Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 7/18/24

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, the boys breakdancing at the Olympics with CBC "Breaking" commentator Mark Strong, plus the boys give their Mount Rushmore rankings of this year's Summer Olympics events.  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. Looking for Pico. Look at that. Pico's on a tear now, too. Maybe one of the best positives from us doing well in Copa America is that we can show some of these dual nationals that the program is serious and we're going places. Barney was 6 for 26. Jalen Brown was 5 for 26 from the field. He seems like a good upside.

I like my golfers in long pants. Good, Barney Vancouver. 6 o'ers in long pants. Good morning, Vancouver. Six o'clock on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver.

Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler.

Pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling. They recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We're also coming to you live from the Kintec Studios. Jason will tell you more about Kintec right now. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider.

Powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Soar feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. You know, some people challenged us to put together a competent radio show on the slowest of slow sports days. We did it. It took approximately seven hours yesterday, but we did it. Guest list begins today at 6.30.

Adam Stanley is going to join us. Sportsnet golf analyst. The Open Championship is underway from Royal Troon, or Troon as they call it, or do they call it Royal Troon? I don't think it's Royal Troon. I think it's just Troon. It doesn't have a crown. It's just Troon.

Just good old Troon. It looks horrible over there. It looks like the course has some teeth, as they say, this morning. I love golf talk. We'll talk to Adam about that. The first round is underway. There's a bunch of scores already posted. We'll get to that later in the show.

7 o'clock. Very excited to talk to Mark Strong from CBC Radio. You might recognize him. He's been on CBC Radio for a while, but he's also going to be calling and commentating the breaking competition from this year's Olympic Games. Break dancing. So here's the thing. Break dancing.

Do not call it breaking. Can we tell an A-Dog story? We can. Nobody calls it breaking. So I said to Andy yesterday in the midst of trying to get guests on today's show, A-Dog, can you please track down one of the break dancing commentators for CBC at the upcoming Olympics? And then he said, what's the difference between breaking and break dancing? And I said nothing.

They are the same thing. I have never heard anyone in my life call break dancing breaking. So, that's not exactly how it went. There is a list of commentators provided, and it was commentators for swimming, commentators for basketball, and there was a few commentators provided for breaking. Adog replies to the group chat goes, is breaking break dancing? Yeah. So, okay. This is not a stupid question.

1,000% yes. No, it's not. Because, first of all, you should have been able to just make that match in your mind. Yeah. Second of all. You can see how they got there. What is breaking if it is not breakdancing? And why would there be commentators for the sport of...

Breaking news, maybe? Breaking Olympic news? Breaking stuff? Like maybe there's a glass-breaking competition? Yet again, every day is what we learn. You didn't think this through, did you? No, I did not. Mark Strong... Again, though, breakdancing is what it should be called. You know what? So, it is breaking, by the way.

I know that's what they're calling it, but they shouldn't be calling it. And since they are in charge of the sport, they get to call the shots. Break dancing sounds, what, too cool or something? So they got to call it something stuffy? It's like how the Olympics rolls? Yes. If there's one thing. That sounds stuffy, all right.

If there's one thing that break dancing is synonymous with, it's stuffiness. Oh, will you be watching the breaking this morning? Yeah, exactly. What's with that? I did a lot of research on the competition. Learned a lot. I had to as well. Did you really?

Yeah. Did you really? Yeah. Okay, that'll be good because I've done none. Yeah, we should go in with a little bit of knowledge as we talk to Mark Strong at 7 o'clock. Again, he'll be calling the breaking competition. Break dancing. Okay, please stop.

And I was marveled to find that Elliot Friedman is going to be doing the rowing and the kayaking play-by-play. And not only that, we're going to have Freedj on the show next week. We asked him to come on today. Not for hockey talk, though. We're not going to ask him to sing a hockey song. Ask him about rowing. Rowing Insider, the 32 rows podcast.

The 32 strokes. Yeah, I thought that, and I didn't want to say it. Yeah, don't Google that. Yeah, it's a different podcast. Freedj is going to join us next week. We're going to go Olympic heavy, and that's kind of one of the themes of today's show as well, by the way. 7.30, Corey Lavalette from the North State Journal and The Athletic.

He is the Carolina Hurricanes beat writer for both of those outlets. We're going to talk to him about a very transformative and not in a good way offseason for the Canes, and then yesterday the contract termination of Evgeny Kuznetsov. So we'll talk to Corey about that. 8 o'clock, our boy Marcus Fitzgerald. Right here, Basketball Central on Sportsnet 650. We'll talk to Fitzy about Canada at the Olympics.

USA steamrolling through its pre-Olympic tournament. A little bit of Barani. We'll talk a little bit of Barani James. We'll talk about everything that's going on in the NBA offseason. There's lots to get into with Marcus. When are the Sonics going to be back?

And expansion. When are the Sonics going to be back? You know, last week we had, oh sorry, it was earlier this week. Do you know how

cool that's going to be? And do you know how possibly bad that's going to be for the Kraken? We talked about this with Dave Softy

Mahler. He was like 26, 27. Yeah, he said he thinks that there'll be an announcement in the latter part of this year. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, he kind of penciled in 2026, 2027 as their first season.

