Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 8/26/24

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Mike Halford and Jason Brough look back at the weekend in sports, plus they talk some Canucks with Canucks play-by-play Brendan Batchelor.  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. Right center field. Sears going back. He's at at the track he's at the wall 40 40 high fly ball deep left center see ya 50 home runs

Aaron Judge has done it again! You're off to an awesome start, buddy. Good morning, Vancouver. 6.01 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. It's Alfred. It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintex Studios

in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. A-Dog is on vacation. We're back. We are coming to you live from the Kintex Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. A-Dog is on vacation. We're back. We are back. Lena's in for A-Dog. Good morning, Lena.

I'm sorry in advance, everybody. It's okay. It's okay. Lena's in and Laddie's in as well. Good morning, Laddie. Hello, hello. Halford & Ruffin in the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers.

They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. So, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for.

We talked about this. We talked about this. We talked about this. I told Halford that Josh was valiantly trying to copy everything he did, including screwing up reads. Well, he did that a few times early on, and he also still did the Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. And I was like, the whole idea behind you just saying kintec is that you would like just like hit the kintec just hit it just be like kintec and then you had to move on

that's what you're waiting for kintec that's what you're waiting for and i told him told him not to do that anymore god i miss jamie dodd and josh they listened i do know welcome back buddy yeah thanks yeah thanks i'm excited to be back uh guest list today begins at 6 30 seth everson's gonna join the program he is a senior writer for the athletic and his new piece is football has never been more popular to watch but are there fewer players he covers the sec and he covers uh kirby smart and george in particular and there's a big decline in uh high school and then even at the collegiate level, there's lots of people playing football than ever.

You know what they're playing? Flag football. Oh, okay. They're all trying to get into the Olympics in 2028. I feel like it's just going to be like, it's injuries. Yeah. The crippling concussions are usually what is keeping people. It's not the same as, well, maybe there's some reasons.

I don't know. It's not the same as like hockey where I know some parents are worried about concussions and that sort of thing but it's more like uh we uh cannot afford to mortgage our home again so there is so expensive there is a cost running a high school football program is a very expensive yes enterprise for the school right and then uh it just sort of becomes one of those things where there's not a huge decline, but it's actually the ages that kids are getting into football is later and later. They don't really want kids playing at 11 and 12, a lot of the parents. So we'll talk to Seth about that at 630. We got a football heavy show.

He has a 7 o'clock Mike Tannier, our NFL insider from the too deep zone, is going to join us. We'll go around some of the stories that came from the weekend. There's a couple quarterback jobs still up for grabs he wrote something really interesting on where russell wilson is at and talking about how his hall of fame candidacy has just completely plummeted over the last few years and he said he said at one point it was like almost a foregone conclusion that russ was going to be in the hall of fame like two years ago and now all of a sudden you're looking at a totally different guy who may not be the day one starter uh for the pittsburgh am i the only one that gets like guys like jared stidham and jacoby brissett mixed up i'm like they're the same person to me yeah no do you know

what i mean like they're the same player those two are a little different but no but do you know what i mean like their names are like it's like who's bonex trying to beat out is it is it is it stidham or jacoby brissett? And Drake May is trying to beat out. That one's fair because they both kind of all played for the same team. Well, they start with J too, right? But they're kind of like they're quarterbacks in the NFL, but they're not really starting quarterbacks. Right.

So the one that's still up for grabs with Jacoby Brissett is Jacoby Brissett and Drake May. Bo Nix has beaten out Jarrett Stidham. Yes. And Jarrett Stidham's upset. Drake May's going to get it, though. It seems like it. Because which one is it good?

Again, Jacoby Brissett kind of got... He got hurt on the weekend. ...roughed up on the weekend. So we can talk to Mike Tanier about that at 7 o'clock, 7.30. Brendan Batchelor, play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks, is going to join the program. More news as Freedj got in on the Thatcher Demko and Ian Clark and Vancouver Canucks is going to join the program. More news as Freed got in on the Thatcher Demko and Ian Clark and Vancouver Canucks goaltending discussion

in his most recent 32 Thoughts over the weekend. So Batch will join us at 7.30 to talk about all that and more. Now, I missed, apparently, the hit of the century with Moj on Friday. Yeah. Last of the grand total of two and a half, three minutes. He's like, how's it going? The Lions, it's gut check time.

We're taking off. Bye. And then they lost again. Yes. Five in a row. Yeah. Season might be slipping away. That was so frustrating to watch.

It was just like, so we had Ryan Phillips on earlier in the week, and he was the defensive coordinator. And he was like, yeah, we got to do a better job of tackling. And then the Lions did a worse job of tackling against Ottawa. I mean, it can't have been the same or certainly wasn't better. It was bad. And yet, at the same time, they were still in it for most of the game. Right.

Despite all the bad play on defense and the three turnovers by Nathan Rourke because Rourke did manage to make a few plays. And now we got this game coming up in Victoria on Saturday. Touchdown Pacific, they call it. The rematch against Ottawa. Because it's the Pacific Ocean. They do another one called Touchdown Atlantic. That's a different ocean.

