There's there's been so many moves that you assumed were naturally going to happen after July one, uh, the Marco Rossi situation in Minnesota is another one where everyone assumed that that was going to be done really quick in the process because there was a lot of team cl- a lot of teams clamoring for his services. A lot of teams that needed that 2C. You know why though?

All these teams that had these players available wanted players back. They didn't want futures. They didn't want prospects. They wanted players and hockey trades are sometimes hard to make because you're like, yeah, we, we, we need a center. So you go out and try and get a center and the other team's like, well, wait a minute, if we're going to trade the center, we need

a center back. And you're like, well, it's not really how it works. And then, and there aren't many teams with three really good centers or multiple centers that they can just give away. And oh, most, most teams out there don't even have a two C we're talking to how many people have we talked to from other markets that have come on our show

and be like, they need a 2C? We had one on yesterday, Adam Goldfab of Carolina. They're like, yeah, he's, Adam's like, yeah, Koken Yammy's not good enough at 2C, right? So, and that was the thing they were really trying to address this off season and they couldn't. Now, Brandon in Vancouver texts in to the Dun the Dunbar lumber text line and he says, doesn't Byram suck when he, when he doesn't get to play with Dahlene?

Well, I mean, he, uh, he doesn't suck. He's in the NHL, but I think I really think you should take every player on the Sabres and look at their advanced analytics and take that with a grain of salt. It's a bad team. Yeah, tough organization to play for. It's just not. Feels like a lot of guys get traded there

against their will. And a lot of guys are, they're not happy there. They don't play well. You know, I think the best example of, you know, moving a guy from a bad team to a good team and seeing, well, wait a minute. Yeah, this guy actually doesn't suck was Seth Jones.

Like he looked like the old Seth Jones when he was traded from Chicago to Florida. And you just, some of these guys are so talented, you really need to surround them with better players. Yeah. I mean, to Brandon's question, and Brandon, if you're listening, thanks for writing. There's been such a long line of guys that have escaped Buffalo and gone on to successes in other NHL markets.

So there's a two-parter here. One, there's obviously an issue with Buffalo in the 14 years of playoff drought that's gone on and how toxic or disappointed or flat or checked out that the market has become. You look at it and it starts with Ryan O'Reilly, and then it goes to Jack Eichel, and then it goes to Sam Reinhardt. Those are sort of the big three behind the entire thing. Other NHL players know this.

Other NHL players know that when they're in a bad market, oftentimes the escape is what's gonna turn their career around. The turnaround from Reinhardt being a Buffalo Sabre to what he is right now is one of the more stark ones I can remember in recent memory. I know everyone had Jack Ica lined up as the guy that escaped Buffalo Island

and managed to turn his career around, but Reinhardt has turned himself into, I mean, and he's always had the talent and the ability. That's not the thing, but perception-wise, he has turned himself into one of the most elite forwards in the National Hockey League, leaving Buffalo to go to Florida. Now we got another text in unsigned.

It says, the idea of Hughes, Hronik, Pedersen, Pedersen, Willander, and Byrom in two years is real nice. I hate to break it to you, but Byrom will not be signing with the Canucks if Hughes is still there. One of the reasons he wants out of Buffalo, one is it's Buffalo. Yes. But the other is that he's not the number one defenseman there and he thinks he should be a number one defenseman.

He's probably the number three defenseman there. Right plays on a top pair. But if you're going to say, you know, again, look at our play minutes. Yeah, you've got to number two first overall big defenseman in the mix, which is again, a testament to how bad Buffalo's been over the last few years. Okay, one other one we wanna get to before we go to break and we'll set up the rest of the show because we have some very interesting guests on the horizon. It's not often that we will come in here

in the intro segment of the show and talk about coaching changes, non-head coaching division from other NHL teams, but there were a couple of interesting notes out of Edmonton yesterday. Hall of Fame defenseman Paul Coffey no longer behind the bench next season. Also the club has gotten rid of long time goalie coach Dustin Schwartz. Now you might be saying, why are you even bringing this up? Well,