But he said it's an inevitability, and the clock is ticking on the Kraken. He was very critical of the Kraken's work so far, not just on the ice, but how they've failed to penetrate the market. So we talked to him about that a lot.

A lot of penetration. A lot of penetration talk on the 32 Strokes podcast. Marcus Fitzgerald at 8 o'clock. Corey LaVallette at 730.

Mark Strong at 7. Adam Stanley at 630. That's the program. Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No.

What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance, making safety simpler by providing construction companies

the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. We begin with the lone local sporting event of the evening last night. Which I could not watch on regular TV, although I was able to watch LAFC and Rail Salt Lake. Wasn't that an odd choice? Yeah. I watched a bit of the Montreal Red Bulls game, too. Another prominent sports network in Canada that shall not be named

was not carrying your Vancouver Whitecaps last night, but instead another MLS match. You had to go to Apple TV to watch the Whitecaps edge Sporting Kansas City 2-1 on Wednesday night at home at BC Place. Fafa Pico, rumored to be wanting out of Vancouver via trade request, shot down by Axel Schuster on this very show. Scored the

winner late in the second half. It never really should have been that close, but it was. Whitecaps stretch their unbeaten streak to five matches with the victory. And all in all, good result. Maybe not the greatest process, but the Whitecaps put another three points in the bag. So how

are they doing overall? Do we expect them to do anything once they get to the playoffs? We expect them to qualify for the playoffs. They're fourth in the Western Conference right now. But it looks like there are some teams that are some really good teams. The two L.A. teams look pretty good. Inter-Miami, Columbus looks pretty good. In the West, the two los angeles teams

are i would say the class maybe of the league if not definitely the western conference i've watched rail salt lake's pretty good too yeah but rail salt lake doesn't have the talent that those two they're up there in the standings but lafc and the la galaxy they have like they're loaded they're stacked teams yeah Yeah. They got full. I mentioned yesterday all these younger, like early 20s South American players that have come through and signed from different countries in South America, obviously. And they both feature a lot of them.

They score a lot of goals. They're very dynamic in the way that they play. They're good teams. They're very strong teams. And the Whitecaps are a notch below that for sure uh you mentioned the standings what's happened recently is a very good thing not only are they winning matches but they're actually you know scoring goals they had a really that helps to win matches i find see this is the kind of analysis that you're not going to get on other

programs especially here at sportsnet 650 scoring goals equals soccer victories. They had a really lousy May. The Whitecaps, I don't know if you remember, because... I don't. You do, because it was punctuated at the end of May with that, you know, Messi-less match. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a very weird way, it almost... They lost that one, too.

Yeah, they lost. No Messi, no wins. No. One goal. It almost felt, in retrospect, like they were so excited about the match that they almost put the actual art of trying to win games prior to it on hold. They're like, we're going to save everything up for the Miami match. That didn't work. They had a really rough patch where they had one win in six. They only scored four goals over the six matches.

So here's what I'll say. They're not a perfect team. They've got kind of a weird roster where they don't have all the pieces that you would expect from a contender. There's still gaps everywhere. They score a lot of goals. They make things more difficult on themselves

than it needs to be, though. That's the problem consistently across the board. There's only been like two or three instances this year, including an earlier match where they hammered TFC 4-0, where you thought that was a complete performance. They looked good defensively. The keeper made good stops. They scored a lot of goals.

They were dominant. Like yesterday against Sporting Kansas City, they should have been up at a minimum 3-0 at the half. Sporting KC took the very risky approach of not starting its best 11 because they were short. They were like, oh, worked for Inter-Miami. Yeah. They didn't start anyone and they won.

And they won handily, I might add. They were shorthanded. They only showed up with like 15 or 16 guys. God, Vancouver is just like, they should never lose at home. They shouldn't. And they haven't been good at home this year. It's only five victories at home.

So I would say my expectations are they'll get to the playoffs. If they get a favorable first-round matchup, they might get through that. But right now, it seems very, very unlikely that they'll be able to get through one of the powerhouse teams. Okay. I have another question for you. Yeah. What is with this 14-year-old kid playing for Philadelphia last night?

That was a little weird. Okay. We do need to discuss this. 14 is what? Grade 8? 14. His... Grade 8 or 9? He's turning 15 in a matter of days. So he's... I believe he's going into the 9th grade in the fall. He was born in September 2009. Oh, he's in 09. Sorry.

Then he'd be going into the 10th grade. He's going into... Well, hopefully. Hopefully. We'll see. His geography has been a little off. So his name is Kevin Sullivan. I have heard about him in the past. He comes from a footballing family in America. His brother, who's 21, actually also plays for Philadelphia.

So they linked up yesterday. Late in a Philadelphia Union's 5-1 victory over the New England Revolution. Kevin Sullivan made his professional debut yesterday at 14 years, 293 days old. The reason that's important is because it set an MLS record and a North American professional sports record

as the youngest ever debutant, surpassing the sort of infamous Freddie Adu. You'll all remember him, I'm sure. He was the previous American wunderkind who was supposed to be the next great thing, and really the first sort of superstar for American football. Never really panned out for him. He ended up just becoming a journeyman player in Europe.

