Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 7/17/24

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, the boys discuss the Mount Rushmore of sad Canucks moments, plus they talks the Arturs Silovs extension with Canucks Talk host & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Here's a high five all off the bat Jaron Duran That one will leave the yard And get the American lead It's first lead of the night Paul Steens My mom is single bro

You know I have a great opportunity To play with some really good players On a good team And hope that can come in And you know Do what I can do best Listen I love a good flim flam

Good morning Vancouver Six o'clock on a Wednesday Happy Wednesday everybody It's Alfred and his bro Listen, I love a good flim flam. Good morning, Vancouver. Six o'clock on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. It's Alfred and his bruv. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios, the beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver.

Jason Brough is back from vacation, everybody. Good morning, Jason. Buongiorno. He's back from Italy. That's what that means. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Alfred and Brough Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddy, good morning to you as well.

Hello, hello. Alfred and Brother of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier Honda destination. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal.

North Star Metal Recycling. They recycle. You get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. I'm going to start using my hands a lot. You should. More. More hand gestures.

Did you learn any Italian while you were there? I learned some hand gestures. Okay. Si. Si, si, si, si, si, si. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews.

So, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. So, Jason is back. We are back for the remainder of the week. We'll get into the guest list right away. Joining us at 6.30, Mike Tannier, our NFL insider. His substack is the 2 Deep Zone. He's going to be joining us to talk about Brandon.

I use trade request, big signings in Chicago. Caleb Williams rumored to be done. Romo Dunzay done. Do we really believe that Brandon Iuke's going to actually be traded? No, none of this. None of these guys ever get traded. Right. But there was a deadline.

There's like, okay, we've done all this stuff. Like now is the time I request a trade. The timeless dance. The training camp hasn't even started yet. We're in July. It continues. You know what other trade I want to ask him about is Aaron Rodgers planting the seed for a Devontae Adams trade, which he did over the weekend at a golf tournament.

So we'll ask Mike about all that, get caught up with our NFL insider in the middle of July, which is always a good time to do that. Aaron Rodgers stirring the pot. Can you imagine? Who would have thought? Who would always a good time to do that. Aaron Rodgers stirring the pot. Can you imagine? Who would have thought? Who would have thunk it? But there he is, just stirring the pot.

7 o'clock, Zach Worden, MLB writer for Sportsnet, is going to join us. All-Star game last night, so a couple games off. We'll talk to Zach primarily about the Jays. I don't know why there's all this talk about a Vladdy contract extension. What's going on there? I thought they were trading Vladdy. That guy went 0-2 in the All-Star game.

He's done. You can sign a new contract with the team he gets traded to. You can't resign. That was actually a very Vladdy performance in the All-Star game. A couple ground outs.

Well, getting robbed on one of them. The Turner play was beautiful. It was. Yeah. He hit the ball hard and on the ground. On the ground.

Got to clear that infield button. 730 Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver in Canucks talk here on Sportsnet 650. News out of Canucks camp yesterday is that Artie Silov's signed a two-year deal,

so we'll talk to Drance about that. We'll get into that as well. 8 o'clock, Blues ringside reporter Andy Strickland's going to join the podcast. So Andy Strickland did a podcast,

the Cam and Strick podcast, with one of the new Vancouver Canucks, Jake DeBrusque. We've got a bunch of audio from that, a couple of really interesting clips about his not one but two trade requests out of Boston, and then him singing the praises of JT Miller. See, I thought he'd be singing the praises of his new center, Elias Pettersson, but the controversy has already begun

because it's clear that Jake DeBrusque wants to play with JT Miller now. That's just my assessment. That'd be hilarious. Even if that's not true, we should start that rumor. I know it should be an ongoing rumor throughout the summer. Trouble in paradise? Yeah, right. I may be catching some of you up here. DeBrusque on the podcast was like, wasn't Petey pretty bad at the end of the season?

Does he really make 11.6? Anyway, Andy Strickland is going to join us at eight uh we'll also talk to him about uh the potentially huge injury to Torrey Krug in St. Louis that could rule him out for the year and uh the status on Joel Quenville trying to return to coaching in the NHL because I know Andy Strickland I believe he's pretty tight with Joel Quenville at the very least he's been one of the uh hockey industry people at the forefront of providing updates about Joel Quenville's return to coaching in the National Hockey League.

So working in reverse on the guest list, 8 o'clock, Andy Strickland, 7.30, Thomas Drance, 7 o'clock, Zach Worden, 6.30, Mike Tanier. We've got a lot to get into. So without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was busy. We know how busy your life? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was...

We know how busy your life can be. What happened? 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. On Tuesday, the Canucks announced through general manager Patrick Alvin

that the club has agreed to a two-year contract extension with beloved backup goalie and new folk hero Artur Shilovs. The deal will have a very tidy AAV for the Canucks anyway, $850,000. And now your Canucks goaltending triumvirate is set. It is Thatcher Demko. It is Archer Shelovs. And it is Pavel Patera in goal for the Canucks. Yeah, this was a big story in Italy.

And they were just wondering, when is Shelovs going to sign? Day and night. Was there a celebration in the streets? Well, I wasn't there when it actually broke. I assume it was. Sorry, I got to interrupt. Yuri Patera. I said Pavel Patera. Former Minnesota got to interrupt. Yuri Patera. I said Pavel Patera, former Minnesota Wild forward Pavel Patera.

