Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 8/27/24

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Mike Halford and Jason Brough talk about the previous day in sports plus they are joined by Abbotsford Canucks' new goaltending coach Justin Pogge to talk about his journey and coaching style. 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. A Rosarena fly ball into right field. Carried in. This is gone. He's someone that really, really is on the ice driving these guys. And some wonder whether or not that contributed to Demko's somewhat frequent trips to the injury list. Frank.

Good morning, Vancouver. Six o'clock on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. This is Alfred. It is Brough. Frank! And Laddie is here as well. Hello, hello. Alfred and Brett from 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. And we are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. So, Rafi, what are you waiting for? Kintec! That's whatec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. So, Rafi, what are you waiting for? Kintec.

That's what you're waiting for. Yes. I knew you couldn't help yourself. Two days in a row. I got a big show ahead on the Alfred and Brough show on a Tuesday. Guest list begins at 6.30. John Abbott is going to join the program. Formerly the play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks,

now the newly minted play-by-play voice of the Calgary Flames for Sportsnet. Abs will be joining us at 6.30 to talk about his new gig. Always good to talk to Abs. 7 o'clock, James Merriman's going to join the program. He is the manager of Pacific FC, of the Canadian Premier League. And tonight at BC Place, Pacific will look to pull the big upset in the second leg of the Canadian Championship semi-final against the Whitecaps. Seems very unlikely considering the Whitecaps won the first leg 1-0 over on the island.

But this would be a chance for the Whitecaps to book yet another spot in the Canadian Championships final. Yes. But for Pacific, it'll be interesting to talk to James about just the challenge of and the kind of the appeal of playing a tournament where the two teams are not in the same league. Literally. That's not even like a... You guys aren't in the same league.

You can't play with us. You can't. Literally. Only in these competitions. He used to coach for the Whitecaps as well under Carl Robinson. Remember him? Yeah. So we'll talk to James Merriman at 7 o'clock.

I want James to have left the organization in a bad way. So he wants revenge. Did he? Could we make something up? Was it amicable? No. 730, Justin. Pogie's going to join the program.

Speaking of guys with new jobs, the former well-traveled NHL goalie and DEL goalie and SHL goalie, and he played in the KHL for a while as well, he is now the new goalie coach for the Abbotsford Canucks. So do you think Justin Pogge is, when he does interviews now, do you think he's like, please don't just ask me about the 2006 World Juniors. I've had a life since then. Yeah, I know.

And I don't want to take all Tuukka Rask related questions and I guess Andrew Raycroft related questions as well. That was the whole thing, was that the Leafs had him and Tuukka Rask following that very famous junior tournament that was played here. And it was understood that they were so confident in Pogge's future that they traded Tuka Rask for Andrew Raycroft. Here's another interesting thing about Justin Pogge.

Did you know he was a teammate of Nils Hoaglanders? I did not know that. Yeah, well-traveled, well-traveled goalie over the last few years. He had some very good years in the Swedish leagues. He was top of the league, top of the class of goaltenders in the Swedish league. So anyway, he's been hired as the replacement goalie for AHL Abbotsford because AHL Abbotsford's goalie coach is now, of course, with the NHL's Vancouver Canucks. And his name is, have you learned it yet?

Marco Terenius. Yeah, yeah. Got it. Very good. I almost called him Marlo Terenius. He was an actress from the 80s, but no, it's Marco. People were saying he sounds like someone from Gladiator. Like, I was like.

Do it. Just yell it out loud. Just like, you knew Marcus Aurelius. I did not say I knew him. There it is. I say he once. I said he once touched me on the shoulder. I can't wait till we get the transcript from that part of the show, by the way, too.

We do that now. We have transcripts well there's automatically generated transcripts for our podcast i don't know who creates them but if you go on your phone and you do the apple podcast thing it creates a podcast or it creates a transcript and uh so i was reading ours yesterday and i'm like this is utter nonsense for a show that jumps around nonsense yeah for a show that this is utter nonsense for a show that jumps around nonsense. Yeah. For sure.

It's impossible to read for a show that jumps around as much as we do. A transcript doesn't really do it justice. Just kind of makes it sound like a bunch of noise and nothing was, you know, mistranslated or anything. It was just the show. And he's like, this is nonsense.

It's like, now they're talking about a smoking baby. Anyway, eight o'clock, uh, Dwayne Vino is going to join the program, uh, president of the British Columbia Lions.