He played for 15 teams over a 15-year career. Good, not great player. Yeah, and some would argue maybe not even good. Like, good as a youth player, but as an adult, not that great. There's always a concern, always a concern when kids are fast-tracked like this. And it happens in the football more and more because I think if you're physically mature and you're fast, you can just play, right? We saw it with the Spain team. Lamin Yamal, who turred 17 during the tournament.

He was an old guy by the end of it. Right. Yeah, he got his braces off after the semifinal, between the semifinal and the final. Now, I mean, what do you want me to say? Like 14 is crazy young to be playing with grown men and professionals and everything to the point where there's a bunch of stuff uh the bunch of rules they have to follow like labor law rules and things now he's he's already property of man city but he can't go because

of english labor laws and play with them until he's 18 is that english labor laws or is that just the premier league's rules about 18? Because the NHL has rules for 18 and the other major league. I think they might. I mean, I think very weirdly they might work in conjunction because their schoolboy rule like it's called it's a schoolboy program essentially. All of the big Premier League clubs

have these wide expansive academies. Yeah. And like there are young kids that get their debuts to but to be signed to a contract to become a full-fledged professional is a different thing like you can give a youth academy player a stint but it's under a totally different so does man city have a relationship with phil with philadelphia union i thought they had one with the new york yeah they do this isn't a relationship other than that they targeted cavin sullivan and want him to be a man city player

so they've worked out an agreement between the two clubs. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. Because I heard that there's a chance that this guy could also go play in... When he's 16, he can go play in France or some other European leagues that don't have the rules that England has. Right.

But Man City would sort of be the overseer? The steward of it all? The steward of it all. That's right. That's a good word. Now, aside from the nitty gritty and the semantics of the contracts and everything, there is a bigger story here about, you know, and I think a lot of parents are probably dealing with this on a smaller scale with their own kids,

about, you know, pushing them forward and playing them up an age group. And we had Macklin Celebrini's dad um Rick Celebrini on the show and he always talked about how Macklin played like one or two years ahead growing up and everything and I understand it from a competitive standpoint like that's what you want to do you always want to challenge and push your kids and everything this is a this is an extreme I still don't really know how I feel about this because they tried to make it a point yesterday, the Philadelphia Union of saying,

this isn't a publicity stunt. And I was like, yeah, it kind of is. The fact his brother's on the team, though, should help him. Having an older brother on the team, in the organization. I'm not saying it wasn't like good for the player. Like I'm sure he got something out of that.

Right. But there's a reason they put him in now. And it was because he was days away from not being able to break Freddie a dues record. And I don't want to be that cynical, but it also came at the slowest time on the sports calendar where something like this was going to grab a lot more national attention than any other time. Right.

I mean, we're talking about the day after the MLB all-star game, which is traditionally the slowest time in sports. And I, I mean, it's hard not to look at it a bit cynically that this is a bit of an attention grab from a league that wouldn't mind getting the attention. That's all I'll say about it.

We got a text into the Dunbar lumber text line. Jerk. You, Halford. 650-650. Text in on the Dunbar Lumber text line. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to Progress Way. That's progress. In

Tilbury's Industrial Park. That's my favorite industrial park. More room, more product, more awesome. Details at DunbarLumber.com. Unsigned text. I used to be a hardcore Whitecaps fan. Now I can hardly name five players. Their stock in Vancouver has fallen so far.

It's a shame, lost opportunity. Halford and I have talked about this on air and off air. They are, they should be further along than, than they really are. Um, in terms of their popularity in the city, we were talking yesterday about how kids are wearing, you know, soccer jerseys at school now of all the European clubs.

And I know it's not the same and they're not going to see, um, you know, many white caps players're not going to see, you know, many Whitecaps players or MLS players on, you know, on their video games and on social media and where they learn all this stuff. Because it's not necessarily on TV and it's sure not listening to the Alfred and Brough show on traditional radio.

I still think they've got this great opportunity. Like the opportunity is not lost on the white caps, but it does seem like they've wasted a lot of time. Is that fair to say? Like they've just wasted opportunities to really grab the city and create a tradition in this city. They're in year 13.

They're in year 13. I mean, that's all you need to say. And this is the market saturation that they're just coming out of another dark period. The Mark DeSantos era where they were bad on the pitch. They didn't win enough games. They didn't go to the playoffs. They didn't have enough good players.

And then they had to shut that down. And you remember having Mark on the show. I mean, he talked about how he was in charge of player recruitment and scouting and they didn't have those things in place and that was kind of shocking because you're like well but you're not an expansion franchise anymore you're well along and now you're starting to see an upswing again especially with attendance numbers like they had 23 000 at the game last night and having been a season ticket holder for a few seasons now it's got it's grown to this level like when i first

start we were talking about being in the 13 14 15 000s which at bc place does not look good yeah it does not sound good and when you go you kind of feel like you're in a sparse crowd it's a lot different this year but i think the sentiment there is if they had a fan that was willing to engage and his tuned out in a 13 year window that's not a good thing so i always get asked by um friends or you know people i meet how do you decide on what to talk about on the show and they always ask like do you get told what to talk about i say nope we don't want to talk about on the show. And they always ask, like, do you get told what to talk about? And I say, nope, we don't. And you can believe that or not. We don't get told what to talk about.