one it's Edmonton, the two time Western conference champion, two time Stanley Cup finalists back to back anytime and a division rival, anytime they make a move or moves of significance, it's worth paying attention to. These two in particular, because of Paul Coffey standing within the organization and the goaltending, I think is the really interesting one is that the Edmonton Oilers, when you talk about teams that went into July one wanting to make a move and being very motivated to make a move, multiple insiders in court, sorry,

including Sportsnet's very own Elliot Friedman said, Edmonton wants to address the goal-attending on July one. They wanna make a change, they wanna do something different and bring back that group, not the same. Meaning, not Skinner, not Pickard, and not, I guess, Dustin Schwartz as the goalie coach. But with the inability to make a move in net,

they decided that they're gonna switch it up on the coaching front. I'll be very curious to see how this plays out in Edmonton next year, because right now, again, there's a lot of time left in the summer and things could change, but they are running it back with what I would say is an inferior lineup in front of those goalies,

especially at the forward position, given all the depth that they lost, and two goalies where question marks still remain about how effective they can be. The defense with coffee, I think that that defense is going to be interesting to watch moving forward as well. There's been rumblings about what Darnell's nurse's future looks like with the team, given that Evan Bouchard is now in a $10 million plus ticket per year. looks like with the team, given that Evan Bouchard is now in a $10 million plus ticket per year. And their deployment throughout last season was really interesting because Coffee's thing was that he shook up the pairings all the time.

They almost didn't really have regular pairings in Edmonton because guys played with different guys all the time. And it obviously worked to a certain degree. They got back to the Stanley Cup final, but the fact that they're moving on from makes me wonder if they want just an entirely different perspective on how their defense is going to be deployed next year. So everyone in Edmonton talks and rightly so about

the biggest pending UFA for next summer, and that is Connor McDavid. Right. But get a load of some of these names as well. Both Skinner and Pickard only have one year left on their deals. And also when you look at that blue line that you mentioned, Ekholm, pending UFA, also 35 years

old, will he need to be replaced? He's running into injury issues, definitely wasn't himself at times in the playoffs. Jake Wallman, who they brought in, pending UFA. Brett Kulak's been there a little while now, pending UFA. And then just to mention it, Troy Stetcher's got one year left on his deal.

So, you know, you talk about the goaltending situation there and how that might need a make over real soon. I mean, yesterday, but that blue line too. I mean, the only guy that you're probably sure of that's going to be there for the next few years is Evan Bouchard because they might have to, honestly, they might have to lean on Darnell Nurse to get them out of there just for some cap relief because $9.25 million cap, I know the cap's going

up but he's not worth that. But he's also good friends with a lot of the guys on the team, including McDavid. It is very interesting to look at the two teams that were in the Stanley Cup final like weeks ago and see how dramatically different their futures are. Florida, for a variety of reasons, a multitude of reasons, was able to lock up everybody they wanted to lock up. That was the big story of the off season for them is they've got about 10 guys that are under contract until 2030. It's the core group of guys. They know what they are moving forward. Blue line forward, maybe there's an issue in goal at some point with Bobrowski, but they know what they are.

Yeah. Edmonton, it feels like every summer now is this cycle of we need to start filling some holes and finding replacements and finding, you know, cheap veterans on one year deals or making a move like they made for Isaac Howard out of Tampa Bay. It's just such a different dynamic. I wonder at a certain point if they'll ever get to that stage where Florida's at where they will get guys to resign for less Initial reaction would be no because I mean all due respect, but it's Edmonton, right? It doesn't it doesn't have nearly the allure or all of the perks that Florida has now But they are going to need at some point to get guys to commit a little bit longer in term

For a little bit less money to keep a more core group together. Because right now the core is made up of what? Four, five guys? I guess it's Trent Frederick. No, I mean, he's not, he's not though, but it's yeah, it's Dry Cytle, McDavid, Hyman, Nuge. Bouchard. Bouchard, and I guess Darnell Nurse, right? Yeah, and it's an entirely different group

from what they got going on in Florida. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning Marty, how are you? Hi guys. Morning guys, how are you doing today? We're good, thanks for taking the time to do this, we appreciate it. So I did want to start with a broad overview of how we got to this point. We were rambling on prior to getting you on the phone that in past labor negotiations,

