Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 7/25/24

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they discuss the Canada Women's Soccer drone scandal w/ CBC Olympics analyst Ben Steiner, plus the boys tell us what they learned.  This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. You're listening to Halford & Brough. High drive to left. And it is another home run for Vladimir Moreno Jr. How stupid do you have to be at an Olympic Games to think that you could get a drone up there? It was like New Year's Day. It was like being born.

It was like coming out of the womb. You're in there, it's comfortable, it's safe, and now you're out. Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 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 Laddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough forog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford & Brown for the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers.

Make it as easy as possible to bring in your vehicle for maintenance with shuttle service, loaner vehicles, and a local pickup and drop-off service for your vehicle. 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 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. And 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, Rafi, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. Our guest list today begins at 6.30.

Mike Tanier, our NFL insider. The two deep zone sub stack is going to join us as we continue to move around the NFL with training camps now underway. 7 o'clock, Adnan Virk is going to join us from MLB Network. 7.30, Bob Stauffer from the mighty Chud in Edmonton. C-H-E-D, 7.30 in Edmonton. He's going to join us after Stan Bowman was introduced as the new general manager of the Edmonton Oilers. At 8 o'clock, Ben Steiner is going to join us for some

Olympic coverage, also at 8 a.m. So coinciding with Ben's hit, Canada will take on New Zealand in the opener for women's soccer at the Olympics. Surely no storylines there, Jason. I sneaky hope that Canada blows New Zealand out

and then the Kiwis are just, they were just a step ahead of us all day. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. You should do the whole show like that. That's pretty good. And then Canada, yeah,

just they should subtly reference that they felt like they had an upper hand, but without actually saying what that upper hand was. So Ben's going to join us at 8. Oh, also a reminder, start getting What We Learned in right now. Hashtag it WWL and put a ticket emoji into your text. We're giving away a pair of tickets to see Billy Idol and Platinum Blonde play Rogers Arena on July 30th.

Shout out to Webster from the WAC, who at 5.31 this morning sent in a What We Learned just so he could win the tickets. We'll see if you get there, Webster. I'm not promising anything, although your early hustle is going to help you out. WWL is the hashtag. What did you learn over the last 24 hours in sports?

Dunbar-Lemmer text line is 650-650. Put a ticket emoji into your text. 8 o'clock Ben Steiner is joining us. 7.30 it's Bob Stauffer. 7 o'clock it's Adnan Virk. 6.30 it's Mike Tanier. That's what's happening on the program today. 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 can be. What happened? You missed that? You missed that? What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? 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. The Canadian spying scandal, the drone scandal at the Olympics in Paris raged on yesterday. This story is far from being over. The latest developments now are that FIFA, the IOC, and everyone else associated with these Olympic Games is now doing a deep dive into not just the two drone incidents over the last week involving the Canadian women's program spying on the New Zealand team, but there seems to be a relitigation going on

into past instances of Canada soccer utilizing drone technology to potentially spy on their opponents. I want to play two clips of audio to get us started here. The first is from Arash Madani, Boots on the Ground, Sportsnet reporter. Over in Paris, and this is more of an editorial clip, but I think it really, again, it'll send us in a few paths, jumping off points as it pertains to where we want to go

with this conversation. This is the latest from Arash Madani. Yesterday, in the wake of the IOC and FIFA now undergoing an investigation to what Canada did, spying with drones on the New Zealand camp from the Olympics. Here's Arash. These are the Olympic Games where they spend around $4 billion in security, where there are cameras everywhere, and among the terrorist threats are drones. So this very quickly, guys, did not become a sports issue. This became pilot of the drone said uncredentialed staff member.

He got arrested. He got detained. He could have spent up to a year in prison and a 35,000 euro fine. They gave him an eight month suspended sentence. This is far beyond just sport from that standpoint. Which makes you think and wonder. How stupid do you have to be at an Olympic Games to think that you could get a drone up there. And go all Belichickian and Harbaughian and whateverian.