We will talk to him about the upcoming rematch against the Ottawa Red Blacks, which, of course, is the touchdown Pacific game in Victoria. So working in reverse real quick on the guest list, 8 o'clock, Dwayne Veneau, 7.30, Justin Pogge, 7 o'clock, James Merriman, 6.30, John Abbott. That's what's happening on the program today. Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game

last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened? What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving

construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. We will start with the news that we just broke into. The Abbotsford Canucks have found a new goalie coach. It's a rather interesting name, as we mentioned. It's Justin Pogge, the 38-year-old who only just wrapped his playing career in 2023. Briefly served as a goalie consultant for the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Then worked a little bit for Hockey Canada, now gets an elevated role, the full-time goalie coach for the Abbotsford Canucks. And he, of course, is going to join the program at 7.30. I am really looking forward to chatting with Justin, given his career path after winning gold for Canada at the 2006 Rural Juniors in Vancouver. And I'm sure a lot of you who are around our age will remember that tournament quite fondly.

That was a big deal. Yeah, it was huge. I had fun at that tournament. In Vancouver. Yeah, I remember, I think I went to the first game. It was at the Coliseum. The finals were at then, it was called GM Place. But it was, the world juniors had really taken off in

terms of popularity and, and there had been the lockout in the NHL. So people were really looking forward to it. It was star-studded. Yeah. Uh, now sadly, uh, Luke Bardon was one of the, was a member of that team, Canada, um, team that won gold.

Um, so was, uh, Justin or Justin, Justin, well, Justin Pogge was, but it was like Jonathan Taves, Chris Letang. But you know the guy I remember most from that series? It was probably Steve Downey. Like that was the Steve Downey tournament where he was just hitting everything. That was when the Canadians still played like, you know how we're going to win this? Some skill.

But mostly we're just going to like hit the hell out of every other team. And the Canadians really didn't score a whole lot. Like it wasn't like they were piling up goals in that tournament. Except in the final. Well, they didn't have really any of the top scorers in that tournament.

It was Phil Kessel. Yep. It was Evgeny Malkin. It was a bunch of other guys. I think it was Backstrom. Yeah, Backy. God, that was a long time ago now. Do you know who Canada's leading scorer

was at that tournament? You'll never guess it. Blake Como. Blake Como, right? Like, they wasn't, yeah, it just wasn't the style that they played, but they allowed six goals in the tournament, and yet Justin Pogge did not win the best goalie award

because that one went to fellow Leafs draft pick, something you already alluded to, Tuukka Rask, who was playing for Finland. Pogge had three shutouts, allowed six goals, won the gold. There was a better goalie than you. You were good, but you weren't the best. But I think it was just because Canada was was so good yeah they're pretty dominant but i remember watching justin pogey and i was no goalie expert i still i'm still not i'm like this guy's gonna be good and then he ended

up he only ended up playing seven games so we'll get all the stuff out of the way before we talk to him sure uh he only played seven games in the NHL, I think all of them for the Leafs. He split time with other organizations, but then went over to Europe. So I'll be curious to chat with him just about, you know, what got him into being a goalie coach? Who influenced him?

What are some of the things that he tends to focus on? Sure. You know, what are some of the things that he tends to focus on? Sure. You know, what are some of the things that he stresses on? And also joining the organization at this stage. Like how much catch-up does he have to do? It's like, do you know the goalies yet? He's got their player ID card in front of him. He's like, I know them from this.

Yeah, we can also ask him about how he's going to handle thatcher demko's workload what his injury is and then uh thoughts on ian clark so we'll get all those out of the way when we talk to well i don't think justin pogey is in charge of his workload but frank cerebelli is sure in charge of uh reporting new stuff about thatcher demko's injury um now uh you may not like what you're about to hear from Frank. You may not even like Frank, for that matter, after some of the things he said about Vancouver during the playoffs last season.

But the guy has good information. And, you know, he ended up being right about Ilya Mikheyev with the torn ACL. And he was around the Canucks a lot during the playoffs last season. And he was on Oilers Now with Bob Stauffer. And here's what he had to say about the whole thing with Thatcher Demko's injury. And there's a little on Ian Clark as well.