we've worked through them as members of the media. And it often felt like covering the actual negotiation and the process was a bigger story than what actually came to be, the fruition of it, if you will. For the listeners that might not be up to speed, can you walk us through how the league and the PA were able to get to this point where they've negotiated labor peace through 2030? Yeah let me just stop. I just you know I know the history has been in some case very turbulent between the PA and the league. I have 30 plus years of experience in the labor movement. So I was president of my union, recording secretary, ran the building trades, labor secretary and the president

of Biden, mayor of Boston. So it gave me a lot of opportunity to learn over the years about negotiations, what to do, what not to do. When I, I think I said this last month on the show, when I got on that, when I got the job, you know, myself and Gary Bettman talked about working collectively together. He mentioned to me early on, he'd like to, if I'm interested in starting to have a conversation about the agreement, collective bargaining agreement and new agreement, it doesn't expire technically until September of 2026. So as the time went on, I was talking to the players and seeing what players wanted in

the contract, we got to a point where negotiations began and you just lay down the ground rules. I mean, the ground rules are simple that we're going to have open negotiation if there's a disagreement at any point, we kind of take that issue, maybe move it to the back of the line as you will, and just try and move through in a positive, all of the things that we wanted to accomplish in this agreement. Um, and I think, you know, when we got into the room was Bill Daly and Gary Batman, their attorney on our side. It was myself, Ron Hainsey and Dawn Zavolo, our attorney. And, um, you know, and we had a negotiating committee on our side.

They had one on their side. Um, and, you know, we laid out all the issues that we all wanted to discuss. Um, some went smoothly, some didn't really go far at all. And, you know, we're able to, we started on March 31st. Um, and we were able to end around, I think it was a game three or four of the Stanley comp final, uh, where we were have a, we had a pretty good understanding and principle. And it wasn't until 10 minutes before our press conference that we actually signed the MOU. So, you know, a lot of people,

a lot of negotiations get complicated because of emotions and feelings. And you got to try, you have to try and keep those out of there, especially if you're a leader of a union or you're a company, you've got to try and keep those personal feelings out because once they're in there, most times, anytime you see a strike or a bad labor negotiation in any industry, it's more about personality and feelings than it's about the issues. So, from your understanding of it, I know you haven't been, maybe this is a better question for Gary and Bill, but from your understanding of it, how is this negotiation

different from some of the previous ones that didn't go so well? I know some of those also involved fundamental issues like bringing in a salary cap, which is obviously going to be a fight. Yeah, I mean, we didn't have that the salary cap issue, you know, that big, that big issue with what happened in 2012 with the money on the player's share versus the owner's share. You didn't have that, you know, giant issue in the room. But you know, in hearing Gary talk about it, and he said to me that, you know, working having having somebody he can work with and, and get along with and trust in some ways is important. Um, you know, some people will view that as,

Oh, you're in the tank. There's no one in the tank here. It's about, it's about respecting each other's side. If we want the national hockey league and the players of the national hockey league to be successful and the fans enjoy it, then it works better if we're on the same page in a lot of ways. We can have disagreements and we do disagree on some things, no major one, but it's about growing the game of hockey. And I think Gary would say that having a team of partnership that we can work, take things offline if we have to and have a conversation. I mean, there's a couple of times that myself

and Gary spoke privately during this negotiation about a couple of different issues. And then you get away from all the noise, you get away from other people and you say, okay, this is what I need and this is what I need and let's see if we can come to an understanding that's basically how we handle this. Why is it sometimes that negotiations, and I'm not just talking about sports, I'm talking about between businesses and labor, they don't respect each other. The businesses are like, I'd love to fire you all right now and the labor is like,

I don't care if you make money, this is my salary. What happens in those situations? It's a breakdown of communication. It's personalities. It's people, whether it's on the company side, they don't have the authority to make a deal so they want to try and go back to their boss and impress their boss so they get the greatest deal they could for them. You have union people, some union officials, not all, but some refuse to just understand what bargaining is. No, no, no, the no comes out. When I was Labor Secretary, we had on the West Coast ports in scientific Vancouver,

obviously, because there was concern about that. Really what happened there was it was more of a fundamental breakdown of lack of communication. And you know, we're able to get in there when I was working for the administration and work with the company, build a little bit of a relationship there. They eventually got a contract without, I was gone by that point, but they eventually got a contract and with the real strike in the United States, there was going to be a real strike and I got involved in that negotiation and it comes down to hard feelings and not respecting the other person's position.