We can talk about whatever we want. But I say, so then they'll typically ask, you know, do you ever get tired of talking about all Canucks? And I'm like, yeah, sometimes, sometimes. And they say, do you talk much Lions or Whitecaps? And I say, we talk as much as we can. And the one thing that I tell them is sports talk radio is basically contributing to the soap opera of sports.

Sure. So with the Vancouver Canucks, there is a soap opera storyline for almost every player right down to the eighth defenseman and 13th forward. That's not true of the BC Lions, and it's not true of the Vancouver Whitecaps. That is the challenge in talking about a team that you know that a lot of the listeners don't know about. So there's this explanation factor that you have to go into. Yep.

And then you have to make them care about that. You know, last night, a perfect example of one of the things that I think is hurting the Whitecaps. Maybe it's helping the league, but I think it's hurting the Whitecaps, I couldn't watch the game. That doesn't help.

So Halford and I were chatting. I feel like that's a key to growth. We're chatting at around 5 o'clock. We're like, oh, God, what are we going to talk about tomorrow? We were setting out the plan for the show. And I said, okay, well, we'll leave with the Whitecaps, and you're going to watch that game, so you can get the details of the show. And I said, okay, well, we'll leave with the Whitecaps and you're going to watch that game so you can get the details of that game.

I said, I'll probably watch it, but you lead the way on that because you're the Whitecaps guy. I get home, my laptop's out and I'm ready to prep and it's 7.30 and around game time and I'm flipping around on the channels. I'm like, oh man, this is one of those Apple games.

I can't even watch it. Well, the majority of them are Apple games. That doesn't help. Yeah, the majority of them. That hurts, man. Like now I'm like, I wake up this morning and I don't know who won the Whitecaps game. And the Whitecaps have no control over this, just to be abundantly clear. This was a league decision and a very bold and a very innovative one

in an innovative can work both ways. Innovative can be like, oh, we're trying new things, but also you're taking new risks, right? Innovation isn't always good. Innovation can be very, very there's a glass ceiling. You got to break through sometimes and also sometimes when you make big

decisions, it has it hurts a certain segment. Right. And so when the Whitecaps spent the better part of those first 13 years with their games readily available on traditional cable models, people got used to it. And now the games have disappeared. And it's very difficult for some to understand exactly what you have to do. Because what you have to do is you can't just go to Apple. It's not a la carte on Apple TV.

You need to go and you need to purchase an entire MLS package. And it's honestly, even the minutiae of it, like if you go to Apple TV, it's not prominently displayed. It's on a side menu that you have to kind of click on. And is it something you pay for? Yeah. Now they've had...

Because I remember at one point they were giving away like free games you could watch. Even now it's hard to find them. They've had numerous Because I remember at one point they were giving away like free games you could watch. Even that was hard to find. They've had numerous free offers and like, you know, free trials and what have you. But like you said, it's not like just on the front of the page. You got to like dig through the menus for it, which seems a little bit like. It's not great. You know.

I got a text and tell Brough to return his beer cans and spend the hundred dollars on Apple TV. Hey, listen, I get it. But I have to make, I make choices about how much money I spend on Apple TV. Hey, listen, I get it. But I have to make choices about how much money I spend on certain things. And the MLS pass is... But there's a valid argument. I won't watch it

enough. There's a valid argument to be made that I already spent... Not I spent enough on streaming. I spent enough on soccer streaming. If you want to be a football fan... I thought all this stuff was supposed to make it more affordable for people to watch TV. Now it's just like you got all these subscriptions, you know. Sweet, simple, bro. It's crazy, man.

I did this exercise like a year ago. I spend more on streaming services than I did at cable when I decided to not have cable anymore. It's like it's pretty much become cable. I mean, it was. It's one of the more difficult things. Let's say that you enjoy. Is there a plan all along? Let's say you enjoy the sport.

It doesn't matter what league you follow in particular. Let's say that you enjoy the sport. It doesn't matter what league you follow in particular. Let's say you follow the sport. You've got a lot of choices you have to make about where your dollar is going to go towards. If you're an English Premier League fan, then you have to subscribe to Fubo. And if you want to watch the FA Cup, then you have to subscribe to Sportsnet World. Syria, don't worry.

That's on Fubo as well. But if you want to watch some of the lower leagues and Champions League, you have to subscribe to DAZN. It is very, very complex. There's like six different subscription services for soccers. What do you guys think about that whole notion, though, that I brought up about the soap opera and following it? Oh, absolutely.