Yeah, they do that. It shows how big Canada is. So, you know, ahead of that, there is a looming quarterback controversy. And also, the team isn't very good right now. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. When I went on vacation, everything seemed like it was fine. Hunky-dory for the British Columbia Lions, who are now 5-6 and in third place in the West Division.

So we'll talk to Moj about that at 8. Brandon Batchelor at 7.30. Mike Tanney at 7.00. Seth Emerson at 6.30. That's the show on a Monday. Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No.

No. 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. So I'll try not to do too much navel-gazing about the month that I had off. But before I went on vacation, the British Columbia Lions were in a completely different position than they are right now. Losers of five straight, now five and six on the year, this after a 34-27 loss to the Red Blacks of Ottawa on Saturday night. A loss so damaging that it forced sideline reporter

Farhan Lalji into a 10-minute uninterrupted Twitter recap analysis video in which he broke down everything that's gone wrong for this team and everything has gone wrong for this team. Well, here's the thing. You know me. I love a good scapegoat. I don't know who to sca's gone wrong for this team and everything has gone wrong for this team. Well, here's the thing. You know me. I love a good scapegoat. I don't know who to scapegoat for this team.

There's so much going on. You can't pin Saturday's loss on any one part of this nosediving team. Nathan Roark did make some plays, especially with his legs, but he didn't take care of the ball. Had another interception, a couple fumbles, and the defense continued to struggle with missed tackles. And I mentioned that that was something that Ryan Phillips spoke about last week on the show, and you could see his frustration on the sideline

when they were trying to get a stop, especially late in the game because they wanted to get the ball back. And it wasn't even close to getting a stop at times. There were these second long opportunities which the Red Blacks easily converted. It was tough. So Saturday in Victoria where Nathan Mark was born by the way.

He grew up in Oakville but he was born in Victoria. It's a rematch of the Lions and the Red Blacks. And I guess we'll see if Vernon Adams is healthy enough to come off the bench at the very least. We can talk to Moj about that. I can't imagine they're going to name a new starter, even if Vernon Adams was 100% healthy.

I don't think they're going to go into the Victoria game, especially and be like, right. And I also don't think Nathan Mark has been – We all expected some rust, and there's been some rust. But I don't think he was so bad on Saturday that you were like, we can't play this guy. He needs to take care of the ball better. He knows that.

He hasn't played meaningful football for a long time. He was bad in the first game. He was mediocre in the first game. He was mediocre in the second game. So hopefully he continues to improve. In two games played since signing with the Lions on August 13th, Rourke has thrown for 360 passing yards, one touchdown, and three interceptions with the Lions. So that's not great,

although that stat line didn't include some of the great plays he's made with his feet. Yep. Here's the good news for the Lions. Is there good news? Yeah, there is. At five and six, winning the West is still in the cards for the Lions because the West is the new East.

Yeah, I saw that. The East is the new West. The East is the new West. So Saskatchewan that lost on a walk-off rouge the other day in Toronto. I wasn't paying attention to a lot of sports on vacation. And then when there was a walk-off rouge, I was like, ah, I'm back. Got the alert on your phone. What was better?

I have a walk-off rouge alert. What was better, the walk-off rouge in the CFL or the walk-off bunt in the Little League World Series? We'll get to that in a sec. We'll get to that later. I broke down the video with Laddy this morning talking about poor bunt defense. He's like screaming at these children on the screen. Staples of Little League baseball. So you're blaming the second baseman,

right? He wasn't there? All I'm saying is that when you have a bunt defense put in place, if it's down the first baseline, general rule of thumb is the pitcher goes in fields, the first baseman goes and covers. Then the second baseman goes behind first base in case there's an overthrow. This one, the pitcher and the first baseman bombed into field at the bun.

I don't know what the second baseman was doing. The second baseman was like, look at those guys go. Hey, guys, go get the ball. And then the right fielder just stood in right field. Anyway, it was not. You could tell the pitcher was like, someone will be there. We've practiced this millions of times. You know what? I bet they didn't

because no one bunts anymore. Right. At any rate. These pathetic children couldn't pull off a bunt play. Come on. Small ball, right? I mean, you're in a clutch moment. What are they even doing in Taiwan? What are they doing? Come on. Figure it out. Anyway, we were talking about the Lions. Here's the good news for the Lions.

They're 5-6. They used to be 5-1. Ah, those were good days. So is Winnipeg, 5-6. And in first place in the division, 5-5-1, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Now, you probably expect Winnipeg to win this division. They had a bad start. They're better than their record suggests.

But like Calgary's 4-6, Edmonton's 3-8, the division stinks. So the division is still there. Two problems for the Lions, and this is the bad news. First of all, they keep losing. Yeah, that's bad. So that's a problem. The second problem is their next three games are against the three best teams in the league.