Oh, my. I see nothing has changed. Not to be confused with Ken Patera, the wrestler. He's also in that for the Connors here. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. Done? Pavel Patera, everybody.

And now I've completely lost track. Now I'm thinking about that wrestling movie that i watched on the plane about the von eric family oh the iron claw yeah what did you like it yeah it was great i just loved it it was so much fun so they got in a lot of crap with the trailers because they tried to position it as being like an uplifting movie does anyone know this story like and then i actually then then I actually read about the real family. Yeah. And for the movie, they had to combine two guys.

Yeah. Like, in the movie, only two of them. No. End their lives. In real life, three of them end their lives. Spoiler alert. Yeah. Yeah.

I was going to watch it tonight. I knew about, who cares? I knew about the family because I was really to watch it tonight. I knew about, who cares? I knew about the family because I was really into wrestling. I've never heard of them. Yeah. And when I heard they were making a movie about them, I'm like, oh, that's going to be the most tragic movie of 2024. And then I saw the trailers and I was like, feels more uplifting than the actual story was. Anyway, it was nice to get off track with you again.

And that's what we do here in the Helper to Brough show. Seeloff, as we all know, played heroically in the playoffs after Demko got hurt. Even though at the end of the day, you might look at his numbers and say, you know, his numbers weren't overall too great in the playoffs. The kid was put in a very, very tough position and he played very, very well. But we all know it's dangerous to assume a young goalie's progression will be linear. Right, Laddie? Right, Laddie? Like to assume that Seelovs is going to come back and play the way that he did last season.

That is correct. That's why the Canucks also signed Yuri Patera after moving on from Casey to Smith, as Hofford mentioned. Patera might make the Canucks over Seeloffs to start the season simply because Seeloffs is waivers exempt and they may not want to put Patera on waivers and then be like, oh, we lost that guy. The Canucks will also want Seeloffs to, you know, play hockey, make lots of starts as opposed to sitting on the bench for like, I don't know what, 80% of the games in Vancouver, 70% of the games in Vancouver. At any rate, I don't think we can talk a little bit more about this

with Drance because I know he wrote about it for The Athletic, but I think all three goalies are going to be really interesting to watch at training camp and into the preseason. Silovs and Patera, just to see who starts as the backup for Demko, but also Demko to see how he looks after ending the season injured. I know there was lots of talk about whether or not he could have come back if the Canucks had

advanced past the Edmonton Oilers, but we never got to see that. And in some ways, I kind of felt like the Canucks, I have no proof of this, but you know, this is our show. I kind of felt like the Canucks were just stringing along either their opponents or maybe it was a bit of psychological stuff

like, oh yeah, Demko's ready to come. He's ready to go. I don't know how close he ultimately was and if it was the regular season, how much longer he would have been out. So how is this all going to affect his offseason, his offseason training, and how's he going to look heading into training camp? That's going to be a big question for me in addition

to the two younger goalies that they've got. Well, we had the conversation quite a few times. One, because the Seeloff's thing was sort of hanging in the ether and a few people texted him when we were doing Ask Us Anythings and whatever, like, when's this going to get done? And so the conversations about goaltending were pretty fluid over the last

couple of weeks. And one of them, the thing that I kept coming back to was not even necessarily training camp, but one of the big stories for the Canucks this year is going to be Demko's workload. And I, I mean, I think that's probably the bigger jumping off point then.

I mean, obviously what he looks like coming back from injury is going to be big, but right now I think it's hard to argue that there's got to be some level of concern within the organization about keeping him healthy and upright for an entire season. Did it not feel to you that the entire season, either fans, media, and that probably extended to the organization, they just didn't want the good times to stop or even risk having a collapse. Yeah. And they're like, man, we got to keep this going. Demko, you're going to start a bunch of games because we got to keep this going.

You know, they went into that swoon after the all-star game and everyone was like, oh, is this it? Is this it? Is this the collapse? Is this where they fall apart? And you get it, right? When the team had missed the playoffs for as long as they had and the way

they'd missed the playoffs and everyone was just waiting for the bottom to fall out on the season and i think that tempted them to play demko a little bit more than they probably should have they were in prove it mode i felt almost right up until the end of the regular season until they clinched and i think and there was and there was a bunch of valid reasons why. One of them was it was, I mean, essentially a new head coach in Rick Talkett needing proof of concept that all of his ideas and thoughts and structures, that they would work.

And he's probably saying, well, they're going to work a lot better if we have Thatcher Demko in. And then the Oilers started putting it together and gunning for the division title as well. Right. And I did think that at a certain point they could have eased off a little bit.

They had such a good cushion through the first two and a half months of the season that it would have taken an epic collapse to fall out. At the same time, I think everyone understood the importance of finishing first. I think all that it represented even more than playoff positioning, what it meant is that you go from being out of the playoffs to winning the Pacific Division.

So it was important. I get it. Moving forward, I don't think that they should be walking around and we need to prove to the rest of the league that we're good anymore. I think some of that should be established. I think what they should be doing is having an eye on the postseason from the beginning of the year. Now, that's a dangerous game to play

because as we saw in Edmonton last year, when you start looking... The Canucks are going to go cup or bust. Right? Could you imagine if the Canucks... Talk, it'll be gone by December. They lose to the Sharks and he's like, I'm done. That was it.

