Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 7/31/24

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Jason & Josh look back at the previous day in sports including the decision to reject Soccer Canada's appeal on the six point penalty the women's team incurred due to the drone scandal. Plus, Thomas Drance joins the show to shed some light onto the teamwork and chemistry needed within a coaching staff to succeed and how the Canucks seem to be doing a great job at that. 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. I'm disappointed that we're here and it's unacceptable that we are here and I'm sorry to our fans. Oh no! We suck again! Driven deep to right field. Did he get it? Did he get it? Oh, he got it! A three-run home run! Jazz has done it again! How close did you come to a trade for either a Bowe or a Vlade? No. No. No, no.

Good morning, Vancouver 601. On a Wednesday. A wet Wednesday. Outside. It is Halford and Brough. No Halford. Still Josh Elliott Wolf. But it's still Brough, too. Good morning, buddy. How are ya? I'm doing well. When is the rain gonna stop?

I don't know. I thought it was supposed to stop today, I believe. It's all misty rain, buddy. How are you? I'm doing well. When is the rain going to stop? I don't know. I thought it was supposed to stop today, I believe. It's all misty rain, too. It's just annoying. I know we're going to get a good stretch of weather, and it's going to start getting hot, and we will probably be like, I kind of miss the rain right now. That was fun. Good stretch of rain. Basketball Ben, how are you? Fantastic. Nice. Laddie, good morning.

Hello, hello. How for the Brough is brought to you by the Dilawri family of Honda dealers. Experience the Dilawri difference today. Visit your nearest Dilawri Honda dealer today. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. So, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that is what you are waiting for.

Another full show today. Shy Davidi at 6.30 is going to join us. Sportsnet's baseball columnist covering the Blue Jays. They made another couple trades yesterday, few trades yesterday. Nothing huge, but we'll get into them with shy uh how close did they come to trading vladdy or bow i know i'm like i i it would have been fun but definitely wasn't expected but we'll talk to shy about that and and what they their future looks like with the blue jays at seven o'clock julie stewart binks is going to join us covering the Olympics for CBC.

We'll go around the Olympics with her. Impressive win for the Canadians in Rugby 7s that we'll get into shortly. Well, win of a medal. Right. That eventually. It was an impressive win over Australia. And then I would say a gallant effort against New Zealand in the gold medal game. We'll also talk women's soccer with her, Summer McIntosh,

everything going on at the Olympics. 7.30, Brady Henderson covers the Seahawks for ESPN. Hopefully he wakes up today. That would be helpful. So we'll talk to him about training camp. And at 8 o'clock, Thomas Trance, he had a one-on-one with Abbotsford Canucks head coach Manny Malholtra for the athletic. I had a few questions about, like, are there going to be any changes

to how Abbotsford is run this year? And the big thing last year was that they really wanted to be aligned between Abbotsford and Vancouver. run this year and and the big thing last year was that they really wanted to be aligned between Abbotsford and Vancouver and I'm wondering if that's still it should still be the priority but what changes between Jeremy Colleton and Manny Malhotra yeah I mean also my big question with Manny Malhotra we all know he's he's a good guy and a smart hockey guy, and he's had experience as an assistant coach, but how much more of a challenge is this for him, coming out to Abbotsford and setting up the whole thing

and being the head coach, because he's also had to hire some assistant coaches. He's had to catch up on the players that he'll be coaching, the system that he'll be coaching. It seems like, based on the article that I read in the interview that Drancer did with Manny Malhotra, Manny Malhotra has had a busy, busy offseason, and that's only going to continue into training camp.

So working in reverse, Thomas Drance at 8 o'clock, 7.30, Brady Henderson, 7 o'clock, Julie Stewart-Binks, and at 6.30, Shai Davidi. That is what's happening. 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 giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit bccsa.ca. So we will start with the latest developments in the Canadian soccer saga,

and the Olympic Committee, Canadian Olympic Committee, had appealed the decision to give Canada a six-point deduction in the women's soccer tournament, and we all know that's where they were. Early this morning, about an hour ago, the IOC said, we're going to dismiss this. Yeah, it was actually, it was the court of

arbitration for sport dismissed the appeal of the six point penalty against the women's soccer team. So the women's soccer team has to win today. That's basically, they will still get that six point penalty. Now they've done incredibly well to overcome that penalty.