And it's weird to say this, but the three best teams in the league, at least based on their record, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto. They got to run the gauntlet of the eastern teams. Yeah. So I feel I feel bad that this is another sort of offshoot of the Halford and Brough jinx where we get excited about something going into either a season or a game or a weekend and then it only falls, like, incredibly flat. So prior to this season, we were pretty excited about the BC Lions' prospects for what was on the horizon. There was the touchdown Pacific game,

which was going to be very cool, and, of course, hosting the Grey Cup. Then the narrative, I thought, when Rourke came back, was I was like, oh, this is perfect. Like, sports writer's dream, you know? The prodigal son returns. He's going gonna take the team over at a moment where they needed a quarterback because Vernon Adams was hurt they can't play

defense a lick like I went back and watched a couple of the low lights from how bad the tackling was yeah and I alluded to Farhan's video analysis on Twitter and I mean the it was a scathing review from him it was a scathing review from him. It was a scathing review from all of the pundits and journalists that were watching the game, like saying things like it's not professional grade football. Like that's damning, not just for any team, but for a team that has aspirations of being the host and also being in the Grey Cup. I mean, right now. And I saw some people on Twitter.

It's like, you got to fire Ryan Phillips. I'm like, what? What's he going to teach him to tackle? You know, one of the interesting things. It's ridiculous. One of the interesting things. I mean, Rick Campbell, we can have a conversation about. But I don't know about Ryan Phillips.

That conversation might be happening right now. I think everyone's focused on the Rourke angle and story and situation. To me, that's almost secondary at this point, because you just kind of assume that he'll figure it out. He hasn't played games in a long time. I'm not worried about Rourke. I'm a little bit worried about Rourke. Not 100% worried about him.

There was another offseason departure that was maybe even bigger, and that was when Matthew Betts went to the NFL. And it's funny, because if you talk to what's plaguing the lions on defense right now one they can't tackle and two they don't have any playmakers well your best playmaker who had 18 sacks last year is now trying to make the destroy i love i love when people justified that too it's like i took a lot of penalties i was like yeah you got less sacks yeah i'll take the penalties he got 18 sacks in 18 games and you you can't rush the quarterback right now the only way you can do it is by dialing up blitzes. Yeah, you remember how we talked about the Seahawks

at times over the last few years, and we were like, who are the guys on defense that you're like, that guy's going to make a play, or that guy's going to blow up a play in a good way? That was the whole reason they went out and got Jamal Adams, was he supposed to be this hybrid playmaker that was just going to do things all over, and it never materialized.

Did it work? It did not. But he was a good guy though, right? He was great. Everyone loved him. Okay, let's talk about Frege entering the Demco discussion in 32 Thoughts. I'm just going to read this verbatim because you missed all this stuff. And Frege writes, and if you want to read his latest 32 Thoughts,

it's up on sportsnet.ca. And he writes, the thing that surprised most about Ian Clark stepping away from day-to-day Vancouver goalie duties was the timing. Usually those decisions are made earlier in the summer. And then he used the Rangers as an example. The Rangers announced Benoit Allaire's replacement this week, but they knew it was a foregone conclusion during the season. This one, Vancouver, unfolded pretty recently and pretty quickly. What to watch for will be how or if

Thatcher Demko's workload both on and off the ice changes under new supervision. No one is really sure about his timeline. That's bad. No one is really sure about his timeline. That's bad. No one is really sure about his timeline. The Canucks wanted Demko, who was recovering from injury, to play preferably twice before last year's playoffs.

Remember this? I do. End of the season? I do. Are we going to see Demko shake off the rust and then he'll be ready for the playoffs? That's exactly how it went. So, and they wanted him to play so they knew if they could count on him.

He made those two appearances and then one game won versus Nashville. Then he broke down and did not return in the playoffs. It wasn't an unreasonable request, but Freed poses this question. Did Demko, like any athlete would, push himself too hard to hit that target? And what does that mean for the future? Okay, so let's break down what Freed wrote a little bit. And by the way, I know a lot of people might roll their eyes when the goalie coach becomes a star of the soap opera. It's against the goalie coach in August.

But that's the market we're in. And if you do care about this story, you do have to wonder what happened that this announcement came out so late in the offseason. And the reason people like to know this is because we like to think that everything's running pretty smoothly. Sure. Right? Behind the scenes, they're not going to get to,

it's less than one month now to training camp. We'd be like, wait a minute, who's our goalie coach anyway coach anyway but right well there's also a course of action historically for nhl teams and how things are done when they're done and there's there's a sort of protocol it's just out there right teams often don't make fairly significant staffing decisions in late august we have a little bit of market related ptsd here here with the last management group where things didn't always run smoothly behind the scenes, and things like this would crop up a little too often. They kept running out of time.

Now, I'm not trying to suggest that there was some big blowout fight between Jim Rutherford and Patrick Alveen and Ian Clark, but maybe there was. Who's to say? Halford's back now, so we can just get right into, like, this base of speculation. Josh wasn't really willing to play that game. He was terrified for his game.

We are. Yeah, he was. Mine's half over. More than half, buddy. Anyway, I'm sure Demko is just dying to talk about all of this when he meets with the media, whenever that may be. You know who else I'd like to hear from? Ian Clark.