It comes down to hot feelings and not respecting the other person's position. Um, a lot of, a lot of times management won't respect, um, a union officials position in the union or likewise. And I think that, you know, you have to go into it with the understanding. If you go into it with the understanding, you're trying to get the best deal for your member or you're getting the best deal for your company, but you're just respecting the worker. Uh, that's the way to go into negotiations. We don't hear in the press about most negotiations,

because most negotiations are done and there's never a story written about or never a threat of a strike. But when you get to a point of a strike, then you've already lost the negotiation. If you go into a negotiation with a thought process of locking you out, company locking out their employees employees or a union striking.

You've already lost the negotiation. You mean it's going to take a while. If you go into, if you start day one, like we're going to lock, like you see in baseball now, you know, everyone's expecting a lockout in baseball. Well, that's the wrong way to go into negotiation. Um, I would say that to the league, like you're handling it completely wrong. Um, if you want to, to, to win in that negotiation, you want to get some agreement on the negotiation, respect the other side.

If you don't respect the other side, there's no reason for the other side to come to the table with an open mind to sit with you. Um, what, what are you happy about with this negotiation? Besides the fact that it got done and it got done so, so quickly. Um, what do you feel good about on on various various items? Yeah well the first thing I'm actually good about we had 96 percent of the membership to vote for it. I mean so when you think about that that's really what's important to me that the membership of the of the players of all players, 96% of them voted to support this agreement,

which means there's something in this agreement for everyone. I think the couple of big takeaways, I'm glad I got a four year agreement. Historically, it's been a longer term agreement. And once you have a long term agreement, you basically locked into the terms of that contract for a decade.

There are players that will come and go in the league that will never have an opportunity to be part of a negotiation, never have an opportunity to have their voices heard on something that they might think is important in the collective bargaining agreement. We also removed from the player share workers comp payroll taxes. Those are two things when I first got the job and we were going to the finances, I couldn't believe that we were paying the players are paying for their workers comp and their payroll tax and the employer payroll tax. So I was glad to move those off, off the debt, uh, off the players share,

because that's, you know, those are big figures that it's not the responsibility of employees, if you will. Um, playoff fund, um, we're able to increase the playoff fund over the next four years to $40 million, which is important. I mean, I think the NHL, if I remember correctly, with the lowest paid players in the playoffs, the players contract does not cover the playoffs. So anytime they play these games, and some two teams obviously make it to the final, you know, I want to make sure they're compensated for that. Uh, we're able to make some changes in, uh, healthcare for retirees,

something that's really important. Um, for players that have retired before 2012, they really didn't have a strong healthcare plan and we're able to work with the league. We split that $4 million to two from the players, two from the owners, over to the, uh, the alumni association, Glenn Healy's group, so that we can continue to support the alumni players, not every player in that era or generation. None of them, most of them didn't make a million dollars or make big money, maybe big money at the time.

So we're able to help them there. We're also able to help our players and you know, things that the fans aren't, I mean no one's gonna say, oh my God, that was great, but you know, rooms for ELS players on the road. We increased the minimum salary to, by the end of this agreement, to a million dollars in coming into the player and to the league, I should say. We had some benefit changes for players. We had some buy-week guarantees for players.

The Olympic, obviously we have the Olympics now, 2026 and 2030 in here, which is great. The 84 games is something that Gary Bettman really wanted and we were able to work with him on that. We shortened our training camp to 13 days. We, excuse me, we, excuse me, sorry on that. We shortened our training camp to 13 days. We, excuse me, sorry about that. We have a maximum amount of exhibition, four exhibition games and veterans can only play two so we didn't add to the workload for players

something that was important. We worked on conditioning, we worked on dress codes, things like that. A lot of things that, you know, aren't big meme highlighted benefits that people like, Oh my God, but these are things that players told us over the last two and a half years things that they were interested in quality of life issues. So you know, most people don't realize listening or even myself before I got this job, you know, I'm a huge hockey guy. I love hockey. You love, you know, you, but you don't think of the little things behind the scenes that