What happened with Thatcher Demko was a rare fluke injury that, as it wasn't very severe, meaning they thought that, and they believed this all the way through. I mean, you saw Sacher Demko on the ice in round two. They believed that there was a chance at some point that he could get back in the playoffs. And the fact that now we're in late August and the conversation has turned to man i don't know if this guy is going to be ready for opening night uh that is that's really tough

it makes you ask questions or at least wonder about the possibility of did they push too hard too fast too soon and if not and this is still lingering, I don't even know if there's anything they can do for this injury. And sorry to be so vague about it. If you gave me a million dollars to explain what his injury is, I couldn't do it. All I know is that it's something to do with the back of his knee. That's all I know. So I don't know where they go from here but he's such a critical piece and then you add in

the really intriguing development of Ian Clark the goalie coach deciding to take on a different role this is one of the best and highest paid goalie coaches in the league I think there's been I think it's fair to say that there's probably been some friction there over the years when it comes to demko and clark not from a technical standpoint or anything like that it's actually been or or the relationship is fine it's been a disagreement on workload and how much work clark puts his goalies through. He has an owner's schedule. He's someone that really, really is on the ice

driving these guys on a daily basis. And I think that part has led to some disagreement over the last couple of years on how that's played out. And some wonder whether or not that had contributed to Demko's somewhat frequent trips to the injury list. Okay, so a lot to unpack there. Let's start with the stuff that we already kind of knew or had already been alluded to or hinted at,

even by some comments by Jim Rutherford, and that is that Ian Clark works his goalies hard. And Jim Rutherford has made some comments in the past, and they seemed kind of joking in some ways. They were like, yeah, by the time that Thatcher's finished working with Ian Clark, you know, he's already tired for practice, you know, or he's, I can't remember exactly what he put it, but it was out there, right?

That Ian Clark works Thatcher Demko pretty hard, works all his goalies pretty hard. Um, so maybe there had been some disagreement on how hard Thatcher Demko could be working and you could see it. I mean, this is okay. This is, this is how it might pop up. Um, Rutherford and Alvin meeting with um ian clark and i'm going like hey and like like i do you think you might be working them a little bit too hard because we want to keep them healthy we don't want fatigue to be a factor and ian being like hey for me to

do my job and to get the best out of these guys they got to work hard right and both both make good points right yeah you're sitting there going okay well yeah that's true right yeah you know you do have to manage fatigue on the management side but on ian clark's side he's kind of like well i can't do this by like you know being encouraging like i have to put the work in with this guy. The other stuff that I think is a little more concerning was Frank describing it as, what was it, like a rare fluke injury. And he talked to a doctor. I don't know if it was Dr. Nick,

but I imagine it was a pretty good doctor that had a lot of experience. And he's like, I've never seen this before. Yeah. And then he went on to say that it's the back of the knee so i quickly googled back of the knee injuries i was not able to diagnose it right away however i was like there's a back of the knee yeah a baker's cyst i don't think that's it they can solve those um i don't i mean i think that there's two main

takeaways here and one is that it's pretty well established. The organization wanted to go in a different direction as it pertained to how the goalies at the highest level were being coached, prepared, practiced, all those sorts of things. And again, as you said, this might actually be the rare case where we don't try and pit one versus the other in sports radio. And we just kind of say both approaches philosophically kind of make sense. One is like, well, you need to keep player X, in this case, a goalie, Thatcher Demko, fresh because it's a long season and the season gets harder as it goes along. And we'd like him to be ready to go in the playoffs. It's a totally sane, logical explanation for how you want to handle a workload. I could also see someone saying the polar opposite of that and being like, no,

I need to push this individual, player X or whomever, as hard as possible because in the past that is what has gotten us the results, including last year where yes, injury befell the goalie, but he was also one of the top three goalies because he was nominated for the Vezina

Award last year. The proof was in the pudding for how much work and how much training and how much practice went in it paid off it kept them sharp it did all those things at least in the goalie coach's mind but for this team right now i think one thing trumps everything else and that's that they need that shardemko to be healthy? If he's not as sharp because he doesn't have as rigorous a practice regimen, you need to find out if you can even get to that point because right now he's not ready to go. And that's going to be a problem

given how important he is to the team, how affordable he is, the contract that's kind of looming two years down the road, all of these things. They need to see where he's at when he's healthy. And right now he's not healthy. Someone texted in to the Dunbar Lumber text line. And a reminder, 650-650 when you want to 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. Pretty good first line. Maybe the Canucks need to find a doctor who has been in practice for 51 years then. But this texter goes on to say, I don't buy this argument at all.

It's a knee. It's a joint. It's not some rare congenital condition. Oh, I will put it to you. Have you seen the knee? Right? Like this is, this is not Frank making up quotes from doctors.

Like I know a lot of you think, like it's just, I mean, he's reporting what he's hearing. Yeah. Right. And, and there are cases, I don't know if they need to bring in house,

but you know, like, uh, does that age me a bit? Or is that reference a little bit? It's not bad. It's not bad. People still stream it.