Yep. He didn't get a quote in the press release, which is sometimes telling because sometimes when someone of Ian Clark's stature moves on, they'll do the quote from the general manager. And there was a very long quote from Patrick Alveen explaining this situation. You're kind of like, you're really explaining this seems like you have something to explain here but nothing from Ian Clark and Ian Clark hasn't spoken to anyone at least on the record um

and I'll also be curious to see if any other team approaches Clark to join their organization as director of goaltending, right. And then he would leave the Canucks because that would be a promotion for him. And Dolly Wall and Drance wrote about this in the athletic. Now he will, I'm sure feel some loyalty. I'm talking about Ian Clark to Thatcher Demko and Marco Terranius,

where he might want to remain with the organization right but something happened here guys like this isn't just like there's nothing to see here there's nothing to see here there's there's something a little bit to see here and hanging over all of this and this is the really important thing is like we don't know when Thatcher Demko is going to be ready to play and I think there's probably a lot of you out there that are worried about Thatcher Demko's just overall health and whether or not the Canucks are going to be able to rely on this guy going forward don't forget two years left on his contract so it's next off season when they could theoretically make their decision on the future

of Thatcher Demko in Vancouver yeah and I think you know the the Clark story is one that we might never get full clarity on we might never get the peek behind the curtain as to what exactly happened and that's fine goalie coaches move on organizations manage to overcome the losses of even highly acclaimed ones because there's a bunch of other guys out there that are looking to make their mark in a similar fashion that's not the issue the issue is 100 the demco's health moving forward the timing of this as freach pointed out was curious because one it was so late in the summer and two it was almost like the two narratives were lining up on the highway against one another racing for like well you got the i Ian Clark situation, you got the Demko health situation. Well, uncertainty is always interesting. Right.

Right? So you've got the Demko health, uncertain. You've got how will Demko perform without Ian Clark helping him out on a day-to-day basis, without Ian Clark being out on the ice. I'm sure Marco Turinius is a good goalie coach. One of my favorite goalie coaches of all time. I've had my eye on him for a while. Love the work that he's done.

I was watching him in the KHL. But we don't know. We don't know. The bar, that's high for Ian Clark. Ian Clark's considered one of the best goalie coaches in the league, if not the history of the game. He's a very good goalie coach. I know there's probably like

one Canuck fan out there. You know, the Canucks fans that'll refuse to worry about anything. Sure. Like nothing is worth worrying about. I bet there's at least one Canuck fan that has said in the past, don't worry about this goalie or don't worry about the goalie situation.

We've got Ian Clark. So might've said that in the past but now is saying don't worry about this situation ian clark is still with the organization he's just hanging around he's having a good time uh the other thing and you brought up well where demko's at in his career arc in terms of yeah that would be the other uncertainty part right i'm locked up no uh one of the things that i always bring up with demko isn't necessarily that he's like one of the elite goalies in the nhl and you need him in the lineup because he's part of that core. He's also doing it with on a $5 million a year hit.

Like when that contract's up, that cap hit escalates. Totally. I mean, you're looking at, go look at some of the other elite goalies in the NHL. And I mean, look at what Shusterkin will eventually cash in. There's going to be a big ticket unless his health completely falls off, which is another conversation for another time. And then that's not good, though. But, I mean, you look at Demko.

Great, we get him for a bargain. I mean, you've got Demko, who's a Vezna finalist, and Hughes, who's a Norris Trophy winner. So the elite of the elite at two very important positions, and they're on terrific cap hits, which is, again, when you go back to, well, this is when you need to cash in, when these guys aren't making egregious sums of money, and you fit them in nicely under the cap.

Getting them in under $13 million combined, I mean, how many other teams can say that they've got a Norris-caliber guy and a Vezna-caliber guy locked up for that little money? Not many teams. Tambo in East Van with an early What We Learned. And he's texting into the Dunbar- Lumber text line at 650-650. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial

Park. You knew about that. My favorite industrial park. It's a good one. More room, more product, more awesome details at DunbarLumber.com. Tambo with an early what we learned. I learned that when Halford is away, Brough

actually sounds calm, positive, and happy. Shake my head. Amazing. Halford leaves and we get Bizarro Brough. Yeah, now you're back and I'm kind of like on edge again. Like you started it out with like, you couldn't even say your good morning. I poked the bear

a little bit. You couldn't even say your good morning. The microphone. I hit the wrong button. You hit the wrong button. So your first move back was to hit the off button. Was hitting the off button on your microphone and then you looked at Laddie like something was wrong technically. And then I turned his mic

on and he muttered, something's wrong with the button. Immediately blaming someone else. Oh, it's the on button. That's the one. Laddie did see me with Josh. I was encouraging. I was positive. Josh, you just did such a great job. Everyone who fills in for you

just does such a great job. And then you come back and it's like, okay, welcome back. But we only have two and a half hours to go. Back to this. And there's only four days until friday so that's exciting okay uh we're gonna go to break when we come back seth emerson senior writer from the athletic is gonna join us a lot of football talk today we got emerson we got tannier and we got moj brendan bachelor as well as 7 30 you're listening to

the halford and brough show on sportsnet 650 you're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. It's his friend and bachelor, bachelor, bachelor. Live from Rogers Arena, calling Canucks games. It's his friend and bachelor, bachelor, Bachelor. 734 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford, Brav, Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brav of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers.