And get away with it which makes you wonder this really probably wasn't the first time was it how long may or may this have been or not been standard operating procedure and what the Canadian Olympic Committee and what Canada Soccer wants all of us to believe is that this was just two rogue staff members who orchestrated this entire thing. You know, the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee, David Shoemaker, said, Bev Priestman knew nothing about this. She told me so. And then Bev, today to the CBC didn't answer the question of did you know this was going on she just did the very Canadian thing and apologized so I don't know if Priestman knew or didn't know about the drone spying or even if she

did or didn't tacitly approve of the practice by, you know, not asking questions about the information she received. Like, where did you get these aerial pictures of the New Zealand practice? Who's got a drone? Uh, what I do know is that this is a national embarrassment and the women's team will have to live with this for the entire Olympics. And most likely beyond the games, um, where

they'll be stained with this allegation. Um, and you know, I'm not going to sit here and say that she knew, uh, she must've known she had to know. Surely she knew. Uh, I don't know. Um, there are instances though, where you do have to fall on your sword when you're the leader of an organization that fails badly. And Canada soccer has failed badly in this instance, because it's about the good of the organization and it's about moving forward. Quick aside, I don't know how many of you followed the story down south about the chief of the Secret Service. Well, they had a bit of a failure. And she said, well, I'm not going to resign.

I'm the one to fix it. And then eventually it became like, no, you got to resign. Like, you can't go forward like this. You know, it's just an example of sometimes you do have to, even if you are, even if she is completely innocent in all this, she's more than willing to play this hand of, I'm doing this for the good of the group, to show the leadership. And it's going to be tough

to move past this while Priestman is still the coach sitting out one game against New Zealand today the team they were spying on isn't going to change anything and frankly it kind of bothered me that she struck did you get this like such a gallant tone with her offer to sit out that game. Like there was a real, like, I'm doing this for the, just because I am a leader. So this was the question that Arash mentioned in his editorial there. She was asked, did you know anything about this? And she said, I think, first of all, I'd like to apologize. As the leader of this program, I'm ultimately accountable. That's why personally, it was really

important for me to take this moment to show strong leadership and to represent the values of this country, of the team and of myself. And I think I've done that because I deeply care about sportsmanship integrity and to be honest the players are taking the field yada yada yada she goes on she goes from my perspective that's my stance it was really important to me i offered straight away for my voluntary removal from the game you're kind of like congratulations like way to go like yeah yeah question yes or no question first of all answer did you know anything about it obviously she did and let's the fact no i'm not willing to

say that but i don't the fact that she didn't come out and say it right away instantly tells you she knew something about it fair enough but i don't know if she didn't know anything about it the first thing she would have said is i didn't know anything about it first thing yes she did probably she did do that she did do that. Probably. She did do that. She did do that originally. On that statement. Okay, not in this statement. But I don't like the fact, taking all that of account, because I really don't know.

I don't like the fact that she offered this opportunity for her to grandstand, essentially, about it and to make her look like the hero. Like, you're the one that had the failure. Yeah. Okay, let's put this into focus, what both you guys are talking about here. What you're discussing is this sort of gallant and noble thought and feeling that she put into her statement.

Like I'm falling on the sword for the benefit of everybody else here with this one game removal. And you're talking about that by not answering the questions, she seems guilty. So with those two dynamics hanging in the air, let's go to answer the question. Let's go to some very obvious facts that are right in front of our faces. There is not a single person out there that is connected to Gareth Wheeler, absolutely eviscerating Priestman, not defending her at all, saying that this begins at the top, this starts at the top, and that there was a culture where this was allowed and not necessarily encouraged, but in no way was it tacitly approved. Right.

So I thought that was very interesting, that no one came to her defense whatsoever. Secondly, the only time that we heard that she denied any involvement in this and had no knowledge was through the head of the Canadian Olympic Committee, the shoemaker that Arash referred to in his clip. So it's kind of it's almost like a hearsay dismissal. And he said he said that she denied it. But in that question that a dog, you know, we just I just read and a dog was talking about it. Like, just just reiterate. No, and adog was talking about it like just just reiterate no i

didn't know anything about it and i think the reason that that singular denial has kind of been pushed into the background and probably won't be brought up again is because as people are doing more digging they are coming to the realization that this might not have been just two drone incidents at the 2024 Paris Olympics. That there might have been, and as Arash also alluded to in his clip, a history of this behavior. As a matter of fact, someone said, wait a minute, I seem to recall that there was an incident back in 2021

involving John Herdman and the men's national team when Honduras was in Toronto for a World Cup qualifier. And then, of course, CBC diligently doing the work here, uncovered the clip and uncovered the moment. We've got the audio from that as well. So this is going all the way back to 2021. John Herdman, who you may recall, has several close ties to this women's program. This is him now in charge of the men's team at the time,

talking about an alleged drone incident over honduras's training back in 2021 here's the clip we'll roll it now different team different tournament but back in 2021 as the honduran men's squad came to toronto for a world cup qualifying match they reportedly spotted a drone flying overhead during their training and suspected Canada of spying. The response from Canada's then coach aired on Honduran media. A lot of people in Canada that fly drones, I'm sure. And when a big team like Honduras turn up, I'm sure people are probably interested in what they're doing. Now, Canada Soccer says an independent external review will look into the drone incidents in france plus what it calls its historical culture of competitive ethics