I am not a soccer expert by any means. Tactically, when people start talking tactics, I can't say I'm lost but i'm definitely the listener as opposed to the talker um the england story with gareth southgate that is a soap opera everyone talks about it and and you will pick up information on that whether you like it or not that's not the same way with the white caps it's not the same way with the lions which is why in reality the soap opera around those teams the best soap opera is the business aspect of it well i'll go i'll go another direction with the

soap opera part of it and it's something that'll tie closer to home with soccer in canada is what canada's soccer team did the cope america the reason that that of it. And it's something that'll tie closer to home with soccer in Canada. It's what Canada's soccer team did at the Copa America. The reason that that was compelling was because it was a Cinderella run and they had a very central figure in Jesse Marsh that was bold and demonstrative and was getting all these, and was a good talker

and was out there saying really inspirational things and, you know, defending Canada. We had people texting him being like, I'd run through a wall for that man that's soap opera stuff that makes you care beyond like what formation it's a big stage what formation the canadians had right who's playing a striker like that stuff's interesting to the hardcores but for the soap opera aspect well we have to remember that about the canucks like if we start talking about f3 f2 F1 and all that sort of stuff there's five percent of our listenership that would be like I really like this this is really interesting there's 95

percent of our listenership that's like I don't care yeah I I want to know is Nikita Zdorov going to be back next season I want to know um you know is the coach getting along with this player I want the the juicy details I'm not an expert but I'm a fan of the team, and I want to follow that sort of stuff like a casual fan does. Even on this show sometimes I think we cater way too much to the hardcores because they're the ones texting in all the time. Sure. You talk to the casual Canucks fan,

and I won't even call it the casual Canucks fan. There are some hardcore fans that just don't care about a large segment of what everyone else is talking about. What a lot of, what a lot of the hardcores talk about. Like they just want to see the Canucks succeed and they want them to have success. And they're willing to,

you know, talk about the players and follow the players and all that sort of stuff, but they're not necessarily all that interested in the tactics. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. 7.01 on a Thursday. Have you ever asked yourself, what would the Olympic music sound like if it was free? Now you know. play that synth we have a five dollar budget to do this theme go to connect this is video game canada has won gold yeah who's handing out the medals is that a dog they're just generic flags of no particular country whatsoever.

This is the video for the corporate training to work at the Olympics. This is 100%. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sorfy, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. Probably the song to end.

I want this to keep going for forever. This should be the Olympic theme music. I don't know why they don't just use it. It's perfect. They're allowed. We know it's readily available. You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Halford & Brough of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda.

Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour two of the program. Mark Strong from CBC Radio, who is also going to be the lead commentator for the breaking competition at the Paris Olympics, is going to join us in just a moment here.

Hour two of this program is brought to you by Primetime Craft Beer. Meticulously brewed for quality and taste, Primetime is full flavor without compromise. You can get some at a liquor store near you or you can visit the brewery to see how it's made. We're working on getting Mark. Andy has his hand on the phone, his other hand giving me the finger,

his index finger, not the middle. It was like the shush finger. Yeah, it was a shush finger. Now he's laughing. So real quick, I did do some research, and I found out a few things about the breaking competition at the Paris Games. So interestingly enough, it's in the 2024 Olympics,

but it's out at the 2028 Olympics. It's already out? In Los Angeles. They didn't like it? Yeah, they haven't even done it yet. It doesn't really make a lot. I think this is how some of these experimental debut sports work. Anyway, what's going to happen is there's going to be

a men's and women's competition, B boys and B girls. There's going to be 16 competitors on each side. There's a round robin followed by quarterfinals, semifinals, and then the medal battles. So they actually go head to head. They face off for a minute, like one dances, and then right immediately, there's no break in between. The other one jumps in and basically answers

whatever the first B-boy or B-girl lays forth. That happens at a lot of weddings I go to. Right. It just breaks out in spontaneous dance battles. Now he's doing the chicken dance. Now there's a drink spilled all over the floor. And he took his shirt off. He wins.

Mostly so he can end the competition. There's a panel of nine, count them, nine judges. Now this was interesting. They have to really be on the ball they can't miss anything because there's no breaks in between competitors it goes back and forth back and forth they have an ipad with a sliding scale six different categories creativity personality technique variety perform performativity uh anyway each is worth 20 and then there's also penalties involved oh you can get penalized if you get penalized if you like do some sort of demonstrative gesture towards the

other dancer that is too aggressive either violent or like sexually explicit i guess there's no crotch grabbing maybe in the world i don't know hey i did the research all right here's the here's another interesting thing grab this crotch lost the point yeah i don't know. Hey, I did the research. All right. Here's another interesting thing. Oh, grabbed his crotch. Lost the point. Yeah, I don't think you can do that. Seriously. And also,

just like the ancient Greeks used to do. You don't have to roll a baseball. And they used to do it in the nude. Yeah, which is a totally different thing. This is very distracting and weird. The B-boys and B-girls, they don't know the music before they perform, which I think is interesting.

Maybe it's the intro music we just played. It's probably not. I bet it's not. Do we have Mark on the line now? Okay, very excited to talk more about this. You've heard him on CBC Radio. You're going to hear him quite a bit at the Olympics. Mark Strong joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

Good morning, Mark. How are you? Hey, good morning, guys. How are you guys doing? We're good. Thanks for taking the time to do this. So first things first, I got to ask you, when you heard that the Olympics were coming up

and that breaking was going to be in Paris, did you put yourself forward for the job? Did CBC come to you? How did this marriage happen between Mark Strong and being the lead commentator for breaking at the Paris Olympics? You know, it was definitely a shot in the dark to begin with. But I'm already doing a CBC wrap-up of the Olympics every day on a show called FOMO. So they also said, hey, listen, what do you think about the breakdancing segment?