Yeah. Yeah. House. It's still out there. Right. It's like the doctor. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So like, there are English guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. House. It's still out there. The doctor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So like. Hugh Laurie. There are. He's an English guy. Kind of erotic. Yeah. There are cases, of course, in sports where you're like, this injury is not typical.

Right. And can you not see how the injury might have occurred considering that he rushed back and not, and we're not saying that it's like they rushed him back. Like it was the playoffs to get him back, right? And sometimes you do that. You take the risk and they worked him really hard because that's what Ian Clark does and they needed to rehab the injury.

And then something else happened to Vinny, you know, and probably related to all that. have the injury and then something else happened to the knee, you know, and probably related to, to all that the body is, is, is complicated. Sometimes when you've hurt one area, you compensate or overuse another area and then you get a problem with that area. So when you say like, I don't buy this

argument at all, nobody's making an argument. First off, it's not an argument. It's not an argument. A doctor has told Frank that, wow, this is an injury I don't see very often. And Frank's like, this injury is so weird and bizarre from what I've been told that I can't even really explain it. All I can say is it's like the back of the knee. Which is specific.

It's not the front. And I didn't, by the way, I did not have this on my bingo card when I was coming back from vacation that the last two weeks of August, we would be inundated with various Canucks goaltending news at every level of the organization. And here's the crazy thing.

We haven't heard anything from management actually on Demko. No. The only thing we've heard is we didn't hear it, we read it, was a statement from Patrick Alveen, carefully worded statement on what went down with Ian Clark from the Canucks perspective, no quote from Ian Clark. And they went through all that, why Ian Clark was leaving his role, why he was the role that he would maintain with the organization.

And it was spun in a way that no worries, right? We got Marco Taranis coming in. We like him. He's a gladiator. He's a gladiator. He has gladiator experience. He's a stoic philosopher. I don't know, whatever.

But nothing has been said on demco like they haven't they haven't shared any information which to me doesn't suggest that they're hiding something like they're not like i hope this all blows over right like they know they're gonna have to ask answer questions eventually but they might be uncertain themselves at this point like there might be a situation where they're still trying to get their heads around this and it's the bottom line i think for me is that it's not ideal going into a season but you want to have i mean one you want to have all these positions of significance within one department sure but still all these positions taken care of earlier in the year we've've talked about the timing, and we've talked about when guys have come aboard.

And I know that in the weeks prior to me coming back, it had been spoken about at length. And I think everyone understands that it's not ideal, but kudos to the organization. The organization moved quickly when I think they realized that they needed things to happen, right? Clark needed to go. They needed to find a replacement. And then two days later, we got Justin Pogge on the show talking about it. Some people would suggest that they were told this earlier and didn't move quickly and maybe kind of waited it out. And there is that possibility.

And they were like, he's the goalie coach. He needs to go on the ice. He'll go on the ice. Right? And then they realize he's like, wait a minute. He sounds pretty serious about this. We better do something about it. So there's that angle of it too, right?

It's like, did you let this fester throughout the summer and then realize in the last two weeks of august that okay we got to get this sorted out training camp still approximately three weeks away so there's still a lot of time for things to unfold and for things to be addressed but i it's just been it really came out of left field for me just forever for all of us yeah just just sitting from afar realizing that all these things were happening in pretty rapid pace when nothing had happened for almost the first three weeks of August. And really, if you want to go back, I mean, July was marked by some very early free agency. Well, why would it get out?

Why would it get out from the organization, all this stuff? I have no idea. You know, the reporters are on vacation. Yeah. I don't like this sort of stuff can be kept under, you know, what do you call it? Under the rug, under the carpet, swept under the rug. Swept under the rug.

No, no, swept under the rug. Kept under the carpet. Kept under the carpet. I don't know where you keep things. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's the middle of the summer. Yeah. Nobody's reaching out to the Canucks and be

like, Hey, what's going on goalie coach wise. Right. It's just not something that was top the summer. Yeah. Nobody's reaching out to the Canucks and be like, Hey, what's going on goalie coach wise. Right. It's just not something that was top of mind. Yeah. So, uh, at any rate, we've got a few,

a few weeks left until training camp. And then, uh, there's going to be a lot of questions for a lot of people in the organization. And, uh, at this point,