big team like honduras you guys so okay i remember when people that fly drones like our coaching staff i remember i remember when this happened and i remember when herdman got up on the podium and if you watch the video he's got this sort of wry little smile on his face while doing it and you heard what he said and you heard the remarks and there was always the understanding that CONCACAF

remember he talked at length about CONCACAF and it was so difficult and there was the dark arts and you were always playing from behind and everyone was doing everything to get a competitive edge in their respective countries to get through this gauntlet of World Cup qualifying, right? So take that for what it is. The audio is there.

The history is there. I got a question. I won't editorialize any further on that. Yes, Andy. How is Canada not disqualified from the Olympics? Well, I don't know if that's coming or not. But I mean, if it doesn't happen, how is that not possible? You're spying on your opponent.

We've got an hour and 45 minutes until kickoff I don't know what's going to happen Isn't that insane if they don't be? I mean don't be wrong I would love to see Canada medal But I mean under the circumstances Is that not bizarre that they wouldn't be disqualified? Maybe it doesn't rise to the level of a team disqualification

New Zealand has already asked that Canada gets no points from this match You're spying on your opponent. It's like the worst... It's not the worst thing you can do. Pretty bad. It's pretty bad. In an Olympic event? Let's list all the worst things. In terms of non-criminal offense. It's not great, man.

It's embarrassing. Poisoning the other team's water. It was a criminal offense, though. I would like to hear more from Joey Lombardi. Are we going to ever hear from this unaccredited analyst who is being... Who has his own page on the Canada Soccer website? Yeah, right.

Listen, I mean, obviously he's got to accept his responsibility in it, but I want to hear. Was he directed? What was the culture? Why did he do this? Where was that information going? Because he's also like an independent sports analyst, isn't he? Yes, but he was there.

But he wasn't there. Could he just be like, I'm a real big fan of tactics. Yeah, I love spying. I love drones. Love watching the ferns play. That's the... I just like flying drones. My drone just happened to fly over their practice facility.

Honestly, it's coincidental. I didn't know they'd be there. It's ridiculous that he's being... Scapegoated. Well, not scapegoated because... It's not scapegoating. He got pulled in by authorities. He got detained.

But... there's like damn it i'm the only one that knows how to fly a drone yeah right like you draw he drew the short straw there you have to go do it now um another interesting thing i thought from the one soccer gareth wheeler angle which again i the only reason i'm bringing this up is because that they if anyone's going to be partisan towards the program and the brand and the crest it's going to be them they're the rights holder but or it's going to be them they're the rights holder but or to get or to get the notes from canada soccer like hey guys this isn't true you got to get out there and and and say so and they basically did the exact opposite i mean

they were framing uh jasmine mander and um what's his name joey marty they were framing them as good people honest soccer people that were being scapegoated and were being put at the front of this is those are the people that you should be angry at. And I was like, this is an incredible tact from a national rights holder. Obviously, there's something to this. Have we heard from Kevin Blue at all? No. Like he's the, what was his title? Secretary General or something?

Yeah, the CEO. He's in charge. He's in charge. We haven't heard from General or something? Yeah, the CEO, basically. He's in charge. He's in charge. We haven't heard from him at all? No. Nothing really? No. Like we've heard from the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Because I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there's about eight different things that were going on at once, including naivete, arrogance, and stupidity. And those are all hard to plan for. Those are all hard to get out in front of. Because when Arash brings up the very salient point that you're flying a drone where there's $4 billion being spent on security, you do jump past this just being a soccer issue.

Yeah. All of a sudden, you're talking about international espionage and running afoul of Olympic authorities and officials, all of which puts you in a higher classification of, uh-oh, we're in trouble here. Let's talk about the Oilers introducing Stan Bowman as their general manager. Bowman said he wasn't going to relitigate the past in his press conference yesterday, but he did say, I think it's important to start off by touching on my departure from the Blackhawks a couple of seasons ago. And he said, I can tell you in this room and to everyone watching, as well as something

I've said directly to Kyle Beach, that my response was inadequate back in 2010. I didn't handle things properly. I should have done more. That's something I regret. And it's something I've had a chance to reflect on and try to learn from. He worked with Sheldon Kennedy and said he had a chance to work with his group. And he also said he had a chance to work with Kyle Beach and other people. And he feels like he's learned some things that he didn't know.