Yo, I used to be a breaker way back. So I'm quite familiar with the whole culture and whatnot. So I'm absolutely down to do it. And they said, well, let's let's match up with switch b and see if we can make something happen and we uh went through a couple of dry runs and it was uh we had a great chemistry together but more importantly just really happy to be part of this like uh you know never couldn't be told story of hip-hop and um break dancing getting into like the Paris Olympics of 2024. Nobody could have written that. So Mark, one of the things that all sports fans take pride in is being able to watch

an event that they know nothing about for 10 minutes and then become instant experts. So how can you help us and our listeners become instant experts? Like what should we be looking for? What is some of the terminology that we can throw out there to impress the people that we're watching this with? I mean, listen, between the throwdowns, freezes, you got the 360s, the windmills, the backspins, you got the footwork, the uprocks.

There's a whole lot of different vocabularies or vocabs that we could throw in there. But I think what's going to be most intriguing for anybody who's watching the breakdancing competition is that the breakers are really, as much as artistic, you really get to understand that it is a real athleticism that is being displayed in these competitions. I think when it comes to terminology, you know how this is. Terminology gets reinvented and invented every six or seven minutes. So I'm sure that anything that you find, you could probably, you probably add to it and it'll probably make sense. And you could,

you could actually probably throw something out there and everybody was, well, maybe that's what it is. Maybe it is called a tulip. That was great. That was an awesome move. Whatever. How did they go about choosing judges for the Olympics? Judges wise, I just know that, I think it was through the original governing system that they went through

I'm going to say France where they had the original competition that had the what's the word I'm looking for qualifications and I don't believe that the actual judges are breakers themselves, which is good.

But in some ways, when it comes to the actual breakers, they were hoping that people were tuned to the actual culture, which they are. So they've done different judging competitions, but they are not themselves from the breaking culture. So, for example, I mean, a lot of people think that basketball players can coach and coaches can play. Not necessarily true. You just need to be part of the culture to know. Tell us about the Canadians competing in breaking at the Olympics and whether or not any of them are serious medal contenders. Absolutely.

Your boy Phil Woods is the one. We're all looking towards Phil to do his thing because Phil has a little payback for getting, I believe, silver in France a couple of years ago, and now he's going back to Paris and wants to come back home with that Canadian gold. I know he's born in Toronto,

but he claims Van City. So we're definitely looking out for Phil to be the number one frontrunner for Canada. And it's very, very possible that he will be. We're not talking about meddling. We're talking about gold, not just getting bronze or happy he's got silver. He's going for gold. And I think he's proven to be the one that is silver to gold. And we're hoping to push for gold this time. Yeah, he's got great gold and i think he's not i think it's he's proven to be the one that is silver to gold and we're hoping to push for gold this time yeah he's got great footwork

see already an expert yeah hey you use footwork it's perfect um so what else do you have planned for the olympics tell us about your your fomo program as well fomo's uh pretty much we took the regular use of FOMO and turned it into fear of missing the Olympics. If there's anything that you've missed throughout the whole day, we will take different snippets of what has been highlighted through the day. But more importantly, we're using our concept of stories over stats. Everybody will be talking about whether it be injuries or whether it be times or whether it be world records. We're more about not only talking to those who have made it to the front page, but those stories that you might not have really known about

or you'd be very interesting to find out about. So we've got a lot in store for FOMO. We'll also be talking to different celebrities and different ex-athletes and pro-Olympians who will give their take on not just the Olympics itself but the Olympic lifestyle and sort of in a fun interesting Caribbean vibe way so it should be a different scope when it comes to the Olympic coverage this year. Well I gotta say like I'm very intrigued to watch this I think it's gonna be very cool and I'm glad that I got to learn a lot more about it

because it does seem like a pretty interesting competition the way that it's set up. Mark, thanks a lot for taking the time to do this today. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the trek to Paris. Enjoy calling this event. It should be a lot of fun. And again, thanks for doing this.

No, I really appreciate it, guys. Thank you very much for having me on this morning. Yeah, thank you. That is Mark Strong from CBC Radio. He is also going to be the commentator for the breaking competition at this year's 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Okay. You didn't ask if they're allowed to use props.

I was going to ask. They're not allowed to use props. Like if you juggle while breakdancing, you won't get extra points. Just one steel chair per round. It's way more. The judging is way more regimented in terms of actual things you have to accomplish than I thought. There's like a battle component of it where you go head to head with somebody. But at the end result, you're not actually trying to physically topple someone.

You have to pull off like certain moves. Yeah, you have to have you have to have a freeze, which I think is pretty self-explanatory. And the other ones that Mark was talking about there, I can remember like a six step or something like that. I'd have to go back and double check that. Six step. Seriously, I think it is. Six step or six step?

Six. I don't know, do you? I'm going to go around the table here. Dancing at weddings. Laddie, love it or hate it? Love it. You have to. Enjoy a wedding. You're not going to sit there in a chair the whole or hate it? Love it. You have to. Enjoy a wedding.