It was a good run that I had. I do wonder if that dynamic of... I thought a lot of the free agent signings played into that dynamic as well like i felt like debrusk one of the big calling cards for him and he talked about it on the cam and strict podcast was how many playoff games he's played for a relatively young guy at 27 years old having played close to 100 playoff games that's a lot of experience i felt like that was a nod also um adding additional guys and a guy like sherwood who's going to give you maybe more of a playoff-style game. So if you're talking in that context...

Well, they saw that up close. Right. You saw it in the first round. So if you're talking in that context, you're saying, well, what's the next piece of the puzzle? And it's probably to make sure that your third-string netminder isn't playing the lion's share of your playoff games and you're keeping Demko healthy and upright.

Did you watch the All-Star game last night? It was actually pretty good. Bits and pieces, bits and pieces. There's no question the actual All-Star game, baseball has the best one, right? There's no question. And it makes sense because, well, the Pro Bowl doesn't really exist anymore. Hockey, you're not going to have full big hits and everything. It's not going to get physical in an All-Star game. Basketball is at its best is a physical game as well. And baseball, although, you know, there's physics involved, it's more of a cerebral game.

And I think the, the guys want these, they want the pitching matchups, right? Like they want, I want to face Skeens and I want to see how he does. And Skeens is probably like, well, I want to face skeens and i want to see how he does and skeens is probably like well i want to face you know whoever soto judge or i mean vladdy i'll get him to probably ground out but you know what this you know like it's it is bigger and then when otani goes up there um and hits a three one run bomb it's like wow that's that's a pretty good moment that exploded off his bat i don't think we have the audio of that one, but I listened to it on a few occasions. It was awesome. The crack that it makes when it leaves Otani's bat is wild.

The other big home run last night was the one by Jaron Durant, a guy I was not all that familiar with. I kind of remember that he was like in his second year or something like that as a full-time player. And he's 27. He was like a hot shot prospect, and then it took a really long time to get going, and now he's having this real tremendous season.

He's always been good defensively. And now the bat's coming around. Right. And he hit the decisive home run yesterday. You know, we had an interesting conversation go completely off script here yesterday with Jamie. So someone sent in a sort of hybrid ask us anything or just like a question about sports. And he says, what's better, any All-Star game or no All-Star game? So all the All-Star games, you can pit them up,

or is it just better to not do them? Because it was a jumping-off point for what the NHL is going to try and do this year. No All-Star game this year, they're going to try the much-anticipated Four Nations face-off. We went down the road of, are the rest of the leagues going to look at what the NHL is doing? Not necessarily copy the

format but say hey might we want to punt on the all-star game because one thing you've always brought up about the all-star games of years past back in the 40s when you were a kid um is that the all-star game i listened to them on the radio it was in black and white on the radio and then they had them in talking pictures do Do you like old time radio? The all-star game in an earlier era used to be about you get to see everybody from every team where it was hard to do that back in the day because you didn't have satellite TV and the internet and the ability to you can follow any team that you wanted now as closely as you want. You can be a fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars in Vancouver

and follow them as closely as someone that's living in Jacksonville. You can watch every single moment of their existence. You couldn't do it back in the day, so these games mattered. And the players used to take them way more seriously. So those two dynamics are gone, and we were sort of kicking around the idea of how antiquated are all-star games in terms of the modern sports viewing. So as it pertains to what the nhl is doing and actually i kind of got more intrigued because i do wonder if the players make this work the four nations face off if they go in and they're like we're

going balls to the wall this is going to be as close to his olympic competition i don't think you can do it every year, though. Right. You know what baseball might do, though? Let's go to the Olympics. Yeah, I know. Because it's in LA in 2028. I wondered about that. That was the one thing I was wondering about.

It's like, well, because MLB is not going to put on their own international competition, right? Like the NHL is doing. Well, they've got the. They do it in the preseason. Not midseason, I mean. Not midseason. Yeah.

And then with the Olympics is an interesting one. They could do a mid-season. With the injuries and the arm injuries, I don't know if they would want to do a big tournament. It would be tough getting across on the PA. But I also think that Olympics thing might be a one-off just because it's in LA. I mean, they might as well try it at this point.

But it's funny because... But the Major League Baseball All-Star game, there's nothing wrong with it. It's fine. There's nothing... The uniforms are bad. Well, they were.. There's nothing. The uniforms are bad. Well, they were. The uniforms were awful.

The uniforms were awful. I was like, is this game in Miami? Or I thought it was in Texas. It looked like Miami uniforms. The AL jerseys had a real cream overtone to them, which I was like, that's a lot of cream. It wasn't even Sunday. It was too hot for cream. No Sunday cream.

No Sunday creams. No. Can I bring up a random conversation that I had multiple times, uh, over the pond as they say. So first of all, I went to Denmark and then I went to Italy. I know it's a bit of a weird combination. There was a family, big family reunion,

uh, in Denmark, lots of Danes. They love to drink and they're very tall and good looking. And I felt out of place. Um, and then I went to Italy.