Now, look, I know there are people who don't think Bowman or Joel Quenville, for that matter, should ever work in the NHL again. And frankly, I'm not going to push back and say those people are wrong. Because this story is clearly personal for a lot of people and i can't relate to them um you know there's a lot of people that have had to deal with sexual assault uh in their lives either to them or to to their loved ones and it is very obviously emotional and it's a very hard subject. But I do think, if I can, now that Bowman's back in the game, maybe we can hope that something good comes from this, that some lessons have been learned by everyone who has followed this story the thousands of people

including myself that has followed this story that otherwise if this story hadn't been out there that could have ended with more victims and i think if you listen to what stan bowman had to say he said i think the biggest thing i learned from sheldon kennedy is the negative power of silence and not taking a bigger role. When I look back on it, he said, that's what I reflect on. You don't want to assume other people are doing things. You want to take an active role and make sure that things happen that are supposed to happen. And he went on to talk about the bystander effect that he learned from Sheldon Kennedy.

So these are all good lessons that are being put out there. Now, I know I've already heard it in the Dunbar-Lumber text line. I'm not defending this hire. Frankly, I wouldn't have done it if I was the Edmonton Oilers because, number one, you know, you got to go through all this. And number two, I don't even know if Stan Bowman's that good a GM. Right. You know what I mean?

But now that he's back in the game, hopefully some good can come from it. And that's the only thing that I think I can say about it. Unless you want to add something and say that it never should have happened, you know, and I have time for that too. No, I think the, where people are having a lot of pushback and I think it's valid and

legitimate pushback is that when he talks about the bystander effect and what he's learned, it doesn't really jive with the opening remarks, which is like, I'm not here to relitigate the past it's like well part of this is a constant relitigation like the idea is you don't just put it in your rear view and say i've dealt with this it's over now because then there's no lessons to be learned the lesson is uh if you make a mistake like this and you have an egregious series of

behaviors that lead to this unfortunate and awful incident. That all you need to do is give it some time, go through some courses and lessons and speak to people and then put it behind you and move on. And they're saying, well, the thing is, is that Stan Bowman gets to move on. But Kyle Beach doesn't because it's happened to him and it's never going to unhappen to him. And the subsequent, you know, use that were assaulted by Brad Aldrich, they don't get to put it behind them either. So putting it behind you isn't an option, but

in the realm of hockey and being a general manager, that's what their goal is. Their goal is to, we want to move forward. And it's like, that's great. You get the opportunity to move forward. Others don't. So I understand why there's pushback from, you know, a lot of people. And yesterday, obviously. Don't you think he's a bit angry with all this too, though?

Stan Bowman? Like allowing that, again, allowing that he made serious mistakes. He wasn't Brad Aldrich. He wasn't John McDonough. Like if I was him, I'd be mad. I'd be pretty mad at those guys too that that's why this stuff is so ugly it affects so many people's lives i guess what i'm saying is that there's a dynamic there that you just don't get to fix sometimes that's life

right sometimes that's life sometimes there's something that you know you can it's like anything you can do as many repairs as possible and you can send as many experts in to try and fix but at the end of the day something's just broken and it's not fixed yeah and that's a that's the reality and that's nothing that we're going to solve talking about it on the air and that's nothing that anyone on twitter is going to solve by you know tweeting into the void like it's not going to make it any better the reality is that bowman's back in hockey and he's the general manager of the edmonton oilers and i their hope now is that uh a couple weeks' time, everyone will have moved on to something else

and they can get down to the business of re-signing Leon Dreisaitl. And that's what'll happen. Yeah. That's what'll happen. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. 802 on a Thursday. The only thing I think when I hear this song

is when Marge is chastising Homer. Homer, that's your solution to everything. Live under the sea. It's not going to happen. Not with that attitude. I think this is the song that would get played if Halford or I said something really controversial and they just cut the feed.

What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? Play the under the seat music. It's just like technical difficulties. We've been playing this for eight hours now. What happened? Don't worry. We have a contingency plan.

It's the under the seat music. 802 on the Halford and Brough show will be right back. The Halford and Brough show will be right back. We've been doing this for 16 consecutive hours. You are listening to the Halford and Brough show will be right back. We've been doing this for 16 consecutive hours. You are listening to the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda.

Vancouver's premier multilingual Honda dealership. Visit them online at vancouverhonda.com. We are also in our three of the program. Ben Steiner is going to join us for some Olympic talk. And while that's going on, Canada is now underway against New Zealand. A very, very controversial match here.

The opener at the Paris Olympics. So this is all kicking off Hour 3. Hour 3 is brought to you by Campbell & Pound Real Estate Appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at campbell-pound.com today. What do you think they're saying to each other out there? Probably nothing. I bet the Kiwis have a few words for the Canadians.