You're not going to sit there in a chair the whole time. I've done it. A-Dog, love it or hate it? It's fine. You must be fun at parties. I'm very fun. I don't hate it, but I'm not itching to do it either. Right.

Halford? I don't dance. I'm more of a slumped over at the open bar kind of guy. Yeah, that's me too. I have to be dragged out onto the dance floor. I'm more of a talking to the plant kind of guy. That guy hasn's me too. Yeah. I have to be dragged out onto the dance floor. I'm more of a talking to the plant kind of guy. Yeah, that guy hasn't moved in three hours. Is he okay?

Yeah. Okay, so we're going to do another Mount Rushmore, and this one's for the Summer Olympics this year. Again, they start next Friday in Paris. Oh, and by the way, most of the events are going to be on between like 5 a.m. and 2 p.m. our time, which is great for us because it'll be on when we're on the air. Right.

So we came up with I came up with I came up with three, but I might need some help from the listeners on the fourth. The Mount Rushmore of events for this year's Olympics. Now, I'm going. I just want to jump in. This isn't the Mount Rushmore of all Olympic events. It's like very time sensitive. This what we're looking forward to this year. This isn't the Mount Rushmore of all Olympic events. It's like very time-sensitive. What we're looking forward to this year.

This year. This year, 2024. This is a personal list for me. Yours might differ. Women's soccer defending their gold medals. Yep. I've been reading a little bit about this tournament, and the Canadian women, if they do defend their

gold medal, it will be unexpected. In fact, there are some projections out there that don't even have them getting a medal in this. So, uh, I mean, they were underdogs when they won it in, uh, Tokyo. Um, and, but I listen, I, the women's soccer at the Olympics is a big deal.

Men's not so much. Canada played very good tournament football last time around. Kept the scores low, won a lot of penalty shootouts. Right. So that's number one. Men's basketball, back in the tournament, the Canadian men's team for the first time since 2000. And with legit metal expectations, if not legit gold expectations, I think the Americans are just such heavy favorites to win gold, but I'd sure like the opportunity for Canada to play the United States

at some point in this tournament just to see if they could pull off. I know they've got a very talented team, but that would be a miracle win if they were to pull that off. I think my third one might be breaking, break dancing. I want to see what this is all about. And Vancouver's Phil Kim, Philip Kim. What is his nickname?

He's got a B-boy Phil Wizard. Yep. That's his nickname. He is actually in some projections expected to win gold. There is a guy that's the clear-cut gold medal favorite, Victor Montalvo from the USA. B-Boy Victor, they call him.

That's not very – Phil Wizard, that's way cooler. Phil Wizard's better. Strizzy was pretty good, too. It's because he wears a robe. Imagine. He has a scepter. Okay, so the fourth one, I would normally say the men's hundred meters, just because that crowns the

fastest human being on earth. Except I thought about it and I was like, wait a minute, who is even the fastest human being on earth right now? Who is the gold medal favorite? And I had to Google it. There is a young Jamaican named Kashani Thompson, who is the favorite.

And there is an American, Noah Lyles. Noah Lyles, I think is the favorite to win the 200. Now you might be wondering about Andre Degrass. He is going to be going to the Olympics, but I think he's had a tough couple of years. He had some injuries that he had to deal with. This is the third Olympics. He's not a spring chicken anymore.

He's the defending 200 meter gold medal champion, but he is not projected to win really any medals at this tournament. Maybe the four by one, the Canadian team, which won gold or silver at the Japan Olympics. I can't remember which one. So I don't even know if the 100 meters for me this year is going to be anything that I'm going to be super interested in. So I need a fourth.

I need a fourth. Help me with a fourth on this. That's the easiest answer on the planet. The hammer throw. I have the dates and the times of the hammer throw programmed into my phone. With our guy, Ethan Katzberg? Friend of the program, Ethan Katzberg.

And not just him, Cameron Rogers, also from British Columbia on the women's side. I mean, we are not just a hammer throwing country. We are a hammer throwing country we are a hammer throwing province british columbia is churning out the greatest hammer throwers in the world so in case you're wondering now i'm admittedly going to focus on our best friend ethan katzberg who's been on the show dear friend of the program um the six foot six behemoth from nanaimo and we ask questions like how do you it's's not hammer, right?

It's like... You're not throwing an actual hammer, are you? It's not like axe throwing. No. I got to go now. So he is one of the favorites for gold, given his rapid ascension to the number one ranking in the world and then kind of maintaining dominant status in all of the international events,

including the Pan Am games. So he throws on August 2nd and 4th. I'm not even joking. Like I'm, you know, it's not very often that we have not just Olympians, but the, the dominant Olympians on our program.

We have some pretty impressive like athletes on our show from time to time, but very rarely do we get the best in the world at anything on this show. So the fact that Ethan gave us some time, noted friend of the show, Ethan Katzberg, I will be watching that. You guys didn't mention skateboarding yet. Yeah. Skateboarding's cool. I watched it at...