Yep. The Danes that I talked to were shocked that some of the Canadians that were on the trip followed soccer or football so closely. And I said, and this was something that related to what you recently said about, you know, being able to see all the players. I said, it wasn't like this when I was growing up. It was not.

Because you couldn't follow the teams and now when you see what kids are wearing there are more soccer jerseys there's more man city jerseys psg jerseys really then i would say any sport right now like there's more soccer related gear being worn in Vancouver elementary schools than I think any sports. So the year, there's a lot to, there's Canuck stuff during the playoffs, but like,

I mean, something has to do with, it's something, some of it has to do with like, you know, you can wear a soccer jersey. You don't want to wear a hockey jersey every day or whatever. But like,

and kids aren't going to go like sons out guns out with their NBA jerseys in the middle of November. But like the amount of knowledge too that kids have about soccer is through the roof compared to when we were kids and it took the europeans by surprise that we talked to that we could kind of hold our own in a conversation about soccer they were, I thought you guys played that ice hockey. Yeah. Yeah, we do. We do.

I mean, we're, you know, I don't know how much longer the Americans are going to get. Yeah, yeah. No, but I think it was noteworthy that they were surprised. And you compare that to when the World Cup went to the United States in 1994 and when the World Cup is going to come to the United States as well as Canada and Mexico in 2026 I think the overall knowledge of the North American fan base is going to be a million times higher than it was in 94 so I kept where you were gone I kept coining this is like hot footy summer for Canada what we just went through because it was a month of wall-to-wall all day all night uh coverage on like one of our major networks and people

not complaining about it no and people here's the thing and especially with Copa America um on at times that were more digestible for a North American audience like games not on at nine o'clock in the morning or noon like Like primetime, I'm home from work. I turn on the TV and there's Canada and Venezuela on a Friday night where I can sit down and it's on and it's Canada. So I'm going to watch it. We had countless anecdotes coming in about that.

And that's a big part of it. The next iteration of that will be doing this more full time as opposed to just for major tournaments. And I don't know if the major broadcast networks are ever going to get there but that's fine it's one step at a time it sounded like copa america was really well organized yeah that was we had a lot of conversation about that as it pertains to hosting now there's a lot of wrinkles to it right um one of them is that the general consensus is that come to ball drop the ball yeah big time is that with all due respect to the u.s being the host it's the federation that's in charge and

overseeing most of it and they did a lousy job at the same time it was very apparent that a lot of the u.s based stadiums and locations weren't ready to deal with the passion. Well, that, but also the quality that the managers and the players expected. Oh, in terms of the setup for the training grounds and the turf and everything like that? The turf was a disaster. Yeah, yeah. And that started on the opening match

between Canada and Argentina. Did it get better? No. No. It didn't? Well, they eventually managed to get away from some of the venues that had to have the artificial turf laid down like the the final was played at hard rock in miami yeah and then i did notice they were going like exclusively between

uh places where the turf would be less of an issue because in in atlanta was really bad that mercedes but they had just laid that that was the problem they laid it three days before the turn what do you think it's gonna be like like at BC Place for the Wrexham game? I know you had Axel on the show. Was it yesterday? Yeah, yesterday. Did you ask him if that was a bit of a warm-up for the World Cup to test anything? Yes, and he was very cagey about his answer.

So he made it clear that— Because it's not like FIFA is going to come in and run the Wrexham game. But it's also like the Whitecaps— I wonder if they're going to show up, though. The Whitecaps aren't running the Wrexham game. Oh, who's running it? It's a third-party promoter. The Comma Ball?

Yeah, Comma Ball is taking it over. Yeah, very good. No. I see. Okay. Wrexham's got a third-party promoter that is kind of doing the Wrexham tour. So Axel came on our show and specifically stated, we are essentially guests in our own stadium for the night.

So he says, I cannot confirm anything. And then he dropped the, but my sources tell me. I'm like, oh, Axel's got sources. That's good. That they have requested Graspi laid down for the game and that it's probably going to go through. And that's on July 27th. Rob and Suri texting into the Dunbar Lumber text line.

Rob, good to hear from you again. Hashtag sports in school. I'm a grade 6-7 teacher, and I cannot talk sports with the kids anymore. All they talk about is major European club football and NBA, when all I know about is Major League Baseball, the NFL, and NHL. It changed a little bit this spring with the Canucks

making the playoffs, but Jason is bang on about soccer jerseys being the most prevalent in elementary and middle schools around the lower mainland. There is a reason that the Vancouver Whitecaps are worth many, many millions into the hundreds of millions probably. And the BC Lions are not worth that, even though

their attendance numbers are similar. And you might even say that the BC Lions still have more interest in this province than the vancouver white cap yeah there is a the people can see where this is going people can see where mls is going um in large part because of what happened over the last year with a lot of i'm not even saying like aging superstars anymore but pretty significant european players uh departing europe because those clubs don't have the money. And it's like, well, you can go to Saudi Arabia and play

there, or you can try this North American thing. The other really interesting thing with MLS right now is that they've also made massive inroads into South America. So if you look atop some of the best players in MLS right now, for teams that you wouldn't pay attention to in Vancouver, there are some really good

young, and i'm talking like early 20s south american players that are realizing they can make a lot more money at the early stages of their career go to mls get profile and then go and sign for a big club in europe and maybe in better facilities too there's a lot of new stadiums in mls better stadiums, just honestly more exposure because of the Apple TV thing. Messi's given the global reach of MLS like a massive shot in the arm. There's a lot to it. And MLS acknowledges itself as a sell-on league. They're more than happy to move these guys along if they star for a year.