Someone should start releasing a bunch of drones and just see what happens. What do you think if New Zealand scores, they do the drone selly? Oh, that would be amazing. There's no drone selly. You just do those with the wings. You fly around.

Wings. Yeah. Is that an airplane? 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. To the phoneintec 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.

To the phone lines we go. Our Olympic reporter, Ben Steiner, joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Ben. How are you? Morning. Certainly exciting in terms of the Olympic space and glad to be back on with you guys. Where do we even begin here?

Because the match is underway. They're still playing it canada hasn't been removed from the tournament and points are still up for grabs although the kiwis kind of want them not to be up for grabs um how what's it been like covering this story uh over the last 24 hours ben because there's a lot to unpack here it's been wild you know i planned my olympic schedule out for the next 18 days, you know, scheduling when I have to be at a laptop, on my phone, on the radio, on TV.

And then it starts on day minus two with this chaos. It's the story that you don't want to be, right? There's always a story a couple of days before the Olympics. You think back, you know, in Vancouver, it was the snow, in Sochi, it was the bathrooms without the doors. There's always that big story. And you never want to be that story. And Canada's women's soccer team found a way to be that story.

So it's been a crazy 24 hours or so. If you had to predict right now, does Bev Priestman coach another game for Canada at this tourney or beyond? At this tourney, I think yes. Making a switch like that under the pressures of Olympic Games when you're playing potentially six games in 18 days is a tough situation to find yourself in. So I do think that she gets through this tournament.

If I had to place a bet on it, I wouldn't say that she's the coach after this tournament. I think they'll probably move on. And I kind of thought that anyways, unless they win the gold medal again, I don't necessarily see her continuing. There's a FIFA investigation though. Could there be sanctions against Bev Priestman

that aren't COC sanctions? Because it's basically been Canada punishing itself. That's why Bev Priestman isn't coaching against New Zealand today. Could there be further sanctions that rule her out of the tournament or even punish Canada by taking away points? Or ADOG even suggested that Canada be disqualified from this tournament. I mean, all of those are potential things.

I think the disqualification is probably not on the table anymore considering I've got the Game 1 right in front of me and they're playing the game and dealing with the games already. That was certainly a question throughout the process yesterday, but FIFA and the IOC are looking at it. Canada Soccer is going to take an independent investigation as well to take a look at the situation because it potentially happened with the men's team when it was under Herman as well. There were some potential drone issues in 2021 and a world cup qualifier against honduras and it was all kind of shrugged off nobody looked too far into it

um but now you know looking back there's potentially something there that this is probably not the first time that the canadian women or even the canadian men have used drones or some sort of spying on other national teams. And so there will be an investigation from FIFA, the IOC, and the independent investigator at Canada Soccer that I would imagine that we'll probably be hearing more repercussions from this. I don't know whether that impacts the Olympic tournament, but could we see Canada, you know, face a points deduction

at a, you know, Women's Champions Cup? Like, potentially. But kind of who knows? It is a Women's Champions Cup, potentially. But who knows? It is a FIFA-run tournament, so repercussions can be at any FIFA tournament. How have the players responded to all of this? Because for the longest time, the women's national team was the lone good thing that Canada soccer had across the entire program, and they almost seemed to succeed despite the organization. And now this is, I mean,

that has nothing to do with the players and they're yet again forced to deal with some off field issues, not unlike what they had to deal with prior to the last year's world cup, where, you know, Canada soccer issues sort of plagued their preparation for the tournament. How are the players dealing with this latest controversy? I mean, that's kind of the thing that comes to mind, right, is they've faced adversity before.

You think back to the World Cup last year when all the labor issues were really taking center stage and they didn't quite raise to the levels that they needed to at the World Cup. It was an embarrassing World Cup in a lot of ways in terms of on-field performance. And they don't want that at the Olympics. The Olympics is Canada's tournament. This is where, you know, the Canada's Women's

National Team has found their success through the last three Olympic Games, and, you know, even Beijing 2008, it wasn't a great Games, but they started to settle into sort of that rhythm of the Olympics being their event, and the World Cup has never quite been that for Canada. It's a tough tournament, but I do think the players probably have the experience, you know, a lot of them won gold four years ago or three years ago, that they can probably come into this tournament and not be too flustered by it. But it's just another distraction that you don't want for a team that, you know, has the potential to be one of the best in the world. But it just seems like around every corner, there's that one thing. And

that's why, you know, personally, I see that it kind of needs a little little bit of a refreshing take on it like we saw that refreshing take with the men's team and and look what they did this summer right so um i think beth priestman has has been a strong coach i mean olympic champions it doesn't get much better than that um but that's why i kind of had my doubts if she doesn't win gold with this Canadian team at these games. Has there been any answer to the question why they felt the need to spy on two training sessions of the 28th ranked team in the world when they came in as the defending gold medalists? There's not been anything solid. All I can kind of assume at this point, based on, you know, the reports that have come in, the various statements and press conferences. Yesterday was seemingly everybody had a press conference and a statement to get their opinion out there and their point of view.