you just got to cross your fingers and hope the best hope for the best for Thatcher Demko. Um, I did want to add one thing that maybe we can talk about as this show progresses. And while we're still on what happened, CeeDee Lamb got paid with the Dallas Cowboys four-year deal, $136 million. Now, that's great for CeeDee Lamb and all the other receivers that you see are getting paid big big money but my question is how does this affect the future of dk metcalf in seattle he's got two years left on his deal so cd lamb was kind of like one year ahead of him yep and no way that dk is going to play the final year of his contract next season without a new

deal. These guys, there's so much money at stake that they're like, I'm not going into the final year. I'm not going to risk injury. If they find me, they find me. I'm not going to be out of the league. I'm pretty good. Like CeeDee Lamb could in theory be fined more

than $3 dollars by missing training camp and the three pre-season games but the cowboys probably won't follow through on that you know it's their it's their pr under their prerogative to say a little scamp yeah yeah like i'm just glad you're back with us right yeah um i just wonder what's going to happen with dk metcalf because i think the cow Cowboys situation is a little bit different from the Seahawks situation. Now, the Cowboys also have to make a decision on Dak Prescott, but first of all, DK Metcalf is going to have to have a really good year,

obviously. Yeah. But also, the Seahawks are going to have to put themselves in, like ask themselves honestly, is this the best use of our money going forward, locking up a guy like DK Metcalf, even if he is really good, depending on the quality of their team.

The Cowboys are obviously going into this season going like, well, we needed CeeDee Lamb because we consider ourselves a Super Bowl contender. Now, you can laugh at that, but they've been a really good regular season team for a few years now, just haven't done anything in the playoffs. The Seahawks have been below that level of the Dallas Cowboys. So the Cowboys were kind of in the position where it was like,

well, we need CD Lam. We've got to make this deal. Will DK have the same leverage over the Seahawks next season? Yeah, I think, well, there's two things. One, I think this year is going to be super pivotal in terms of what they end up paying them because the threshold now is $20 million a year on AAV is the standard for really good receivers.

And then when you get into that $30 million per, that's where you're talking about guys like CeeDee Lamb and Justin Jefferson in Minnesota. And is DK Metcalf going to eventually be in that class? I would argue right now that not only is CeeDee Lamb more important to his team than DK Metcalf, it's just a better receiver playing simple. And so I think trying to compare the two is tough because the teams are in

different situations and the players are different. At the same time, you bring up a good point because all these receivers got paid this last off season, like Amon Ross, St. Brown, AJ Brown,

like guys got paid. When did Justin Jefferson get paid? He got paid this last offseason. Like Amon Ross, St. Brown, A.J. Brown. Like guys got paid. When did Justin Jefferson get paid? He got paid early in the summer. So it was four years, $140 million, which kind of was eye-popping from the total. And then as we've seen in the NFL, it sort of recalibrates the market where it's like, well, no, you're not paying me that anymore. You're paying me based on what this guy got about a month ago.

Thank you for all the people that texted in and said, kept under wraps. That's what I was... That's the phrase that I was looking for. Stupid wraps. Halford wasn't able to help me out on it. Yeah, it's my fault. I bet Josh would have got it. Or Jamie. Jamie. Those guys were excellent. You know who else was fun? John Abbott. He's a new play-by-play guy for

the Flames. So do we still like John? Yeah, we still liked Baller when he was there. So we'll talk to John about getting the job with the Calgary Flames play-by-play guy and what it's going to be like calling all these losses. So John, the Flames are going to suck next season and probably for a while. Have fun with that.

And I'll be like, I have not missed you guys. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. 7.31 on a big band Tuesday here on the Half and Rough show on Sportsnet 650. That's more like it, Gregory. It's livening you up a little bit? Sure has.

Half and Rough of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. Getting real Austin Powers-ish vibes here. I was going to say, yeah, the little flutes. It's been a fun show so far on a Tuesday on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. In case you missed it yesterday, more goaltending news out of the Vancouver Canucks organization.

This time, a new coach for the AHL team in Abbotsford, Justin Pogge, was named yesterday as the goaltending coach for AHL Abbotsford. That coming by way of general manager Ryan Johnson. And we are fortunate enough to have Justin Pogge on the show. Now he joins us on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Justin. How are you? How's it going, Mike and Jason? We are well.

I want to thank you for taking the time to do this this morning. And congrats on the new gig. Very cool. Great to have you in town. Are you in Abbotsford now? Have you arrived in yet are you currently on route oh no I am uh in full chaos mode um no I came up very quick but uh yeah I'm I'm so grateful and honored to have uh this position given to me uh you know I kind of came really late with the structural change I had up top. So I'm really looking forward to it. But yeah, my world's in a head spin right now.