And then it looks good on the league. South American clubs want to keep them? Well, some of them do. Or it's just a different type of business. Because it's a lot glitzier and glamorous for MLS to be like, hey, look at all the guys that we've sent. They send out press releases all the time of, like, former MLS players that are doing the business in Europe.

Yeah. That's where Alphonso Davies gets a lot of mention. It's like, look at our former player. He's a star at Bayern Munich now. So there's all that to consider. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. What is your Mount Rushmore of saddest Canucks moments?

And I thought, okay, so my first day back, we're going to go through the saddest Canucks moments, but why not? You are the commissioner of the sad club. Okay. We got to make some ground rules on this first. It has to be a feeling of sadness in the moment okay so it can't be hindsight sadness like training cam neely

and watching him turn into a hall of famer agreed okay let's also keep it to sports sadness okay not actual tragedies like losing luke bordon or rick rippin this is a fair rule supposed to be a fun sports show those were real-life tragedies and they Luke Bordon or Rick Rippon. It's a very fair rule. It's supposed to be a fun sports show. Those were real life tragedies and they don't belong on any Mount Rushmore list. So when you text in, why aren't you talking about Luke Bordon? Just go back and listen to the podcast.

Okay. We've already explained it. So these are my personal ones and I'm pretty sure they're going to differ to others, but Mount Rushmore is our personal thing. The first one's probably going to be the same for everyone. Losing Game 7 in 2011 followed by the riot. Sad. I was legitimately sad then.

That was a sadness that I felt for almost a decade. Excluding Game 7 of 2011 would be like Andy excluding Mount Rushmore from the list of Mount Rushmore. You can't do it. You can't do it. My number two is choking against the Minnesota Wild in 2003. I remember being at game seven. I wasn't even working in sports media then. I was just, I don't know.

God, how old was I? 50. I think I was in my 20s. I remember it well. And I remember thinking, how the hell did we lose that game? Darby Hendrickson, Richard Park. Why are these guys killing us right now?

Number three for me, and this is the first time, this is when it gets kind of personal. This is the first and actually only time the Canucks made me cry. Losing to the Flames in 1989. And I know the Canucks were heavy underdogs and the Flames actually went off to win the Stanley Cup that year. But go watch that overtime on YouTube.

The Canucks had so many chances to win that thing. They should have won that thing. We all talk about the, oh, he kicked it in as the game winning goal in 89. The real disappointment for me in that game was the fact that they didn't bury some of their chances. Yep. Like Smiel had that breakaway on Mike Verne

and Petr Scrico had a bunch of chances. Someone hit the post. I can't remember. It might've been, I can't remember who hit the post, but they should have won. It was an incredible overtime. If you've ever got some time to kill, go watch it on YouTube in its entirety. That's number three.

And number four, I hate the Flames. I hate losing to the Flames. Losing to the Flames in 2004 was my number four saddest moment. I thought the Canucks were destined to win that after Matt Cook tied it late. And then, you know, we all remember that he tied it with Ed Jovanovsky in the penalty box.

And then the Flames just went on right into overtime and they won it on the power play. And it was like, oh. Guys, we're good. We still got a man advantage here. Yeah. I mean, listen, the Canucks went through about what, three or four different goalies in that

series. It was, so I don't know if they were going to go on. I know the Flames went on to the Stanley Cup final. I don't know if the Canucks were destined to do that. It's so long ago

that I can't remember all the details, but I just remember feeling that crushing disappointment because I thought they were going to do it after they tied it late. Nathan Lafayette post.

Okay, so here's my notes. I did not include 1982 or 1994-82. I don't really remember. They were swept by the Islanders. The Islanders were, you know, obviously an incredible team. Nobody expected the Canucks to win that Stanley Cup final. And I don't recall feeling overly sad about 94.

I was miserable. I felt appreciative for the journey. Your 89 was my 94 because that was my first real sports sadness memory. Right. And I remember vividly, still remember that post vividly when I was 10 years old. But it's funny, like, but I know. It etched in my mind. I know it was a game seven loss.

I know there was a riot afterwards. But the Canucks also had, like, this rally. There was a rally for the Canucks. I believe it was held at BC Place where people, I mean, that was a celebration of that team. There wasn't that sadness. And the thing about the Nathan Lafayette post is I never remember them seeing that on the broadcast.

I remember that being, oh, wait a minute. They looked back on it. And is that the same memory you have? Yeah. Like we weren't sure what happened on the play and you know there wasn't hd like there is now and they were like lafayette hit the post there oh my god cemented on replay than in real time actually i think that's why it's harder to have like an actual play by play of the actual event like it was it was more immortalized when they

went to the monitor after that's how i recall it anyway but this a lot of this is personal recall which is why you've got like the 2004 lost the flames i wouldn't have had that in mind yeah i just hate the flames no i get that but 89 i would have because that was my first real heartbreak with the facts that was the one i remember the most and it was a crushing way to lose. Yeah. And that was one where it's like, well, they were still underdogs. And the fact they took it to seven was great. That is all true. But there was still the heartbreak at the end of it.