But it's clear that this isn't the first time. And so this might be standard operating procedure for Canada, which isn't exactly great. You don't want to cheat. You don't want to cheat at the Olympic Games, especially when they've spent over $4 billion on security and a drone flying over a training session is probably going to be caught. But yeah, like, I think this is not the first time this has happened,

and we'll see whether it's the first time it's happened on these investigations that go through the next little while. Has Bev Priestman actually had a big press conference yet where all the reporters get to fire questions at her? That's the confusing thing about women's soccer at the Olympics and soccer in general at the Olympics is it's not for the most part in the main city. And so the major assembled press, you know, a decent Canadian press corps, which is in Paris, has not had the chance to speak to Bev Priestman. She did She did her standard media session before,

but in terms of the Olympic space, there's not a Zoom media session, so all the Canadian reporters couldn't log on as they could have with Jesse Marsh at the Copa America. So it was just Christine Roger from CBC Radio Canada that did about a 10-minute interview with her and asked some pointed questions. That interview is posted across online. But she hasn't been able to be grilled by the greater Canadian media core. Has she, I mean, she was asked, did you know about this? Has she, is there any like audio clip of her out there saying like,

I did not know about this because, correct me if I'm wrong here, but she kind of sidestepped the question from Radio Canada and the denial came through the COC, correct? Yes, she didn't quite deny it and she didn't accept it either. She just kind of danced around the question a little bit when she was asked by Christine Roger. So there's potential. I think she knew, right? Like she is taking the ultimate responsibility of stepping away. She treated the questioning as sort of a chance to take ownership and try and turn this into a bit of a leadership moment. She almost grandstanded.

She almost took a gallant tone to it, and that kind of irked me a little bit. She almost felt like she used the situation to make herself look like the greatest, the most sportsmanlike person of all time. And I was kind of like, well, wait a minute. Like, you can't use this opportunity to make yourself look better. That was kind of my thinking, too.

Like, she was, you know, portraying the values and saying the values of herself and the Canadian women's national team. And it was good stuff to hear. But when you're talking about cheating at the Olympic Games in terms of spying on other training sessions it falls on deaf ears a lot of the time that I think there should have been

potentially more ownership of it admitting that she knew whether it was her idea, who knows given that it potentially happened with herdman and the men's team as well at one point um but you know we'll see where this goes um i doubt that she didn't know um she's taking responsibility for the actions of her staff and and that is responsible that shows something but you know canada soccer and beth priestman are kind of trying to save face and saying you you know, we punished ourselves.

We don't necessarily need further punishment from FIFA or the IFC. Well, it's a tough start for Canada already. They've just fallen behind 1-0 to the Kiwis who have scored in the 13th minute. Actually, a great shot off the crossbar and in. So Canada down 1-0. It was a tough start to the tournament for the Canadian women's national team, and it just got tougher in the early stages of their opener against New Zealand. Hey, Ben, thanks for taking the time to do this today.

We really appreciate it. I'm sure we'll be checking in again as the Olympics roll on. Enjoy the tournament. It should be interesting. It should be interesting, to say the least, in the Olympics fully. Get underway tomorrow at the opening ceremony. Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it.

Ben Steiner, our Olympic reporter here on the Health and Breath Show on Sportsnet 650. Spoiler alert. Some people might be PVRing the game. I have no time for PVR people. Yeah, look. These are the rules with sports radio. Yeah. If there is a live event happening during the event, during the show rather, and you

want to watch it, just know the host might mention it from time to time because this is a live sports radio show. It's going to happen a lot during the Olympics. You just got to make your peace with it. I will not be calling the game like I did. Man, that New Zealand striker though, she really spied that top corner and just nailed it. Got it home. Nothing like watching a live sporting event,

especially a goal like that. I pity anyone who missed this. Watching it back on replay will never be the same. If only we had some sort of overhead view of the game. They didn't see that one coming. Alright, laddie, enough. I'm workshopping here.

I'm workshopping here. I've got six drone-related puns I need to work in. Imagine if CBC did have a drone camera angle utilized. Here's what they would have said. Some guy in the background. No, no, this is bad.