Yeah. Trying to get the logistics and moving the family and everything, but we'll be fine. My wife's a trooper. What does chaos look like from your job perspective? I'm sure from a personal perspective and a family perspective, it's tough. But are you like Tolopilo? Am I pronouncing that right? What's your knowledge of the organization and the depth chart and some of the projects that you're going to have to work with?

I think we've got a great group of young goalies. But as an organization from the top down, it's first class. I'm just excited to get a chance to work with these younger kids and younger prospects and help them get to the top. You only recently moved from your playing days to your coaching days. Was there one particular moment or what made you that okay it's time to hang up as a player and it's time to get into coaching well i uh the beijing olympics kind of changed everything for me um i was uh the second emergency backup goalie for the uh for hockey canada at the Beijing Olympics and instead of just showing up, getting my workout in and not getting much ice or getting a little ice left at the end of practice

I asked if I could warm up the goalies and bring a goalie coach to that so Scott Salmon the VP of Hockey Operations he liked it and offered me a job when I retired.

So, you know, that was a year before I retired. So, yeah, I got that kind of little bug and I really enjoyed it. And, you know, with a full year of Hockey Canada and a lot of events, I've gained a lot of knowledge and met a lot of smart people along the way. So I'm very excited for this. I'm curious, and I ask this of a lot of guys that are around your age and that have had interesting careers and played for numerous teams and numerous leagues.

Did you ever lose the passion for the game or has it always been there for you? You know, I always said to myself, like, I wasn't having fun and it wasn't worth doing anymore, but I had fun every minute of the way. Obviously, there was some tough times and, you know, you're not playing as well or, you know, contracts, you're waiting. But I enjoyed the ride so much and I'm continuing that on with Abbotsford here and we're starting to travel around that way. Before we get to the Abbotsford stuff,

tell us about your career and some of the interesting places that you played in and maybe some of your memorable teammates or memorable moments from your career because it started in North America, but you ended up, I'm looking at your hockey DP page and I'm like, you played in Italy?

Yeah. And Sweden and the KHL. Yeah, Germany. I mean, say what you will, but some people, like the pessimists or the negative people are going to be like, oh, well, he didn't make it in the NHL.

But I kind of look at this and I'm like, this guy's had an interesting life. Oh, definitely. You know, I, obviously, my dream was to be a full-time NHL goalie, but, you know, it didn't work out, and it didn't mean that I wasn't good enough. I just wasn't in that top half percent of hockey players that can do it. So, you know, I played a long time. I got to play in a lot of different places and I can't say that I despised any of them. You know, I really enjoyed my time and, you know, both my kids

are born in different countries. You know, there's so many stories and you get a chance to meet a lot of people along your way coaching staff and players and guys that are kind of in the same transition as me and you know it's it's it's been awesome I wouldn't trade it for the world. How much of all that knowledge that you've gained and maybe perspective is going to help you in your job with the Abbotsford Canucks? I think you know 17 years a pro, you've seen a lot of situations and played a lot of hockey. And it's all about dealing with what's making you uncomfortable at the moment.

You know, you're always going to tinker with your game. And I think just having someone to kind of bounce ideas off of and how you want to play certain situations. And for a guy that's you know play a while I think I think I can bring that that knowledge and that experience to the table. Are goalies always tinkering with their games or are there some guys that tinker less and just want to be like I don't want to make any changes and other guys that are constantly searching for even if they're playing well they want to add something else?

I think you're constantly tinkering. Obviously, sometimes you go back to what worked for you in the past, and sometimes that's a good thing for a little reset, and sometimes that could be negative to going back to bad habits. So, you know, it's all about creating good habits and just kind of taking the game. The game isn't, every game isn't the same. So, I mean, you have to approach everyone differently. What are some good habits for goalies to have?

And is that philosophical or are these well-known, everyone agrees, good habits? Well, like the basic habits of you know holding your feet and and making sure that you're mobile and not locked in on place um that's that's going to be always a basic tracking the puck it's huge you know it's not just having your eyes on it but having your head pointed at it and you know your body working in line with your brain and your shoulders. So there's both. There's, you know, good habits off the ice. There's good routines, bad routines, maybe too much superstition,

maybe not enough. You know, we're a different breed goalies, and, you know, there's a lot of things going on up there when you're sitting for 60 minutes in the crease we're speaking to new abbotsford canucks goalie coach justin pogey here on the halford and brough show on sportsnet 650 uh you dovetailed nicely into what i wanted to ask you about here and that's the more the mental side of it and the nerves and the pressure that come along with playing what is a really, really unique position in all of sports, not just hockey, obviously. I was reading an anecdote in The Athletic

where you were talking about drinking Pepto-Bismol before every single game at the 2006 World Juniors, which, of course, were played here. I do that before bed. Yeah, now I imagine that's probably not a great practice if you're like an 82-game regular seasoner. That's a lot of Pepto, but I guess it probably speaks to just how much pressure and how great the nerves can be when you're not just in a moment like that,

but it's when you get to the professional level, that's every single night. Oh, definitely. I mean, at the world juniors, it was, you know,