They should have won. They should have won. They deserve to win that series. A couple others for your consideration, just to throw it out there. Underrated one, but i wrote about this back in our curtain blog days i remember it distinctly uh i said that this was the most crippling injury ever in canucks history and that was naslin breaking his leg against buffalo in 2001 and it just cratered everything they sputtered down i remember i remember watching him on the

ice and he was clearly in considerable amounts of pain. So right away you knew it was serious. So there's the immediacy of sadness, and you're like, the Canucks had just sort of turned the corner back into being a good team. They were going to go to the playoffs. I remember there was still a lot at stake at the end of the regular season

because I think they were trying to avoid two teams in the playoffs, and it was Colorado and San Jose. And then Nazem broke his leg. They sputtered down the stretch. They got bombed in the playoffs, and it was Colorado and San Jose. And then Nazem broke his leg. They sputtered down the stretch. They got bombed in the playoffs. I just remember it was the most deflating late-season injury for a collective team because Nazem was the team at that point. He was so pivotal.

Do you know what? I barely remember that because I think I was still on my checked out of the Canucks. All the early 2000 ones, that's why I'm surprised you remember 04 against the Flames because that was still in that year. No, but 03 was what brought me back. Yeah, West Coast Express brought him back. West Coast Express brought me back.

So 01, so I know Keenan wasn't there, but I checked out on the Canucks. I really did. And part of it was to do with where I was in life. I mean, I was in university. I was doing other things. It was just – and they were bad, and I was like, I'm did. And part of it was to do with where I was in life. I mean, I was in university. I was doing other things. I was, you know, it was just, and they were bad. And I was like, I'm out. So on that note.

I cried after the OEL trade. Can we put that in there? So on that note, where you were kind of checked out at the time, how, what, your memories of the Lidstrom goal against Cloutier, does that just sort of a blip for you? No, no, no. I remember the Canucks going into Detroit and going up 2-0. That might have brought me back in some ways.'m like wait a minute are they gonna do this because

that one's kind of remembered when you're talking about the immediacy of hurt that one is kind of remembered as everyone in the building you could feel the air just being let out of the team yeah because they were up to nothing on detroit they they didn't really have control of the series yes they were up too but you were always kind of wondering, are they going to have enough gumption to put it away? And then that goal goes in and everything cratered from there. So that was one that I think a lot of people... That was a back-breaking moment that everyone expected to happen.

But when it finally did, it was like, it still hurts. Kudos to the folks at the province because they did a... When the Canucks turned 50, they did a retrospective look about moments and they had the 1998 trade of Trevor Linden as one of the saddest moments in franchise history and I at the time I do wonder like I looking at it now you can't you can't really understand the sadness because it did give us great fruit like it brought bertuzian which paved way for the west coast express and everything and the trade

tree from linden gave great things to the organization but you know if you go back and you read some of the tributes that came out like people felt like they got their heart ripped out when linden got traded yeah all because of the fact that he was the canucks and then keenan came in and essentially humiliated the guy and then they were forced to trade him and then you could feel like he was broken up about it because he never wanted to be anything other than a canuck and the canucks really never ever should have had him leave the organization even though it got gave great um assets back in the trade have you ever had a checkout of the Canucks? Do you ever checkout?

It's not like you say, like, I'm done with this team. It just happens. You know, it just happens that all of a sudden you're kind of like, wait a minute, I normally would have been interested in that, and I'm not anymore. Was it the last four years before? I was going to say, like, dude, even working the games, like, I would feel, like, half invested.

I would feel checked out. Even working them, I'd feel checked out. But you haven't, while you've been working, you haven't really been able to check out. Part of this was work-related. When we made the move to start covering the league big picture after 2011, I started paying attention less. And then after 2013,

I remember thinking this is a bad sign. There were red flags everywhere, right? They had been bounced from like really definitively in two playoff rounds. Vino got fired. And then when they hired Torts, I was like, that's a red flag. That's not good.

There was a lot where I was like, okay, I can. And then the whole Willie era, I remember being very checked out. I went back and was looking at some of the things that happened. And I was like, God, I don't even remember that. And I'm talking like 2014, 2015, 2016. Players coming in. It's so bad. You're like half invested in the games.

We did the Mount Rushmore. I guess Linden Bay could work out. Yeah, we did the Mount Rushmore of bad Canucks contracts, and someone was like, you forgot about Speza? I'm like, I did forget about Speza. I just tuned out on that entirely. Joining us now on the Halford & Brough Show, Thomas Dranz from The Athletic and Canucks Talk here on Sportsnet 650.

You want to do some Mount Rushmores with us? Yeah, sure. Sounds good. Okay. Be fitting of Brough's return to the chair today, someone wanted to compile the Canucks' saddest moments. The Sad Club Commission self spearheaded this one. And we had some ground rules. Yeah, the ground rules has to be a feeling of sadness in the moment.

So Cam Neely being traded and blossoming into a Hall of Famer doesn't count because it wasn't in the moment. And also, very important, sports sadness only, so not actual tragedies like losing Luke Bourdain or Rick Rippon. So Jason will reiterate his list of four, and then you can add or subtract as you see fit. So mine was losing Game 7 in 2011, followed by the Riot. Very sad.