They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour two of the program. It's still August, but prior to going to break, you and I were talking about signs of that looming fall. You had one over the weekend. It's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. It's not. I always get depressed when summer's over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, there's a lot of good sports coming on. I mean thing, by the way. It's not. I always get depressed when summer's over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, there's a lot of good sports coming on. I mean, that's the thing. My kids are going back to school. That's nice. There were a couple days during vacation where I was like, I just want to watch some sports. And then I have one of those apps.

It's like sports on TV today. Yeah. And it was like, hmm. I don't even know what kind of fighting that is. Some sort of mixed martial art, but I can't tell which one it is. All right, I'll give it a go. Yeah, and then I watched it. It was depressing.

So I am very excited to be back. We are very excited to be getting closer and closer to the fall. Joining us now to continue this conversation, the play-by-play voice of your Vancouver Canucks here on Sportsnet 650, Brendan Batchelor joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show. Good morning, Batch. How are you?

I'm doing well. Speaking of looking for sports to watch, I watched a few minutes of something called Pickle Pod on TV yesterday, which is like a mixture of pickleball and squash that they play in like a glass pod, which I didn't know existed until yesterday. So that's the time of year we're at here in terms of sports.

And luckily hockey season's just around the corner. Yeah. And you also got to see Manchester United lose again. Yeah. But I mean, I'm used to that. That's part of the course. Is Brighton and Hove like the new Leicester? Do they have a chance to get into the Champions League? I think they do. And in terms of

Manchester United in particular, they're kind of like they're kryptonite a little bit. Like they're the one team that always has their number regardless of where they sit in the table. Although there's a lot of teams

that have had Manchester United's number in the last few years. But they've got a poor record against Brighton and we saw another disappointing loss for United at the weekend. So, but no, I, like I've liked Brighton's program for a few years. I think, you know, some of the, the talent they have in their squad and the way that they play has allowed them to have more success than you might expect. And that certainly could, you know, play out again this season for sure. All right, let's get to the Canucks talk, Batch.

I'm sure you've been watching this soap opera, the latest soap opera around the Canucks. They've got good soap operas. Like when you're bringing in the goalie coach as one of the stars of the soap opera, you know you got good writers behind the scenes. What do you make of all this Ian Clark's departure combined with thatcher demko's injury status and i would probably add in the decision that the canucks have to make in a year if they want to about whether or not to

extend thatcher demko there's just all of a sudden a lot of uncertainty around the position yeah and you know it's it's hard to kind of parse through it when we're not in the room because we don't know what went on in terms of the decision making process from ian clark's perspective to you know change roles we also don't know details around demco summer and what has or hasn't happened and what procedures have or haven't happened in any sort of timeline. And it seems like, you know, from the reporting that's been done on it, that there isn't much of a timeline or there isn't a clear idea on when Demko could be back. So when you have that uncertainty and then you've got, you know, changing the position of goaltending coach, although I think, you know, Marco Terenas is really highly thought of

in goaltending circles and has been highly thought of within the organization for a number of years. So you hope that that means that it can be a smooth transition. But, you know, nonetheless, it is a change. And, you know, these are things that will play out and we'll get more information on as we get closer to training camp and closer to the start of the season.

But it is something, you know, in an ideal world, you wouldn't have all of this happening. You wouldn't have a change in goaltending coach in late August. You wouldn't have uncertainty around your all-star starting goaltender heading into the season, but this is the Vancouver Canucks and there's always something with this team and it's, you know, they're never boring to follow, let's put it that way. So this is just the latest edition of the soap opera, as you say. Do you think that it alters um rick tocket's plans at all for training camp because before we all before we knew this was all going down and before you know when we assumed that thatcher demko be ready to roll for training camp we thought that training camp would be

focusing on the offensive side of things and maybe adding a little creativity working on the power play but at five on five working on how to create a few more rush chances. Now, there was always going to be this debate that you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and the Canucks weren't going to go into a run-and-gun scenario or anything, but I think Rick Tockett admitted at the end of the season that he needed to do a deep dive on how to create more scoring chances for the Canucks.