Pepto-Bismol before the game and Pedialyte after, like I was, I was a baby. You're an old man and a baby at the same time. Yeah, I was absolutely exhausted every game, but you put it all out there and you leave it all out on the ice.

It's a crazy way you can do when you push yourself to the limit. Now in an 80-game season or 82-game season, it's a little different, but you still have to have that drive and that fire to push. So I think it comes down to fitness and mental willing. Jason mentioned that you played in a lot of different countries

and a lot of different leagues. I know you were in Sweden. I'm going to throw you on the spot because I wanted to ask, if I'm not mistaken, you were teammates with current Vancouver Canucks forward Nils Hoaglander for a short time. I think it was in Sweden a few years back. Again, I might be throwing you on the spot, but what do you remember about Hoaglander?

Because he would have been very young at that time and just sort of starting his professional career. Oh, yeah. He came in and the amount of weight that he put on the squat rack first day of fitness testing, he was like one, two with one of our strongest guys. Really? And he was the youngest guy in the room by far.

I did three reps, hurt my back, so that squat time for me today. But he was lifting some man weight for sure. And I did notice that when you were in Germany, you played on not one but two different teams with Landon Ferraro, who's a guy that's done some work here at Sportsnet 650 as well, obviously his dad, calling games for the Vancouver Canucks. Now, did you guys become close over your time in Germany? I think it was like three years in two different cities.

Oh, yeah. We were roommates for three years. We got to go to the Olympics together. Landon was one of my best friends. Yeah, I actually called him yesterday. He was pissed off. He didn't know about it earlier. So, you know, there's a communication

right there in our household. But, yeah, he's a great guy. You know, getting to talk to Ray every once in a while on FaceTime when we're somewhere in the middle of Germany is awesome, too. But, yeah, we had some fun together over in Germany for sure. So we didn't want to start with the 2006 World Juniors,

but what do you remember about that tournament? Because I have such fond memories of that tournament. We'd just been through the NHL lockout. The World Juniors were coming to Vancouver. I remember being at the Pacific Coliseum for the first game against Finland, a win. And then Canada and you, I think you allowed six goals in six games and yet somehow didn't win goalie of the year

or goalie of the tournament, which was you were robbed of that. What do you remember about that? Just the excitement in the city and how well you guys played defensively to win that tournament? Ah, man, it was a whirlwind of a year, you know, beginning off with the summer

leading up to it. You know, I didn't get the call to go to the camp, the summer camp that was held in Whistler. And, you know, that kind of lit a fire under my ass. And I had a goal set Jeff Glass gave me some good advice and you know just just be the best make it take you so I took that to heart and you know every time I went on the ice I would I would tell myself I wanted to make that team that even went to the lengths of uh one of those Chinese wish trees

when you write on the red card hanging on the tree I put that for the before the tournament when I was at the Calgary Zoo so um ended up making the team and you know just kind of got in the zone I had uh Ian Clark was my goalie coach and you know just gave me a simple simple advice and hold my feet as long as I can and, and battle. So, um, yeah, it was kind of a blur, but, um, you know, just going into those games every night with, you know, the crowd just, you know, unbelievably loud and excited for the game, um, was amazing. And, you know, we had a great group of guys that kind of just grinded it out under, uh, Brent Sutter as the head coach. And, you know, we had a great group of guys that kind of just grinded it out under Brent Sutter as the head coach. And, you know, we just played our system and played gritty and,

you know, that's Canadian hockey. We ended up winning. So it was great. What did you learn from Ian Clark and how much will you still be working with him? You know, I think he's going to be a great mentor for me. He's got a wealth of knowledge. He's been doing this a long time. He's got a unique approach to it. It's the same as goaltending. Your coaching side, you can't stop learning either. I'm going to try and take everything I can from him and Marco

and try to add to my resume. What are some of the things that are non-negotiables with Justin Pogge? If you're working with Justin Pogge, he will fill in the blank. Well, I think my number one non-negotiable is you've got to work.