actually this is actually a job for hockey players. I love hockey. You love, you know, you, but you don't think of the little things behind the scenes that actually, this is actually a job for hockey players. This is their job. This isn't a game for them. It's a job. And so we did a lot of, a lot of benefits there. When you first took the job and we're speaking to NHLPA executive director, Marty Walsh here on the Halford and Bref show on Sportsnet 650. When you first took the job, Marty, were you surprised that all those quote unquote little things that you just mentioned hadn't been addressed already?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, but they're always going to pop up, but I was a little bit because you think, you know, you just assume that, you know, the ownership of the team and the league would just take care of this. These are players, but again, it's all it's all subject to collective bargaining. And they have little things, too, that they probably that they want that want to they want to come back at us on. And I think that, you know, the beauty about this, at least in my first two years, bargaining and they have little things too that they probably that they want that want to they want to come back at us on it. I think that you know the beauty about this in at least in my first two years is that

if an issue arises now I can call I call Gary, Gary calls me we talk about it and we try and resolve it. These bigger issues or these smaller issues that are all clumped into collective bargaining now that we have this behind us I mean mean, um, you know, I think that if there's something pops now, either it's on the league side or the owner side, um, or the, the, the player side, I should say we can address, we can try and address it offline now if it comes up. Uh, you mentioned the international calendar and Olympic hockey.

I'll go back to the four nations face off. Um, from the PA's perspective, uh, how much of a shot in the arm was that for you guys energy wise in terms of getting a set calendar, having it set, and then watching the results from that tournament moving forward with international play? Well I think right off the bat when I came in here one of the priorities was international schedule. You know we talked to the players, when they interviewed me they brought it up. And as we got into it, you know, I looked in the office and I saw it was kind of not really being run or focused by one person. It was a bunch of people working as a group. I asked Rob Zep to take the office over.

Rob Zep runs international hockey now for us. And you know, two and a half years later, we have a real clear schedule on best on best. Moving forward, we have obviously the Olympics. We had the four nations last year, the, um, Olympics coming up in 26th, February. In February 28, we're going to have world cup hockey in 2030. We're going to have the Olympics and then hopefully our plan is in 32 to have another world cup of hockey, uh, also working with the league on international games, you know, when teams go over to play in Sweden or play in Europe or wherever they're going to play, you know, we want to, we're

going to be part of that conversation with the league just to make sure that we're building, if we're going to build hockey outside of North America, let's do it right. And the league is, you know, working with us and we're working with them on creating opportunities for our players, not just playing in different countries, but also opportunities for our players to kind of promote the game of hockey more. So I feel good where we are. I feel good where it's going. Um, I think the league is pretty pleased with as well. And the players are thrilled. I mean, they're thrilled about it. Um, there's a lot of hockey on the docket.

That's why it's also important when you think about training camp in the, in the exhibition games, cutting those down a bit, preseason games, cutting those down a bit because some of these players every two years are going to be playing in lots of other games. So we need to make sure that, that we're keeping out, we're keeping out the best interests for our players both physically and mentally. Do you follow what's going on in other sports? Soccer has a real issue or the players are pretty upset with how many

games they're being, being forced to play? Yeah, some of those unions reach we get to we don't get to get as often as we should but a lot of times we get Together it's groups. So we talked about different things and how we can help each other out You know rugby's organizing right now working with them The women's hockey we talk to them a lot. We talk to the minor league hockey, Brian Ramsey. I do a lot of conversation with Brian Ramsey. I work with the other leagues too,

football, baseball, basketball, you know, just to talk about, because a lot of these things that come up in one league probably will make its way to our league as well. So it means, so it's, you know, different sports, but same issues. Uh, Marty, one final question. Um, are you happy doing what you're doing for, and, and doing it for the next few

years, or do you feel, I mean, I know you were involved in politics and it's a very, uh, interesting time going on in your country. Very interesting time. Um, and I'm just wondering if you, you feel any pull to, to get back to the fight because I imagine a lot of the things you're seeing right now, um, you, you disagree with. Yeah, no, I, I love the job I have now. It's great.