They beat New Zealand. They beat France, obviously in France, incredible come from behind effort. And now they're going to have to beat Colombia. Now, they should beat Colombia, but certainly no guarantee that they will. Canada is ranked number eight in the world, and I think Columbia is something like number 22.

So this is going to be a tough test for Canada because not only is the pressure on them to win this match, Columbia is also going to be trying to win this match. Um, and you know, a draw is not good enough for Canada. So they have to go out and win. And if they do, what a win it's going to be, uh, to overcome this six point punishment that

a lot of people, uh, including their own, uh, Olympic committee thought was too big a punishment. Six points, that's a lot. And they will go through to the quarterfinals with three points despite winning all three of their matches. But imagine if they draw today and they go 2-2 with one draw, and they don't get through. Now, opinions are going to be mixed on this sort of thing. Sean and Delta texted into the Dunbar Lumber text line at 6.50, 6.50,

and you can text in on the Dunbar Lumber text line. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial Park. More room, more product, more awesome. Details at DunbarLumber.com. And Sean and Delta says, Team Canada soccer Details at DunbarLumber.com. And Sean in Delta says, Team Canada Soccer lost its appeal and rightfully so. What they did was stupid. It's cheating. They got caught and are getting what they deserve. If this was China or Iran, everyone would be cheering this punishment. I still don't understand what

Team Canada Soccer was thinking. I think this always comes back to, is it fair to the players? You can go back to boycotts of the Olympics in 1980 and 1984 and say whether or not it was fair to those athletes who had prepared for those games and then politics got in the way and they weren't able to participate in them. What Bev Priestman and her coaching staff did was very wrong, in my opinion. Some people have downplayed the notion of spying on other teams' practices and said it's not a big deal, says everyone does it. Well, I don't know if everyone does do it. And there's a standard that I think we should have in Canada that we don't do that sort of thing.

But you have to feel for the players who now have to go out there and definitely get a win over Columbia. That being said, this is clearly galvanized the group because they've gone into, you know, hostile territory and beaten France. One of the best teams in the world. Um, I'd be surprised if they don't win today against Columbia, but again, Columbia is,

they're not among the best in the world, but they're still pretty good. And you have to wonder at some point if the mental exhaustion is going to, uh, play a factor for Canada because these women who have been through so much at these Olympics, you know, it's a lot to ask for them to win all three of their games in the group stage. The thing that comes up for me that I was kind of thinking about with this is it almost feels like for a hockey example, when a team is trying to make the playoffs and they're pushing really hard to make the playoffs and then eventually they do it, everyone's pumped, but then you get there and you're like,

well, we did it, and they kind of fall flat in the postseason. I wonder if that's what could happen with this, and hopefully it doesn't. In this game specifically or into the quarterfinals? I think you've just got to take care of business in this game first. It's not over yet. They're not through. For sure.

They're going to win today. But, yeah, if they do win and they do get into the quarterfinals, it will be interesting to see what they did. What else is going on Olympics-wise? So just before we move on, that game, by the way, at noon, because we get a text asking what time the game is at. It's at noon, our time against Columbia. So Olympics wise, throughout the night, there wasn't anything super major aside from that announcement.

There was Canada got fourth place in women's synchronized 10 meter platform diving. But most of the noteworthy things they did happen yesterday canada up to six medals following uh the silver win in women's rugby sevens and we talked about it a bit impressive win over australia that happened during the show yesterday and then they played against new zealand in the gold medal match and it felt like there was a moment they were leading at the half canada was where it was like hey you know what they might do this they might pull this off they might figure out a way to beat the kiwis and new zealand came back they got the win but it was still a wildly impressive result for canada and new zealand

deserved the medal they didn't make any mistakes in the second half. Canada missed a few tackles and that's all you need to do. The game of rugby sevens is a game of possession. If you can hold on to the ball, you're probably going to win because eventually you're going to break down the defense because it's so exhausting to try and defend in rugby sevens. Early on, Canada was playing incredibly defensively, and New Zealand actually made a few mistakes. They got sin-binned in the first half,

and they turned the ball over a few times, and Canada was able to take over. But those Kiwis are pretty good, and all in all, it was a really, really, really good performance by the Canadians. And talk about a tough day for the Aussies. Yeah. They got beaten by Canada unexpectedly, and they were probably thinking, oh, we're going

to have a gold medal match against New Zealand. This is going to be incredible. There are big rivals in, you know, Australia and New Zealand. And then they to be incredible. There are big rivals in, you know, Australia and New Zealand. And then they lose to Canada and they're in tears. And then it looks like they've got the bronze medal wrapped up against the Americans. And then the Americans, with just a few seconds left, get essentially like a last second breakaway try. Pretty much the length of the field to win bronze.