But now with this uncertainty around the goaltending position, maybe he's just going to be like, we're doing structure again. Well, yeah, and that's a tough balance that a head coach has to strike where I think one of the main factors you could look at last year for the Canucks ultimately failing to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs is that lack of offensive production. And one of the hallmarks of their success was how consistent they were defensively. Now, just because you have an injury to your goaltender that, you know,

we'll learn more about the severity of the injury, but you'll get Demko back at some point, you know, you would imagine in the fall. So it's not like, you know, he's out for the year, you know, kind of situation where you might, you know, tear up all your plans and change everything. I think you probably stay the course. You know, Archerilov's played well enough

in the playoffs last year that if you have to go on a run with him early in the year, you probably feel confident about that. Although, you know, understandably the organization also seems to be looking for some veteran help there

as an extra level of security and insulation if indeed Demko does miss some time here. But, you know, I can't imagine that one injury, even though it is to one of the most important players, arguably the most important player on your team, would drastically change the way that Rick Tockett wants to approach training camp. You know, I think with the way that he coaches and the way this team has played

there will always be a healthy dose of structure in the way that they operate um but a lot of the the talk and a lot of the focus going into this training camp in spite of everything around goaltending is going to be about offensive production is going to be about getting more from the top of your lineup from guys like petterson and who's going to play with him and what's the top six makeup going to look like like these are still all important storylines regardless of whether demko is ready to go to start the season or not um what i imagine they will hope though is that they can fall back on some of that structure if they do have to miss him um to help them through the early portion of the

season while also finding a way to generate more offense so that they can bank some wins early like they did last year and not be caught chasing as we've seen from them in seasons past. Do you think Rick Tuckett will be asked about his future with the Canucks? Because correct me if I'm wrong, he's only got a year left on his deal and then maybe a team option after that. Yeah, I'm not sure off the top of my head on the specifics of his deal, but this is an organization that wants to continue to take strides forward, wants to have success, wants to continue to grow. And I imagine at some level, all of these questions will get asked. I mean, it's Vancouver. It's a crazy hockey market. So, yeah, I'm sure that'll be a talking point at some point. But it's not one that would seriously concern me based on the success this

team had last year, based on the trajectory that they're sort of embarking on, and based on overall the work that Rick Talkett has done since arriving in Vancouver to get this team to game seven of the second round against the Stanley Cup runners-up without your starting goaltender, in hindsight, is a pretty incredible feat. And I imagine he and the whole group will want to build on that and try to continue to grow and have another great season. But, you know,

ultimately how big some of these off ice storylines are. And I said this last year, and it kind of applies to every single season is the off ice storylines are magnified when the team struggles and they're minimized when the team has success. And, you know, you're not talking so much about Demko being hurt if the team is winning, you know, in spite of whether he's in the lineup or not. And you're not going to have as much conversation about Rick Talkett's future

if the team does well, except to say that if the team does well, then there will be lots of campaigning and arguing that there should be an extension for him. And I guess we'll see how all of that plays out. But we know this is Vancouver. We know it's a crazy hockey market. We know all of these questions will get asked at some point during training camp or the preseason. How do you prep for training camp? Do you just show up and see what happens i mean most of the vancouver sports media that's their plan just no crap but well i kind of have to mentally re-engage because i i sort of go away and and put hockey to the back of my mind for a large part of the summer

so i have to come back and remind myself oh yeah right like this is a talking point or this was you know one of the the major storylines at the end of last season and um so that that process will begin here in the next few weeks ahead of young stars and in training camp but um but yeah it's it's you know a lot of these storylines like we do see carry over from last season in terms of talking points like i'm sure there will be a lot of focus on hey you guys had a great start last year how do you um you know build on that or make sure that happens again in spite of whatever injury issues you might have you know petterson and and his individual success and and how they set him up to recover from a disappointing finish the last

season is going to be at the front of everyone's mind but ultimately after the first day or two what happens on the ice and what happens in the day-to-day takes over in terms of where the storylines and the talking points go and and that carries us through the the entirety of the season batch this was great man thanks for taking the time to do it we really appreciate it uh enjoy the rest of the week. Batch, this was great, man. Thanks for taking the time to do it. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week. We'll do this again soon. Sounds good. Thank you.

Thank you. Brendan Batchelor, play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. So Bill from Buffalo texted in, and it was kind of like a bragging text, but I'm not sure if he should be bragging about it. Okay. He wrote in, you may recall that I suggested trading Demko several months ago, always injured, and his next contract will be through the roof.

It signs, your buddy Bill from Buffalo and PS. Welcome back, Jason. Thank you, Bill from Buffalo. And I replied, and who would you start in goal? And he said, Seelovs. Like, it was the obvious one. And I replied, pretty risky, my one and i replied pretty risky my friend it is pretty risky like i would not do that let's not let's not get sucked in again okay let's not

get spencer martin all right let's not do it again arty silas has played now it's an action word he got spencer martin he played really well in the playoffs and even though you might look at his numbers and if you didn't watch that you'd be like those numbers weren't terrific he played really well considering the situation he was in but he is not close to demko in terms of right how good he is now the canucks might have to make a decision at some they will next offseason they'll be like all right should we extend this guy or maybe keep of how good he is. Now, the Canucks might have to make a decision at some point. They will. Next offseason, they'll be like, all right, should we extend this guy

or maybe keep him for one more year with the plan to lose him for nothing in free agency? I mean, we'll go down that road, and the Canucks will know more about Seelovs. But to throw Archer Seelovs into the starting role, I think would be reckless and dumb. They just wouldn't do it. No, they wouldn't do it. They don't even entertain it.