The players have trusted me in this, in this role. Um, you know, my job, my focus is on getting the players, getting to know every single player. I told them that in the beginning. Um, you know, the feedback has been positive myself onelf, on Hanes Lee, work hard to build that trust in the players. Listen, I'm loyal and I want to, I love this job. This job's been great. It's been a lot of fun. The collector bargaining piece, it was fun. As I think about moving into next year, everyone's like, what are you going to do now? I mean, well, there's

a lot to do is, you know, we have fall tour coming up. We have getting ready for the Olympics. Fall tour is where we go around and meet all the teams individually, all the players and all the teams individually. So we have 32 meetings all across the league, North America. We go over to the teams and talk about the challenges of whatever they're experiencing. So I enjoy it. You know, politics is, you know, I did it for a long time and I really enjoyed it and I'm watching what's going on now. And it's, you know, in a way it's nice to be, have a, uh,

kind of a break from it. Uh, I'm just kind of an observer for the most part, watching it. Um, but you know, I just don't, you know, I don't have a crystal ball, but I enjoy, I enjoy what I do here with a, with a PA and I hope to do it for a long time. Well, Marty, we enjoyed this very much this morning. Thank you again for taking the time to do it. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the summer.

Hopefully we can chat again. Yeah, thank you. Talk to you guys soon. Yeah, thank you. That's Marty Walsh, NHLPA executive director here on the Haliford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Our next guest is the newest member of the Vancouver Connects. He's already in Vancouver getting acclimated

to the West Coast. We go now to the Power West Industries hotline. Chase Stillman joins us here on the Haliford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Chase, how are you? Morning guys, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on.

We appreciate you taking the time. Wanted to ask you right away, what was your reaction upon getting traded? How did you hear about the news and how excited are you to be the newest member of the Vancouver Canucks? Yeah, no, it was, obviously it was a very exciting day. And to be totally honest, it was a total blind side. I had no idea it was coming.

Wasn't hearing any like rumors or anything like that. I jumped in the shower and then come out and I get a text from Carl Dubas and a missed call saying, call me back as soon as you can and called him back and pretty much told me that I was going to be a part of a trade and I was at Northwest Vancouver. And yeah, like we've been traded once before and once in junior as well, it's a bit of a emotional

roller coaster, but the way I look at it, somebody wants you and somebody wants you to be a part of the organization. So it's nothing but excitement coming for me for sure. What have the Canucks told you about the opportunity in Vancouver? Yeah they said there's gonna be opportunity for me to play and they're looking for guys that play my style of game and the only thing I just I need to continually need to get better at that and be able to produce and do more and play my game at a higher

level and do consistently. Tell us about your style of game. I would say I'm a two way forward. I play hard. I think I am a tenacious player and I can go be first on Pucks. I go through people all the time. I hit guys and play on that bit of an edge and I didn't have the result last year for it but I know I'm more than capable of

bringing offense and setting up plays scoring goals and definitely more of a fast first guy but like to score goals and produce for sure. What did your brother tell you about his time in Vancouver? He was actually, so I lived with him in the summer and we trained out in Toronto together and he was pretty funny. He was obviously the first first night cold and he was just he was just really excited for me. Obviously I think the first thing he's trying to do is was calm me down because it was all that all happened really fast and but he was just nothing said nothing about good things about the organization here and

especially the city and how beautiful and what a place would be to live out here. So obviously for those listeners that are unaware, your dad was long, or is sorry, was long time NHL defender, NHL player Corey Stillman. And he moved around a fair bit in his career, played in a variety of different markets. Did you lean on him at all, or your brother lean on him at all when it came to, you know, accepting a trade, finding the positives from it, moving locales, all the stuff that goes into getting traded as an NHLer. How important was your dad in sort of stomaching all that

and processing all of it? Yeah, for sure. Obviously there's nothing that we're going through or going to go through that he hasn't. So he's obviously such an important piece in our lives. And there's one thing for being our coach and mentor, he's also my friend and he's an easy guy to reach out to and when things are going right and when things are going tough but just

nothing but kind of the same thing that we were talking about and looking at the positives from it and because that's the one thing you can always take away from a trade is you can look at it and say gosh maybe you're comfortable where you're at but this team doesn't want me anymore. But every time that you get traded, somebody is trading for you. So that's the way to look at it. We're speaking to newest member of the Vancouver Canucks,

Chase Stillman here on the Haliford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. This might be an odd question to answer because it's not strange for you, but there's a lot of people who didn't grow up with a father who played a long time in the NHL and won two Stanley Cups. But I'm curious.