So a tough day for the Aussies in that. we got a bunch of texts into the Dunbar Lumber text line that I want to read because I want to talk about this, uh, women's soccer, uh, story just a little bit more. Canada lost its appeal in, uh, the court of arbitration for sport, uh, said, no, it's going to be a six point penalty. And Omar and East Van text in, Hey guys, what about the theory that for every person that gets caught doing something wrong or illegal, many others, if not, most people are also doing the same thing.

It's just that the individual was unfortunate enough to get caught red handed. Are we to believe team Canada is the only team cheating in some way? No, we are not. But Canada got caught. team cheating in some way. No, we are not. But Canada got caught. They got caught. If you're in favor of smart cheating, it was not smart cheating to be flying a drone in France with all the security out there, but I don't see

it that way. I see it that they got caught and it doesn't really matter if other teams didn't get caught. They got caught and, you know, I think most Canadians want their teams to not cheat. There are going to be some people out there that, you know, have the mantra, if you're not, you know, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. That's not me. If that's you, okay.

But I think as Canadians, were um embarrassed at this story that it became so big but at the same time we felt for the players my anger is 100 directed to the coaching staff on the canadian women's team um and i imagine some of the players are in a very, very tough spot because while they might be angry at the punishment, they might be angry at their own coaching staff. The anger at the coaching staff might be a little complicated because they probably also really like Bev Priestman because she's been the manager for a lot of their successes.

And, you know, I imagine that there's respect there for the management. But, you know, to answer Omar and Ysvan's question, are we to believe that Canada is the only team cheating in some way? No. the only team cheating in some way? No, but I would like to think that we hold ourselves to a high standard of ethical behavior in Canada. And I know a lot of people, the response has been like, you know, in a lot of countries, the media would rally around the team. And, you know, first of all, I think that has been done in some fashion and certainly when it comes to the players, but I don't think it's the media's job to cover up or excuse the

cheating of Team Canada's coaching staff. So the latest from, speaking of media covering this, Rick Westhead on Twitter, i'll read it read this out real quick fifa had evidence of canada soccer's historical spying program soon after assistant coach joey lombardi was arrested by french police canada soccer provided fifa's discipline committee with head coach bet priestman's emails as it considered sanctions after a canada soccer analyst emailed priestman four months ago to say that they refused to spy on opposing teams closed training Priestman emailed a human resources consultant on March 20th 2024 four months ago to ask for advice this is the Priestman email she

said quote seeking your advice and input here regarding this formal email on spying it's She just came right out and said it, eh? She just came right out and said it in the email that Rick West had quoted in a tweet and in an article. So Coquitlam Joe texts in and says, it seems strange that the soccer players get charged with six points, which should have cost them a chance at medals and would have to wait four years, yet the ones responsible only get one year ban and should have gotten a lifetime ban, not even penalties. Well, I don't think Bev Priestman's ever going to coach for canada again no like this is she's gonna have a tough time getting a um i mean she might be able to get a

head coaching job for a club or for another country but i don't think she's gonna get a high profile coaching job like the one she had for canada and when in women's soccer canada is one of the high-profile teams. Yeah, so that's the latest from Rick Westhead. And yeah, I find it hard to believe that any of these people, even though it was a one-year ban, will be able to snag jobs quickly. Okay, so elsewhere at the Olympics, Canada did miss out on a few other medals yesterday and overnight. Kylie Moss got fourth in the 100-meter backstroke. Francois Gauthier-Drapeau in judo lost the bronze medal match.