They wouldn't do that. But Bill from Buffalo is entertaining it. And I was like, we haven't really seen that much from Seelovs. We just haven't. And there were some things, and Kevin Woodley was on our show last week talking about some of them. He's had issues finding the pocket times, and Laddie's going to join us now for the conversation. Yeah.

That's the big thing. If you watch him over the course of a year, you get these highs and you get some lows as well. And if you want to be a regular in the NHL, you need to mitigate that. And I think throwing him into a starter's role next year is clearly not the answer. Mark of the Office says, the Demko being unreliable is a legit convo. Oh, absolutely. It's unfortunate.

Absolutely. I mean, I'm not sitting here saying, like, don't worry about that, your Demko. Like, I am worried. I'm just like, if you were going to trade him, I wouldn't be like, Seeloffs are your guy. I think it would be really unfair to Seeloffs. Because all of a sudden, you're in this situation. Here's what happens with young players a lot of the time.

They get this adrenaline rush. How many times do we see this at training camp or the preseason, the beginning of the year? These young guys come in, they're super excited, and then they have this adrenaline rush, and they play well, and they're going up against veterans that really aren't giving it 100 because they're like yeah i know i'm on the team i'm not gonna go and like kill myself here for to make the team like it so they you're just you just don't you don't do that you

you kind of warm up and you start slow and then then you're ready to roll it's like aaron rogers he's like i'm not even gonna play any pre do preseason. That's how a lot of those guys, that's the attitude that they have. But, you know, it's always like it's that line that Willie Desjardins had. And say what you will about the job Willie did in coaching. He was absolutely right about this. When it comes to the NHL, a lot of the times the league gets hard. Yeah. You know, and you might have that adrenaline rush and things might be going well

for a little bit but then how do you deal with adversity how do you deal with a situation where like oh you're the only guy now there's no one behind you um there's no thatcher demko there anymore and not much of ian clark either who's worked a lot with arthur seal i was like i think that would be a ridiculous decision to make it wouldn't be made no it would not be made but the interesting point that mark at the office made is the conversation about demko being unreliable unreliable is maybe not the right word it almost feels too condemning but i get what he's saying it's that there's a health concern now he's injury prone right Right. Some guys are. Some guys aren't.

Some guys are very durable. And I'm sure there's discussion behind the scenes. At least that's what a lot of reporters have been hinting at, at about, you know, how much work should Demko be doing in terms of how many games should be starting? And that's a decision for the head coach, but also how much work should he be doing with the goalie coach and one of the things that we all know about working with ian clark is

it ain't easy he's a demanding guy sure and i think it sounds like there might have been and this isn't a big deal by the way like this Like, this is just like, there might have been, and if you read some comments from Jim Rutherford, he kind of said them jokingly, right? Like, after Thatcher gets off the ice with Ian Clark, he's, you know, like, he's already tired. Sure. Right? So maybe there were some discussions about that.

And maybe the new guy, Marco Terenas, is going to, I'm not going to say, like, work not as hard with Thatcher Demko, but maybe be more aware of some of the physical risks that you engage when you work a guy really hard. I mean, the most optimistic glass half full approach that I can take to this is everyone learned from last season is that the Canucks learned who they were and that their structure and their identity were solid enough that this year, and we've talked about this before on the show, this year, they won't have to go out and be in prove it mode as much as they were last year, which means not being so reliant on Demko, understanding that we have the players surrounding him that will get us the requisite amount of results.

They don't even need a goalie. Just put a cone or a shooter-tooter or whatever. Or Laddie, I suppose. Or Woodley. But you would hope from the organizational perspective that everyone learned from that. Yeah, we probably pushed, and he probably

put it, and he is Demko. Everyone probably pushed a little too much. And that's glass half full, that if you take that step back and you monitor things like excessive practice time or game load and management and how many that you've got a guy because remember but well the cocks weren't wrong to push demko to get him back for the play it's not a right wrong thing it's just learning like, some things went right last year. A lot of things went right last year. He got nominated for a Vespa. You know what didn't go right?

The end of the year. Yeah. Where he was hurt. And I don't know if they even exist in a world where they think about do-overs, but would you have pushed him to play those last two games of the regular season before getting him in for the playoffs? Maybe. Maybe not.

But the idea is that you learn whatever you can from last year and the glass half full is, and you implement those things moving forward, which could also be a reason why they made this change at the goalie coach position. It's like, let's see if we can do things differently. Maybe not necessarily in a right or wrong, but just like, here was one approach.

It worked for us, but there were some flaws. Here's another one moving forward. The Demko thing has completely changed the way I thought I would be covering training camp and what we were talking about heading into training camp because it now seems like the lead story. Whereas before it would have been like, all right, let's see if Pedersen has chemistry with DeBrusque. Oh, yeah, Petey.

Yeah, right? Let's see if Hughes and Hronick are still going to be together. Let's talk about the power play because it was dreadful in the playoffs. Now, I do think in hindsight, by the way, we have to credit the Edmonton Oilers because their PK was unbelievable and not just against the Canucks. Their PK was better than their power play, which is crazy. Now, fortunately, they didn't win the Stanley Cup.