My dad did not do that. My dad didn't do it either. It was a real disappointment from a family perspective. I imagine that when you're talking to some of your other peers and everything, the way that you grew up was different. And I'm just curious to peek behind the curtain a little bit and know what it's like, what advantages maybe that now that you're a little bit older, you've been able to see that you had growing up with a dad that had not just an NHL career, but a very decorated NHL career as well.

Yeah, for sure. It was a little interesting growing up. I know when I was younger, I thought everybody's dad played the NHL. So I didn't really click for a long time and go to school and stuff. And I'd be like, what does your dad do? And he'd be like, oh, I got a firefighter. So I'd be like, my dad's an hockey player. I thought we were in the same class. They'd be on the same team. I had no idea. And but yeah, it was awesome.

Obviously, there's a lot of positives from it coming, being around the guys and being around the rink and seeing what has to go into to be a professional hockey player and the work that goes into it. It was awesome. There was just a lot of fun to be in that experience and I was still really young but I remember still a little bit of the Carolina parade and stuff.

I was only around like three or four but it still stuck in my brain so clearly how special that is and how that's memories and stuff that last a lifetime and that's basically the one thing that I took away from a kid, no matter what, or what I do. The only thing I really care about is I want to win. Uh, we're speaking with Chase Stillman here on the Halford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. You were born in St. Louis when your dad played for the Blues. Um, then he went to Tampa Bay, won a cup, then he went to Carolina, won a cup. Um, did you have a favorite team growing up

or was it hard because your dad was jumping around to different teams? Yeah, I had jumped around. The longest we ever lived somewhere, I think was three years or four years, wherever he was playing. So it was like after that, we knew we were pretty much moving somewhere.

But I think for me growing up, my favorite place was Florida. That being said, that's the only time I really remember. That was from like kindergarten to grade two. So I have very, very, very strong memories from there. And obviously Florida is a great place. It's hot, I like the beach and the sun. So it was a pretty cool place.

Well, you're definitely on an anticheller because you like Florida. So every other one may get up down there. So yeah, that makes sense. There's a lot of sun in Vancouver. So what are your goals for this season coming into the Canucks organization? Honestly, I just, I want to get my foot in the door. I want to have a good camp.

I want to show everybody that, you know, what they traded for is I'm going to be an asset. I'm going to be a player and not just something that's going to be in the in the Abbotsford roster, but somebody that's going to be be an impactful player and get get up top. And that's something I'm looking forward to. And I just want to do anything that I can to to play in the NHL as fast as possible and whatever role or whatever they kind of need for me, I think that I'm capable of doing. And I think that's the one thing I take pride in my game is being like a Swiss army knife and just wherever I can fit in wherever you need me to be.

Chase, I wanted to ask you one more question because you were playing your junior hockey and you were drafted during the pandemic. If I'm not mistaken. And I'm just wondering how that affected your development, how that affected the, you know, some of the guys that you played with, just not getting as many games as a lot of the guys at the junior level.

Yeah, it was definitely a crazy experience. Yeah, it was super unfortunate. I actually, and I really felt for the guys that were actually older than me too, at the time. And now maybe they missed their draft and I was this year to have another crack at it and they didn't have it. And for me, it was going into my draft year. I'm like, Oh my goodness.

Like I had a, I had a decent rookie year in junior, but now it's like, what am I, how am I supposed to build off of that? I was fortunate enough that I did actually get an opportunity to go out and play, uh, play in Denmark. So I think that was the best thing for me to do and showed off what I can do there. And ultimately I think that led to me getting the invite to play team Canada at U18, then the rest is history.

Well, Chase, we want to thank you for taking the time to do this today. We really appreciate it. I'm glad you made your way out to Vancouver. Enjoy the next little bit in the summer and let's do this again in the fall. Thanks a lot for do this today. We really appreciate it. I'm glad you made your way out to Vancouver. Enjoy the next little bit in the summer and let's do this again in the fall. Thanks a lot for joining us today. We appreciate it.

Yeah. Awesome guys. Thank you. A lot of fun. Thank you. Chase Stillman, newest member of the Vancouver Canucks here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.