Canada came fifth in the women's artistic team all around gymnastics. Medal chances today and notable things. Obviously, we talked about Canada-Columbia. Summer McIntosh, the latest on her. She competed in the heats in the 200-meter butterfly. She's on to the semis. Those are at 11.45. And Ilya Karun.

By the way, this is an event that Summer could win, the butterfly. Honestly, like all of them. In swimming, they just call it the fly. Do they? Yeah, like in swimming circles like I belong to. I'm just like, yeah, it's the fly. Of yeah yeah like in swimming circles like yeah like i belong to i'm just like it's the fly of course free free and the back and the breast all right i think no so they don't call it that yeah yeah they don't roll with butter for butterfly though they should though they just say i'm a flyer i'm a flyer i'm a flyer i'm a flyer yeah yeah yeah good for them cool yeah i

want to be a flyer elia caroon speaking of he's a fly every time I'm a flyer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good for them. I want to be a flyer. Ilya Karun, speaking of the flyer. Every time I see the butterfly, I think of, oh, my God, I'm going to date myself here. Does anyone listening, because I know nobody in this studio will remember this, Alex Bauman had a – he was a swimmer for Canada, by the way. Oh, okay. He had a commercial for eggs and it was a get cracking commercial. I've heard of those. And he was doing the butterfly in that

commercial. Does anyone remember that listening? Probably not. How did the eggs factor in? How do eggs and butterflies? He was sponsored by eggs, you know, like get cracking, eat eggs, you know, I don't know, like big egg.

Butterfly. Was sponsoring Alex Bauman. And listen, why don't you just go on because i feel like if halford was here he'd be like i remember that commercial but you guys don't because josh is like 14 so whatever so i'm like 13 and a half yeah exactly and yeah anyway so the eggs powered him in his in his swimming yeah okay yeah and he got that was back in the day when it'd be people would be, yeah, I put 12 eggs and I mix them up and I just drink them raw. Yeah.

That's healthy. Yeah. This is good for me. Yeah. I'm a model of health. This is good for me. Yeah. Holy cholesterol.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the egg council guys got to you too, eh? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Keep going.

Sorry. Ilya Karun, speaking of the fly, he is in the men's 200 meter butterfly final that is right before summer macintosh's semi-final so that's at 11 37 so those are the notable things happening in the olympics today canada again at six medals two gold two silver two bronze uh did you watch simone biles at all yesterday at all yesterday win Olympic gold with her team? She's still got some individual events to compete in. And to be perfectly honest with you, I don't know if she's favored to win gold in any of those events. But for her to return to the team event that she had to leave essentially in Tokyo and win gold, I thought was an incredible story.

And just because of what she went through with the quote-unquote twisties, which is essentially the yips for gymnastics. And I wanted to actually bring basketball Ben into this conversation because, you know, the yips is a big golf thing. Uh, it's a big baseball thing. Uh, you can get it in a lot of sports. Uh, you can get it at the free throw line and basketball.

Um, have you ever had to deal with the yips? Very serious case of them. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So what is it? Was it your driver? Was it your chipping, putting, putting?

Yeah. It's like an involuntary muscle spasm. Right. Right before impact. So when did you, when did you have to deal with those and how did you deal with them? Because I've had the yips before. Last year in college. Really?

Right before provincial championships on the team. So was it like three foot putts or was it rag putts? Every putt. And the practice stroke would feel perfect. And then your hands would just explode basically? Right before. And the women's captain came up to me and was like, what are we going to do today?

What are you going to do? So I changed the grip to a claw grip and still use it. Yeah. But you have to change something. Like something's got to physically change to get your mental state out of that. The thing I find fascinating about the Simone Biles story is, well, there's a couple of things. Number one, if you yip a putt or if you yip a

throw in baseball, you're not going to hurt yourself. It might embarrass yourself, but you're not going to hurt yourself. The twisties are dangerous to get. Oh, for sure. Because you essentially lose all control or internal knowledge of your body while you're in the air doing these incredible, I don't want to call them tricks.

What do you call them? Stunts? Gymnastics? Flips? Whatever. Move, moves. In gymnastics. Aerial things. And number two is, I know you felt probably like the world was watching when you were in your tournaments, but the world literally was watching Simone Biles.