But their PK was really good. But there's no question that the Canucks have to make some adjustments on their power play because they couldn't even get set up. And there were a lot of issues, right? There was Pedersen not playing well. There was no more beau horvat and i think that was a massive adjustment for them and then remember how they started the season and there was more movement and they were they were allowing the players to be creative and we were

like oh this is grid yeah this is great yeah and then it stopped being great but i don't know why and then it got to the point where, remember that game against Pittsburgh where they actually split up the power play units? Like Miller was on one and Petey was on another. Like it got weird there for a bit. Well, when they talk about the league getting harder as the season goes along and you meant the Willie D quote about this league can get more difficult, I think that was played into it as well.

So the beginning of the year when the power play was cooking, it was like teams hadn't seen exactly what they had unfurled in terms of how they were going to go to the power play. It probably wasn't as much. Teams adjust. Yeah, teams adjust, right? And it gets harder. And watch tape.

Right. And it gets harder and harder to try and do the things that got you working at like a 35% clip in October, November. It's tougher when December and January hit, right? Hey, let's do some What We Learned. I've got one. I got one. Okay.

It's not a competition. I'm excited. Okay, well, why don't you go back? Welcome back. You do yours first then. Sure. I learned a little bit about potential NHL expansion in that 32 Thoughts article that we were alluding to earlier

uh that free dro where we were focusing on the thatcher demko part of it but i guess they were doing the nhl's european media tour over the last couple weeks in prague and bill daly was over there and uh the quote from frege was daily was most interesting talking about expansion it's coming and the union believes that as well. They haven't, they didn't go down the road of putting a particular timeline on it or anything, but the interesting thing was like,

can we have some of that money? And the league was like, no, we're going to wait. We're going to do our due diligence. We'll get more jobs. And that is it. Okay.

So the interesting quote for me, one of them anyway, was, um, is 34 teams, the maximum, or could we see 36? Is 36 NHL teams?

36, man. 36. This is getting too hard. What is this, MLS? I just want to see one cup in my lifetime. Could you imagine? Poor Freed just going to have to do four extra thoughts every week now. He needs a raise then.

I don't think I have four thoughts all week. He's got to do it every time he writes an article. You don't. Okay, so let's run through this as an exercise. We're at 32 right now. All right, where are the next three? Where are the next? Atlanta.

Yeah. Oh, good. Again. Again. Third time's a charm. Houston. Arizona. Okay, those are the three that we came up with,

and then the fourth would be the wild card, right? And you had a good wild card. At what point will someone just give the Leafs a bunch of money and say, knock it off with this territorial stuff. Toronto needs two teams. Isn't it crazy that LA has two teams? I know LA is a bigger city overall than Toronto. Technically, it's LA and Anaheim.

I feel like there might be more hockey fans in the greater Toronto area than there are in Los Angeles. And then you look at all the teams in the New York, New Jersey area, like all around there. And I understand why the Leafs would want to be like, no, we're the only team in town. But I just wonder, everyone's got a number. What would be the number for MLSC for someone to say,

okay, let's do this because we've got to put another team in Toronto. Well, that's why I brought up the number 36 because I thought, okay, 34, it makes sense. You add two more teams. It's not a good number for – No. 32 is perfect. 36.

You can have four divisions of eight or eight divisions of four. 36 is awkward too. But the fact that it was entertained leads me to believe that they've got – okay, so yeah, Houston and Atlanta are the obvious no-brainers. I mean, they've been bandied about already. We had Atlanta come up a couple times last season. It made it pretty obvious that the ties – and they're more than willing to go back to Atlanta for another kick at it. People texting

on Quebec City. It's not going to happen, guys. It's not going to happen. The Toronto territorial rights thing. At what point does the league just step in and say, hey, just give them this much money and no more territory? I don't understand the legal, but I don't know. But for the good of the league, you think all the

other owners will be pushing for it, right? Because it would make the league stronger and make more money. Which is the goal at the end of the day. Does MLSC for the good of the league, you think all the other owners will be pushing for it, right? Because it would make the league stronger and make them make more money. Which is the goal at the end of the day. But does MLSC have the right to be like, I hear you and no. I don't know. I honestly don't know. And the final point,

and it's interesting because we were talking about enrollment at youth levels and the player pool to draw from from a football perspective. We talked about it earlier. Frege did ask Bill Daley if there's any concern whatsoever player pool to draw from, from a football perspective. We talked about it earlier. Um, fridge did ask bill daily.

If there's any concern whatsoever about, um, is there a requisite talent pool to draw from, from more teams? And they said like across the board, it is not a problem. Like they feel like they could go to 36 and there would be more than enough players available because the growth, I mean,

especially in the U S the growth of the sport has been, you know, noticeable. There's been a major uptick in quality players that are coming through to the point where you wouldn't have to worry about the skill level of the game being diluted whatsoever. Yeah. None of them are learning how to play defense either.

So there'll be more goal scoring. Even better. Even better. Old man. Yelling at the clouds again. That's it. Okay. Mook out that old man.

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