Don't do it. No, don't do it. I'm going to do what we learned to stop the laddie puns. Sure. I learned that Canada picked its flag bearers for tomorrow's opening ceremony for the Paris Games. Yeah, the Olympics are kind of underway, but they're also kind of not underway yet because they haven't even had the Paris games. Yeah. The, the Olympics are kind of underway, but they're also kind of not underway yet because

they haven't even had the opening ceremonies, but tomorrow sprinter Andre de Grasse and weightlifter, Maude Charon, uh, will carry the flags that both of them are, uh, former gold metal winners. Um, I was reading a little bit about Andre de Grasse coming into these Olympics and he's not really expected to be a a medal contender uh individually um you know I I imagine um it's hard to stay at the top of the

game in the sprinting game uh and he's had a few injuries in the last couple of years that he's had to deal with and then his form just hasn't been terrific, but, uh, you never know. And he said, listen, like I've done this before at the highest level and when the pressure's on. So maybe I can do it again. Um, because I think one of the most impressive things about the Olympics are, is the fact that it's every four years and you have to perform on that day. Like that is that you've got, you know, in the case of you're a sprinter, let's say you get to the final event, you know, you got what, 10 seconds and some stuff could go wrong.

Sure. I remember watching a hundred meter final. I think Linford Christie, do you remember him? Didn't he false start? Yeah, he eliminated himself. Yeah. Linford Christie. God, what a blast from the past.

He had two false starts. I think you have two false starts in your out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, can you imagine that happening to you? You're like, oh. Well, I was quick off the blocks, I guess. Yeah, I mean, this is sort of part and parcel with what the Olympics represent,

is you put in four years of a lot of hard work and dedication, and everything is solely focused on that one moment, be it 10 seconds on the track, or in the case of the Canadian women, like a handful of games in the group. You could be done, right? It could be over really fast. It's why there's such a level of importance why when you um that's why winning a gold medal like everyone's like oh gold medal at the olympics but it's like you were able to

capture that very very pressure-packed moment where everything's on the line and if you screw it up like linford christie or something yeah it's not like a best of seven you don't get to go do it again you also have to wait another four years to do it again. Yeah. I mean, it is, there's a lot of pressure involved, which is why,

you know, part of the, when I was asking Ben about, you know, how this might've happened with the Canadian women's team, like Bev Priestman was probably under, and this is not meant to lighten the critique or to try and contextualize it because cheating is cheating and spying is spying but I imagine that there was an intense amount of pressure that she felt both in terms

of her job security and in terms of defending the gold medal and in terms of trying to get a good result at a tournament after a embarrassing result at the World Cup all of that probably led to this right this culture of we're gonna go to the lengths of again spying on the 28th ranked team in the world like this is not an international power that they're playing

in New Zealand here right were you a cheater in school um like now with I mean I'm sure I cheated on like a test or something on occasion, but not with any great regularity. Right. You weren't like known for it. No, I didn't have like, I wasn't like digging deep.

I mean, if Halford had drone access back then. Right. Were you a dog? I wasn't. I wasn't. I was a good kid. What about you? To my detriment.

I got bad grades. Maybe I should have. Laddie wasn't a cheater. I mean, you look over someone's shoulder in Hamilton and the answer is probably even worse. I was the perfect attendance. Far more incorrect than I thought it was going to be. I used to enjoy the challenge. He got the perfect attendance award.

I got the perfect attendance. That's right. He was that kid. We're getting off topic. Amazing. I lived like five minutes from the school. I had no excuse. Now we're really getting off topic. The Di I lived like five minutes from the school. I had no excuse. Now we're really getting off topic.

The DiCaprio movie, Catch Me If You Can, where he's just like a con artist and a thief. He likes the game. He likes the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not even about- I like the game of it in high school. It's not even about the end result of like, oh, I'm going to do well on the test. It's like, can I cheat on this test?

Can I unlock that thing? I like that moment when you'd lock eyes with the teacher and he knew you were trying to cheat. You knew you were trying to cheat, but you had no proof of it yet. You can't catch me. That's the name of the movie. The amount of cheating that goes on right

now. Uh, yeah. At the university level. Mm-hmm. Um. The amount of resources that have to go into catching the cheats too. And.

Because they spend a lot of time doing it. And do you know they don't just get like automatically thrown out for like blatant cheating? I know this directly. Yeah. That they don't like. Because we live in a soft society now, Jason. Like reports will come in that are clearly like there's programs that run, you know, plagiarism or now there's programs that show, you know, if you've used AI.