All eyes were on her when she did the vault and for herips and i imagine with the twisties is you can practice in low pressure situations and go yeah i feel good i i'm not having any problems but you don't know until the pressure's really on whether you're over it or not and that's the best way to get your confidence back is by putting yourself in those situations. And then when you have some success. Yes. Okay. I'm good now.

I know I can do this. I imagine it can go the other way too though. Yeah. Yeah. And some people, some people never get over them. They've ruined baseball careers. They've ruined golf careers. And, you know, we were all hoping that it

wouldn't happen to Simone Biles because she is considered the greatest female gymnast of all time. And I just found it like I've said before, I'm not a huge summer Olympics person. I found it very compelling yesterday watching her with all the pressure. I mean, there are celebrities in the arena. There were millions of people watching at home. Her teammates, perhaps most importantly, were relying on her to help them get a gold medal. And she was able to overcome that. And I thought that was just really, really impressive.

And even though she's not Canadian, I was really happy for her. And she has some individual events coming up later in the week as well it is Halford and Brough um moving forward we got Shai Davidi on the other side talk about the Blue Jays the trades they made how they're shaping up ahead of this offseason that could be a pivotal offseason for the Toronto Blue Jays it is Halford and Brough on Sportsnet 650. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. And what we just have to call Thomas Drant's erotica.

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Visit campbell-pound.com today. 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, Orfit, what are you waiting for? Kintec, you're waiting for that. We go to the phone lines now. Thomas Drance of The Athletic, also Canucks Talk, here on Sportsnet 650, though that's on hiatus,

so now he's just The Athletic. Thanks for taking the time, Thomas. How are you? Gentlemen, thanks for having me. Drance, you've been writing a lot about the coaching staff, so let's start with your conversation with Manny Malhotra. Gentlemen, thanks for having me. They're a coaching staff. He's got to learn the players. He's got to watch old video. Tell us a little bit more about the challenge that Manny Malhotra faces in his first stint as a professional head coach. Yeah, I mean, the context within which Malhotra comes into this club, right,

and the way that they've modified under Jim Rutherford and Patrick Alvin, sort of what the American League team in the Fraser Valley feels like and how it's built, right? That first couple of years when Abbotsford relocated from Utica, you know, you think about all of those incoming free agents. I mean, even guys like Kyle Burrows were signed, right, to sort of be like, to wear a C in Abbotsford, ended up playing for the Canucks because things weren't going well

at the NHL level in those latter stages of the betting era. But, you know, they were loaded teams, like expensive teams. Second or third highest payroll in the American League, which it's important to note, is an uncapped league, unlike the NHL, right? You can spend whatever you want. It's not uncommon for the Toronto Marlies to, you know, roll into Binghamton, New York, and have more money or more salary on their first power play unit than their

opponent has in their entire roster, right? Like it's, it's a totally different world. More like, more like the mid nineties NHL than, than the current NHL. And, and this team has really changed from being one of those big budget AHL teams to being something different and this isn't criticism by any means like what do you want to accomplish in the AHL do you want to win do you want to develop players the Canucks have changed this to be to have sort of younger developmental um more I mean they're more financially sustainable probably to sort of American League sides and and that's come with challenges now one interesting thing is as this process was ongoing the team was also hugely successful the last couple years making the playoffs hosting

playoff home dates under Jeremy Cullen who of, departed when the two sides couldn't come to an agreement on a contract over the summer. In comes Malhotra, a first-time head coach, but a guy who's been an assistant for eight years, obviously played 1,000 NHL games, was known for being, you know, part coach in the latter stages of his NHL career, even when he was playing.

Cerebral guy, right? And I thought that came through in the latter stages of his NHL career, even when he was playing cerebral guy. Right. And I thought that came through in the interview, right. Just, just little things like him telling me that he wanted to watch the video to do his own homework, even before he got instruction, right. To try and have this sort of clean unvarnished view of, of what he wanted to do in Abbotsford. Like, I think that's consistent with a lot of what you've seen from this Canucks coaching staff across the board, right? That level of thought and thoughtfulness, not just in terms of the usual, the systems play, the hockey stuff, the experienced hockey guy stuff, but also in terms of, you know, how I come to the information, how I process the information,