Obvious number one. Choking against the Wild in 2003. Losing to the Flames in 89. Losing to the Flames in 89. And losing to the Flames in 2004. Those were my four. And so these are all personal lists. So what would your personal list be? Okay, so I'm going to go a little deeper and go moments, specific moments.

Because you're right. Like my number one, by a lot. By a lot. Not close. And at this point, you know, I'm talking, I'm dating back to when I was still a fan. So, you know, the one that hurt me the most by far was from 2011, but was not losing game seven to the Stanley Cup final.

It was Jonathan Tave scoring the shorty in game seven against Chicago. Ooh, good choice. Yeah. Now this sadness only lasted for, what, 25, 30 minutes before Alex Burrow scored the dragon's flag. But it was a deep sadness. Very profound. And a deep worry and a deep sense of dread.

Oh, I'm telling you, this was looking into, like, the pit of despair. Like, I remember the just, like, pure, nihil nihilistic like what are we even doing here why do i even follow this sport like what am i what am i doing with my life like i i was in a dark dark place for a solid 30 minutes there right and you know the context of the two consecutive series losses prior to it to chicago the amount of distaste that I'd sort of built up for that Blackhawks team, right? The way that they sort of frittered away the three nothing series lead or pissed it away as Ryan Kessler once memorably put it.

And then, and then to, you know, the safety of like, wow, they've taken a penalty. They're going to do this right. And how well they played all night,

despite not being able to solve Corey Crawford to pad their lead. And then to get scored on that individual effort, right? Where there's not even any danger there until Taves bats in his own rebound. That was brutal. That was brutal. That for me is number one and it's number one with a bullet.

I would go number two honestly i think number two would be the the three nothing goal in the 2011 stanley cup uh final game seven that was when marchand kind of bold blue on go over yeah and and it went into the net and it was like that was the moment that you knew like that was the moment that it was like oh it's really not happening tonight you know you knew you knew earlier, but, like, you really knew there. And you knew that the players knew at that point, right? That, to me, would be number two. Yeah, that's when the smart car got really worried on Georgia Street, too.

To two from the same playoff run. That was brutal. That was grisly. I honestly, like, I'm tempted to put number three because, you know, the real moment where 2011 hits you is when you wake up the next morning and you're like wow wow but i'm not going to do that um i think the other one for me would be um the other one for me would be the uh i i do think the marty gelina elimination goal to power the flames past the Canucks in 2004. That one was brutal because of the, you know, the opposite effect of the Jonathan Taves moment, right?

Where you have this incredible, incredible low following, you know, this unbelievable joy from, you know, the Naslund rebound to Matt Cook goal with seven seconds left to force overtime there. That was rough. That was rough for sure. And then for me, I can't put 94. I can't put the Stanley Cup final loss in 94 on the list simply because I was a little bit too young.

You know what I mean? I didn't really like i appreciated that the canucks were losing i i understood that much but like i remember most of the second period i was like out on a trampoline eating a slurpee like i was just like it's june you know so how often do you still do that not enough honestly it sounds great just like sitting with my friends because there's so many people over at the house for a game and being like, and, you know, like we watched. It's just I didn't really compute. I didn't understand sort of what the next 20 years of my life were going to be like as a Canucks fan.

You know what I mean? Like I was just like slurpy. This red slurpy is good, like better than your blue slurpy. Bad call. Right. this red Slurpee is good, like better than your blue Slurpee. Bad call, right? So, you know, I think for four or five, or sorry, for four, I'd probably put the, I think the one that I do remember being really, really mad about was the Patrick Kane backhand, right? To seal the hat trick and finish off the Canucks.

Because you remember how well they played that game? Matt Sundin had that beautiful goal off some – and the Canucks had been up in that series. Like, that was the series where, you know, a Marion Hossa scored to tie game four. Canucks were, like, 30 seconds or 25 seconds away from taking a 3-1 series lead that year. So that one was pretty – that one hurt, as I recall.

And then I guess I'll go with, I don't remember who scored it. I think it was Rob Niedermeyer scoring to eliminate the Canucks in that first Roberto Luongo Canucks playoff run. What was that, 06, 07? No, 06 would have been the lockout year. 07, yeah. Oh, no, no, it's 08. It's got to be 08.

Oh, to eliminate them. To eliminate them, okay. To eliminate them against the Anaheim Ducks. So game five of the second round in, I think, 2008. It's got to be 08. 07, sorry. It is 07. 07, they lost to the Ducks in the playoffs.

Yeah, that's what he's talking about. I just mixed my ears. I was in Cabo. Less sad. And it was Scott Niedermeyer, wrist shot from the point. Okay, Scott Niedermeyer. So I got the year wrong and the Niedermeyer wrong, which is always a good sign. But yeah, so

Niedermeyer with Milongo having returned from the bathroom. And yeah, you were in Cabo. I was on a cruise with my family and listening on the radio somewhere. So you're trapped with the family. Well, not only was I trapped with my family, but I remember I couldn't watch the game. Like I couldn't find the game and I walked sort of to the bar

and there was like four sad Canucks fans listening to the game on the radio. And I was like, oh, sick, and joined them to listen to it. But I just remember, like, you know, I lived on the East Coast. So that double overtime or quadruple overtime game, which you guys I know remember against the Stars in the first round, like I stayed up till 5 a.m. to watch that game. You know what I mean? Like it was insanely late when that game ended.