Yeah. To write your reports and then like when i was at university if if you did that like blatantly plagiarized you might get one warning but you'd be in big trouble now it's just kind of like yeah you get a zero yeah i remember when i was in it was like second year uh post-secondary and i can't remember what school i was at um but i remember a buddy of mine got a zero on a paper for unintentional plagiarism like the guy the the professor was very very nice about it and he was like look i think what's unintentional plagiarism he It was awful citation. Oh, okay, yeah.

And in his defense, he was a second year university student, so he should have known better, but you could tell it was like he had taken too many of the ideas that he had read and then tried to not pass them off as his own, but didn't interpret them, just relayed them. Like when an artist writes a song

and the chorus is just straight ripped off from another song, and they're not doing it on purpose, but it's just, that's how it works so and and the i remember the prof wrote at the top of the paper zero for plagiarism then he wrote scary isn't it and that was sort of the shot across the bow which was like you failed this exam the consequences could have been far more dire but i'm not gonna go there i think now that would be like you get 100% because you didn't actually copy it word for word. Right.

That is brilliant. And AI didn't do it for you. Yeah. Patsy on the head. He's like, you little scamp, get out of here. Anyway, I don't know how this all started, but mook out. It wasn't what we learned.

How did we start that? What was your actual what we learned? No. Oh, my what we learned was about the flag bearers for Canada. I'm a long way. The journey. I'm always curious how we get the flag. One texter I like this is suggesting that Canada should forego having a person be the

flag bearer and the flag should be carried out by a bunch of drones. We said that yesterday. They should just totally lean into it. Have the flag attached to it. I don't think that we should lean into the drone thing. No, you should. Just go for it at this point. don't know we're a drone nation now michael i really did we're a nation of drones i don't know how this is gonna end up when ben

his first reply was he thinks that priestman's gonna come back and coach in this tournament and finish the tournament as the coach and i was like well that seems crazy to me but he's far more dialed into what's going on with this Olympic team than I am. So I'm going to defer to him as the guy that knows. It's always so confusing to know who has final authority on all this stuff. Right. It's like, is it the IOC? Is it FIFA?

The Canadian Olympic Committee is the one that's handed out the punishments. Like, no. Correct. Right? No, because the other two haven't done their investigation yet. Right. The COC felt like they the other two haven't done their investigation yet. Right. The COC felt like they were getting in front of it. But when is,

but when is FIFA actually going to announce? I mean, the planet came right now. That's the thing. I was just, isn't that just hanging over everything right now? When we came on the air at 6 a.m., I said,

there's two hours to kick off. Let's see what happens between now and then. Because I was, I'm just thinking like, if you're doing an investigation and the team's about to play, you might want to speed things up. But there's three. I think this is part of the bureaucratic nature of it, is there's the Canadian Olympic Committee,

there's the International Olympic Committee, and there's FIFA. And they've all got different end games. And that's a big part of it, right? I mean, FIFA theoretically could take their time and then in a couple days time just be like yeah the canadians are guilty we're wiping out whatever result they got against the kiwis right they could yeah it's their tournament they can do whatever they want that's kind of where i saw it going because honestly it's a little wild if they don't well kind of nuts considering i just think that now that everything's out there, you're left with some...

The Canadian Olympic Committee was like, well, we heard that we didn't even get to really use the drone footage, so... I mean, it's not helping them right now. I'll tell you that. New Zealand's... And by the way, for the one person that texted in with the spoiler, they're very upset that I didn't provide a spoiler alert. I don't know, man. I don't know what to tell you. If a live sport is happening during a sports show, you just got to-

Well, just say spoiler alert. You just got to expect it's going to happen. Just say turn it down. Turn down the radio. I'm kind of with the texter. Okay. No, don't. Don't.

He's starting to anger us in the studio. Are you upset too? Yeah. It's the Olympics, man. It's on while we are on the air. It's going to happen. You have to know that. Yeah.

Some people have difficult jobs and they go to work and they want to come home from work, and they're all excited. They've got the game on the PVR. You don't have to do that because you go home and nap for eight hours. But some people work real hard jobs, and they don't want spoiler alerts. So do we have to do spoiler ahead of every day? For a goal. For a goal in a game. For sure. Mark and Richmondard what's so hard about it

mark and richmond is threatening to not listen to the program for the next two weeks which is actually fine because i'm not here you're listening to the alfred and brough show on sportsnet 650 good for you lass i got me a zero once and my life turned out just fine. Oh, woo-hoo! That's a nasty clog. Ooh, you've got yourself a partner, have you? You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.