how do I make the best least biased assessment, right? How do I make sure that my opinion's not colored by sort of how the organization thought prior to my arrival? I think that's telling, you know, about how Malhotra will fit in, but also about who Malhotra is as sort of a really thoughtful, you know, hockey guy. How different is the approach going to be for Manny Malhotra compared to Jeremy Colleton? Because the one thing that seems to be consistent is they want the similar approaches in both the NHL and AHl and making it an easier transition for

players coming up from abbotsford so how much kind of leeway and creativity does mal holter have within that yeah i mean you need to have that consistency you need to be able to plug linus carlson into a key playoff game and have him play sort of the way that, you know, you need, right? Which is something the Canucks got, right? I mean, one thing you'd say about all of the guys who came up last year, whether it was Baines, whether it was Linus Carlson, you know, whether it was even Vasily Podkolzin or Niels Hoaglander, right, who went down for stints and then the club's hoping to get more from them at the NHL level. Like, it was pretty clear that they'd come up with, you know,

I'd say like teacher's pet defensive details, right? Like all of these players came up and were able to play something that looked to us like Rick Tockett hockey, right? Last season. So I do think it's important to have that. The way that Talkett looks at it is he sees it as like an 80-20 split, right? Like 80% we need to have that consistency so that players are prepared. But 20%, you need to be able to have the latitude as a coach in the American League to do what's actually going to work for your group, right?

And sort of that's how Malhotra and Rick Talkett have discussed it. You know, Malhotra described it as refreshing in the piece. And, you know, I do think there's probably less of, you know, Colleton's a guy who's been a head coach in the SHL. He had enormous success in the American League and Rockford, coached in the NHL for the Chicago Blackhawks, and then comes to Utica, or sorry, comes to Abbotsford. And, you know, that's a guy who, like, has his own way of approaching things.

So as an example, when Talkett first came in to coach the Canucks, right, and sort of midway through that 22-23 season, down in Abbotsford, they played man defense. Well, Talkett has his own defense system in terms of man coverage. And so, you know, as sort of a realistic example of how this 80-20 split works, talk it and call it and have a conversation. Talk it, says, hey, look, what you're doing is working for your team now.

Finish the season. Don't change things up midstream because, you know, we've changed it up at the NHL level. But in the offseason, let's move to something similar to what I'm doing, right? To sort of my hybrid zone scheme. And so that's how it worked, right? Like, that's the example of, hey, look, there's practical realities. Your AHL team is going to make the playoffs doing what you're doing.

We're not. You know, don't change what you're doing now. But eventually, we're going to want to have consistency systematically. And I think that's sort of how it works. That's that 80-20. And it's something that, you know, I think there's a material difference there, right, where sure the situations were different,

but also the idea that Collin has this, you know, pre-built sort of way he wants to play. Malhotra's going to find that because this is a role he's never previously held. Drancer you've just published an article on the athletic and the headline is inside how Canucks coaches are preparing to improve on last season's success I haven't had time to read it yet so can, can you provide us a preview? Yeah, look, I, I'd had these conversations with Malhotra with Talkit and, and sort of fleshed out just a piece on something that Talkit did last summer and something that the club will do again this summer, which is, you know, there's a three day summit, which Talkit hosts for the coaching

staff. And so you've got, you know, the AHL coach in Manny Malhotra, who actually has a pretty interesting role at this conference. You've got Henrik and Daniel Sedin. You've got Yogi Schipkowski. You've got Adam Foote. You've got, you know, Ian Clark, Sergey Gonchar. There's like 7,000 plus NHL games played in experience on that coaching staff, in addition to what, you know, all of those gentlemen have done in experience on that coaching staff. In addition to what,

you know, all of those gentlemen have done in the league behind the bench. And it's, it's sort of a three day summit in which like various coaches do breakout presentations in, in which, you know, adjustments,

counter adjustments are debated like pretty hotly. You know, you hammer video, you discuss sort of how you want to play you debate how you want to play you you look at how other teams are playing like which which teams are the best in the league on the breakout um is it personnel or is it systems how can we close the gap right like that's really the the sort of um what what they do there it fundamentally falls under that, you know,

umbrella of how do we make this team better? And then there's a golf outing, because you don't want to fry everyone's brain necessarily. Talk It refers to it as a power conference. So I went and collected as much detail as I could about that summit and just thought it might be a, you know, interesting and different look at sort of what a summer of preparation looks like for an NHL

coaching staff and put that together in my latest at the Athletic, really drilling down on like, hey, the twins, for example, at this conference are going to do a breakout deep dive presentation on face-off plays, looking at how the Canucks did last year, how they fared in that area, looking at how other teams fared in that area, including some of the best teams in the league. What can the club learn from that? What can they draw from that? And one of the interesting notes, actually, that came out was, you know, Malhotra has been tasked with, sure, he'll present on, you know,