It's fun. No, it is. I know. I'm not saying it's not. It's super fun to watch. You know what? Stop laughing at me. I just think it's all weird that it's in the Olympics, but I'm an old man.

The world confuses me now. Go to Toonie Shorts. I watched it at the previous Olympics. I watched it at the previous Olympics. Yeah. And it didn't- Didn't captivate you? No.

And I thought it would. I mean, I gave it a good college try. I watched quite a bit of it. Is it like a street setup? Like are there rails? I think there's two. There's street and then there's... Is there a ramp?

Yeah. Are there ramps? No, no, no. Is there... There's the whatever, the half bowl, whatever they call it, and then there's the street competition.

Right. The half pipe? Half pipe? I don't know. I don't know. I don't skate. You sounded like you do. Do I look like a skateboarder?

What would be in the A-Dog Olympics? Hacky sack? Oh, my. That was the only sport I was ever good at. It should be in the Olympics. So a couple other names to keep in mind. Summer McIntosh, who is predicted to win a couple of golds for Canada. And she's, is she only 17?

Summer McIntosh. So she might be the breakout star for Canada if she hasn't already broken out. The women's 200 meter butterfly and the women's 400 meter individual medley. My favorite medley is the individual medley. I do love a good medley. So she's expected to win a couple of golds there.

No, not expected. There have been predictions. And then Damian Warner, who is the defending gold medalist in the decathlon, which is an amazing event to win. Can you name all the events in the decathlon? 100-meter dash. Okay, that's one. Long jump.

Two. High jump. Three. Pole vault. Four. 1,500. Five. Is there a hurdle? dash okay that's one long jump two high jump three pole vault four 1500 five is there hurdles yeah there's 110 meter hurdles i think i'm tapped shot put did you mention that one oh right there's a bunch of different there's a throwing javelin and the discus yeah that's right there's a lot of throwing events no hammer yeah what do you think the one would you would least embarrass yourself at least least embarrass yourself at?

Least? Least embarrass yourself. Probably just like the 1500. 1500. Because you could actually just, oh, there's a 400. 400 is more of a sprint, though, at the Olympic level. Oh, the 1500 is a sprint, too, buddy. I know, but I could do it.

They're not like, I'm going to take this first 500 meters pretty slow. Javelin for me. When he walked the middle 300. I'm saving myself. Just saving myself for that final stretch. Is there a jogging event? Well, that would have been the 1500. You would have jogged it. The throwing event's probably

pretty horrific. Javelin. I think the discus. I think I could get something on the discus. You just completely spin around and throw it at like... And then get dizzy and throw up. It's like, sir, you can't throw it like that. You have to spin around and throw. at like. Throw it at like a frisbee. Yeah, from behind you. And then get dizzy and throw up. It's like, sir, you can't throw it like that. You have to spin around and throw.

You can't just throw it like a frisbee. It's the first time we've ever seen anyone throw up on the discus before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's backhanding that thing. So I remember in high school, a lot of the high schools in British Columbia aren't equipped with a pole vaulting pit. Like there wasn't a lot of places to practice. And then a buddy of mine texted me.

He's like, I actually did the pole vault in high school. It's incredibly difficult. And there's a certain level of danger involved. It's like felling a tree. It's like if you get up in the air. Sorry, you did it? No, I didn't. No, a buddy of mine did it.

Did he actually make it? No, he was hospitalized. He's no longer with us. Like the confidence you have to have to race down that track and then this is you're comparing insert the the the pole yeah into the slot yep you do some insertion like how many people try that the first time and just well there's a there's a look how do you get off the ground how do you just start with a very short pole yeah and then you work your way up to the big pole yeah how does one like where do you how do you start where do you train for that like

well that's what i was saying there's a lot so the guy told me he his high school didn't have one right he had to go to a track club where they did have all of the equipment and then he got a few he basically said he got a few runs at it and then it's like okay now go compete he's like i'm not ready for this but if you're gonna do decathlon like you have to try it right yeah um high i remember doing high jump high jump high jump in elementary school the worst at now absolutely the they still do the fosbury flop? Yep. That's still the preferred technique all these years later. You can. We used to do it in elementary school.

It'd be great because you could just dive head first and try and do a barrel roll. Oh, yeah, I remember. The really athletic kids would try and scissor it. You could do a scissor kick over the top, but it gets very... That's risky. It gets a lot more difficult at the higher bar, but you could hurt yourself. I think the one that I would embarrass myself the most hands down would be pole vault.

I could see myself going up and then like a tree falling, like just going backwards. Somehow you could just stay upright for about 10 seconds. Hang on to the pole. I gotta fall one way or the other. Hopefully it's into the mat. Oh, he's coming down. I think that would be very impressive if you got that far.

I think you'd stick that thing in your stomach and just peel yourself off of that. I have an idea for you guys that would involve me filming and Twitter. You guys should do a weekend thing where you try all of the summer Olympic events in relation to track and field. No.

And I film them. I think you should do it. No, I'll film them. No. And then I'll put it on social media. We can all laugh together. It'd be very fun. It would actually be a complete waste of time.

It would be. Because it would be like, okay, well, those guys can't do any of it. No, that'd be very funny. Confirmed, not athletic. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.