I wasn't even at my house i think it was at my girlfriend at the time's house um and then yeah it didn't last and then uh and then the uh and then i just had a sense that season like the luongo run the canucks have this goalie and it's all gonna so i feel like i was young enough i was old enough to know the pain there but young enough i feel like feel like i was young enough i was old enough to know the pain there but young enough i feel like that one's more about me i was old enough to know the pain of losing but young enough to like really think that that team had a shot right uh even though of course they didn't so that one that one hurt that that one will be five on my list but yeah

my main takeaway is the taves the 30 minutes after the taves overtime winner against chicago that was the darkest Chicago that was the darkest hour for Canucks fans. Pre-analytic Strantz sounds like a pretty good guy. Sounds hopeful. Sounds optimistic. Sounds like a kind of guy I'd like to hang out with.

Drancer, we were of course talking since this is my first show back after being away a couple weeks. We were talking about Gareth Southgate and how he went from a hero in england to i don't think there are many people in england that are too upset that he has resigned the job um despite the fact that i think some of the criticism of southgate was pretty unfair and he took the england program back to a level that um you know you know, they had never really been at in terms of, you know, they won two Euro finals, a semi at the world cup

quarterfinals, um, at the world cup and they lost a really good teams. There was no shame in it, but we were kind of comparing it to, um, Rick Talkett and talking about the criticisms of Gareth Southgate and the criticisms, whether they were fair or not, was that he was too conservative. He was too stubborn. He wouldn't evolve tactically.

Sometimes he didn't adapt in games. What are, and I wasn't saying that this is going to happen to Rick Talkett, but I just thought it was kind of interesting because we all know the state of the canucks when um rick talk it took over and you know most people will know the state of england when when uh gara southgate took over and they just lost iceland you know iceland in in the euros so i guess my question is how can rick talkett avoid the fate of gareth southgate who went from a hero to a much criticized manager in a fairly short time span uh not be a not be a coach of a professional sports team that matters a lot to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people right i mean that i

think that's the fate of every coach right like i think the fate of every coach is to eventually have your time come yeah i do i honestly believe but some coaches win and some coaches some coaches evolve more than others yes and so i guess okay anyway i cut you off so, no, it's fine. It's like if you win, then after the criticism subsides and as time goes on, you're remembered a little bit more fondly versus like an Alain Vigneault where, you know, you're still sort of recognized as the greatest coach in the history of the Canucks franchise, but you didn't get it done, right?

You didn't get it done, and that modifies your legacy, right? And I think the, cause I was thinking a little bit about this myself, to be totally honest with you guys, cause I was reading a lot about Southgate. I quite admired the guy over time. But I, but I came to, but I came to sort of the, like reading about the stability that he brought, you know, the,

the contrast I think that emerged in England between him and his eight years tenure versus like five national leaders, right. The idea that like Southgate was one of the most stable things in the country over the course of eight years as the country went through all this instability. And it did sort of really remind me a little bit of sort of like the emotional quotient, the emotional intelligence that we saw from Rick Tockett. That like one of the things that has been most impressive about Tockett since he took over.

Because we can talk tactics, you can talk goal scoring, you can talk whatever you want. Like, I feel like the real accomplishment of what we've seen over the course of the last 18 months, well, no, there's multiple ones. The defensive organization is obviously, you know, a top line item as well. But I do think it's, like, the way that Talkit seemed to be able to get the pieces that the Canucks had to blend in a way that sort of led to winning, right? And that was sort of my biggest question going into last season, right? It's like, I knew JT Miller was good.

I knew Quinn Hughes was remarkable. You know, I still believe in Elias Pettersson, and I think more than, you know, Jason. No, but, you know, despite the talent that the Canucks core had, right, they hadn't been able to put it together collectively in service of winning hockey games consistently. And as you sort of think about, like, what we saw from Miller, especially, right, who sort of became the face of this,

it just felt like with the way that Rick Tockett demanded this team carry themselves, with how he was able to relate to his players, you know, and, you know, I bring up the core guys, but like it applies to Tyler Myers too, right? Nikita Zdorov, like on and on down the list. It felt like the individual players on the Canucks were able to channel certain things that even had held them back in the past in service of winning hockey games, right?

There was this level to which they appeared to get better, not just as players, but in terms of conducting their business as individuals at the NHL level. Now, is that all attributable to Rick Tockett? Is this the maturity or sort of an immature group getting more mature, figuring it out collectively? Like, I'm sure there's, I'm sure it's more complicated than that,

but I certainly find it tempting to give Tockett a lot of credit because of the way he carries himself, right? Because of what we see from him in interviews, because of sort of that generosity of spirit that leads him to walk you through X's and O and o's like he'll spend time lining up reporters and like really try to explain to them how this team plays right that's pretty special that's not something that you see from a lot of different guys and and as i was reading about southgate's tenure that was really the

sort of um the sort of connective tissue between Southgate and Talk It that I independently sort of came to reading it. It just felt like, you know, while people

can get lost in the tactics or overweight the tactics, it's like that EQ that both men share that I

do think is a real commonality between them. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.