AHL systems issues and how he wants that team to play and on and on. But also, because he's coming from without and the rest of the coaching staff is familiar right they've all now been together for the last 18 months basically um you know again sort of back to the thoughtful way that this connects coaching staff processes even like the dissemination of information internally um they're going to ask him to be sort of a group think buster, right? Like you're supposed to be, and he's been challenged to be kind of like the guy with the outside view,

bring that outside view, right? The fact that we've been thinking and in the weeds with how this team plays and your sort of professional exposure to it has been like putting together a pre-scout on our team, you know, the two times the beliefs and the Canucks faced each other last season that there's value there for us and we need you to bring that um so I think that's uh sort of just a telling detail about how this um organization under Rick Talk is sort of leadership how the coaching staff thinks about

and is thoughtful about uh going through these sorts of processes. And you can read a ton of details. I think it's a pretty unique look or glimpse at sort of how Talkit in particular thinks about and approaches preparing his staff during the summer. Is a coaching summit like this unique to Rick Talkit and what the Canucks are trying to do? Is this something that happens around the league with other teams too and and is this something that like tocket has implemented in vancouver or is is this just always kind of been his approach to things because it feels like

he's kind of come into the canucks with this new sense of like hey he's developed as a coach he he has a lot of thoughtfulness behind everything he does. And I'm not sure, like, he potentially did this in the past, but I'm not sure if it was to the same extent that we're maybe seeing in Vancouver. Yeah, you know, and look, coaches' meetings, the coaching staff getting together for, you know, an extended meeting or two prior to the season, I mean, that happens everywhere. But I do think the, I mean, that happens everywhere, but, but I do think the, you know, traveling for it, uh, the, the way that it sort of incorporates a golf day,

the, these breakout presentations, it's at a level of detail. That's not common with what I've seen from NHL head coaches and coaching staffs or NHL coaching staffs. Um, so, so I do think it's maybe a little bit more fleshed out, but I think it's in line with something that's relatively common. I think where it's maybe a little bit different is sort of the level of, like, homework and presentation that's sort of drilled down and assigned to the staff and how that sort of functions within a general discussion. Maybe it's a little bit more formalized.

I don't think it's, like, a off the wall, totally new idea so much as I think there's some unique ways in how talk it approaches and structures it, which I think are telling. And that's sort of why I wanted to pick at those details and flesh it out for our piece. To answer who is responsible for fixing the power play. Yeah, so Yogi Shevkovsky is going to present on that, but he's been working closely with Tauket on it. And then I think there's also a presentation by Yogi that, well, I know there's a presentation by Yogi

that's focused more generally on offensive strategy, right? And I think the rush attack is a big part of that um i i also think figuring out some some answers and some counter adjustments to how teams began to play the hughes heronic pair differently in the second half of last season right i think there's space that the team believes that they can tap into and and believes they did tap into uh at times over the course of last season, but, but, you know, want to want to have better answers, I think just for, for what happens when teams do as the Vegas Golden Knights did when they sort

of abandoned their zone defensive scheme, usually called Boston one, if you're into the jargon and sort of just like jail broke to cover the points right like that that's what happened in that early December Vegas win over Vancouver is they really crashed the points uh defensively like really decided that the focal point of the Canucks attack wasn't to take away space down low the way we'd approach it with every other team but but let's make sure that hughes and cronic don't have space well that's where the puck was always going right well and

that's where at once once cassidy and company put that on tape you know there there's a feeling that things changed for the canucks and and after that you know i mean we get to the playoffs and we saw the nashville predators front every shot like a pretty extreme sort of approach there. Oh, I missed that word, fronting. I think we said that word 6,000 times during that series. But it was also crazy to watch, right? Yeah, it was. The Predators were willing to sacrifice, you know, a lot of zone time themselves,

a lot of aggression themselves to make sure that they were blocking every point shot. I mean, it was a pretty incredible sort of thing. And so it makes sense that that's another big preoccupation. But yeah, Schivkovsky will present on the power play. Power play remains under Tocque's direction. But obviously the twins, Yogi, there's going to be a collective effort here. And as we saw down the stretch when the power play sort of lost momentum

and then did the Canucks no favors in the playoffs, most notably in Game 7 against the Oilers. Yeah, I mean, I think that's going to be certainly to be a fly on the wall for that, right? That feels like maybe one of the most important sort of subjects for this coaching staff to tackle. And it's something they will tackle over the course of August. Drancer, just a couple of minutes left here,

but do you think all this is energizing for the coaching staff to have something new to think about and potentially energizing for the players? Because we all knew the things that they had to fix last season. And, you know, Rick Tockett can't come in and just say the same old, same old. He has to have a new message. He has to energize the players in a different way. Yeah, you know, you'd hope so. I mean, like from the outside, right, the idea that this team can have the success that it did last season

and then you've got your key organizational leaders saying, I need to be better. We need to be better. We're going to work all summer on being better in, in specific areas. Right. I think that's a sign of a bar raising. Right.

And, and to me, like even to me, I see that and I'm like, okay, let's go. Like that's, that's a level.

That's cool. It'll be interesting. Well, it's also a I see that and I'm like, okay, let's go. Like, that's a level. That's cool. That's cool. It'll be interesting. Well, it's also a level of ambition and thoughtfulness that I don't know that I'd come to expect, you know, in previous years. And so to have that now, I do think is a sign of progress right whether or not next season is as successful as last season was um you know i i think the bones to you know build a robust team that's doing things intelligently that's that's thinking differently about these things like i think that's necessary right uh you just think about like the best eras of canucks hockey and they've all seemed to coincide with organizational leadership trying

different things. And this to me is sort of, you know, the tip of the spear of the Canucks approaching things. I think the way you have to, to get an edge in the contemporary NHL. Drancer, thanks for this today. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for giving us Canucks talk on this July 31st. really appreciate it have you been have you been enjoying the Olympics watching any of it I dude I love the Olympics I'm such a sucker um I I yeah the uh it's been great I've really enjoyed the basketball I've been watching a lot of it um are you worried about Jamal Murray um well no I mean he was on a minus cap all pre-tournament and he wasn't very good down the stretch in the NBA playoffs either

because he's been battling through an injury. So I just had pretty low expectations, I think. I wonder if it's tendonitis. I don't know. I mean, he's not right. Like, he's clearly not right. Just like Joel Embiid is a big problem for Team USA, right? Yeah.

You know, so, but I'd also add this. Like, to me, that Canadian basketball's like you know so um but but i'd also add this like to me that canadian basketball team you know what what makes them special in my view uh yeah obviously the backcourt on paper is amazing but it's really that you've got a closer who's probably better right now in shea than anyone on team usa and you've got enough of that like wing size defenders dort barrett and uh brooks um you know like there's a lot of teams with guys who can make threes there's not a lot of teams with guys who can make threes and like blow up plays defensively and they've got a bunch of them and that's sort of what makes them special i do think ultimately against team usa they're going to be

too small but um you know the fact that they have the best crunch time guy like the guy i'd want taking the last shot on either team um man if they can keep that close it's gonna be interesting i just want to see them play the americans i want to see them have a game well i i don't expect them to win but i i i want them to i want them to try at least well yeah and i mean we'll see how the point differential breaks down but they beat spain tomorrow or sorry friday they beat spain on friday um and they'll be in the driver's seat to have that sort of positioning where you don't bump into the states until the gold medal game which would be sick thrilling all right drancer well enjoy the rest of the olympics uh a big soccer game for can today against Columbia. And thanks for taking the time, buddy.

See you. Anytime, guys. All right. That was Thomas Drance from The Athletic and Sportsnet 650. Get your what we learns into the Dunbar-Lumber text line at 650-650. We will start with a few what we learns of our own, and then we will dig into the text inbox. You're listening to The Alfred and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

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