I spent a long time and pushing myself even if I was skating with 14 year olds i was down in california so ice time and and quality of players was very low when uh free agency stretched into the fall so um you know having that having that inner fire to kind of keep you going and and and compete with yourself and the guy across the ice for you every night. And, you know, you can do that every day with me, you're golden.

Um, does work and work habits and that sort of thing, like, do some guys just know how to do it and they're, and they're built that way, uh, and other guys need to be taught or can it be taught? I know I'm asking you a lot of weird questions here but i'm always just curious about i'm curious about how goalies are um you know how they're wired and professional athletes how they're wired and young kids like do they really understand what hard work is or does that have to be taught i think i think it's it's taught but it also comes from experience. You know, at some point it just clicks. If you want to do this as a career, you got to, you know, you got to hone your craft.

You have to work on it every day. Some guys it clicks early and that's kind of, you know, they've been brought up that way and other guys have to figure it out later. But, you know, if you're gonna play and have a solid pro career you're gonna you're gonna have to figure it out at some point or it's gonna be pretty short you're gonna get uh passed by some other guy that you know has already figured it out uh justin this was great man thanks for taking the time to do this today we really appreciate it once again congrats on the new gig uh let's try and do this again when

you get settled in in Abbotsford. Awesome. I'd love to do it in person. Yeah, that would be great. I make radio shows way better in person. Yeah, I agree, Justin. See, Justin gets radio. That's good.

Thanks for doing this, man. Appreciate it. Yeah, I got to talk to your face for it. All right, thanks, guys. See you, buddy. Justin Pogge here on the Halpern and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Seems like a good guy. Yeah.

Laddie was singing. Hum Yeah. Laddie was singing. Humble. Laddie was singing his praises before the hit. You had spoken with him before, so you gave us a good heads up that he's a good talker guy. He is. Now, you said what about his time with the Toronto Maple Leafs? He wasn't given the proper opportunity? Well, he was rushed to begin with.

They got him in there too quick, and then they just sort of let him go. And he went on to have a pretty long career as uh as brough mentioned in that interview he went to many different countries and he was the top goalie in sweden for a couple years how was he rushed when he played a bunch of games with the marlies in the ahl well he was still pretty raw when he got there i think and he had high expectations because he had put it well seemingly put it together with the world junior team yeah but he clearly needed a lot more time to, to stew down there in the minors. And he never really got it.

And then, like I said, they moved on from him so quickly after that, that I don't really think other teams were even willing to give him a shot. It was just like, oh, he's done. Yeah. I mean, there's a case to be made that these are the best teachers, the ones who

necessarily didn't pan out the way they dreamed about, they wanted. And that's why I asked him like, you know, did you ever lose your love for the game? And he said, no. And I think that's massive, right? Like considering the challenges that he would have gone through in his career, um, and maybe some of the disappointments that he, that he dealt with, and yet he still has the love for the game.

And if that's the type of guy, in my opinion, that you want work with the younger goalies and saying like, listen, take it from me. Honestly, take it from me. This is what you need to do, right? And I didn't know that Ian Clark was his coach. Neither did I. At one point, and then he dropped that.

I was like, ooh. But he knows what it takes to prepare for when you get that opportunity, right? Because maybe he wasn't prepared when he got that one opportunity of his career and then obviously didn't pan out, but he still had the skills and obviously the passion to be an NHL goaltender.

But sometimes you just get one shot, one opportunity, like Eminem says. This is an Eminem talk. Yeah, what's going on right now? For goalies especially though, right? It's a grim reality for a lot of these AHL guys. They might get one chance. Well, I think the interesting thing for him

was that he ended up being at the forefront of what ended up being like a decade-long goalie graveyard in Toronto. I went through and looked at the names of the guys that followed him. Oh, Toskala. Okay, Toskala, Martin Gerber, Curtis Joseph, J.S. Jaguar.

Remember Jonas Gustafson? Yep. I forgot about him. The monster. Reimer, Scrivens. Oh, the monster. God, there was so much hype with him. Reimer, Scrivens, Bernier.

They went through this long stretch of always trying. And I do think he fell victim to that, always trying to find the guy. I think they screwed Reimer, too. They made him the guy way too early. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he had some concussion issues, right? This was a while ago now.

But then he went on to have some pretty good years after he left Toronto as well, right? So maybe the better move might have been to turn him on. But he was one of those guys like he would be the, you know, we were talking yesterday about Seelovs and how, you know, someone texted in and said, I'd trade Demko.

I'd be like, who would you start? He'd be like, Seelovs. I'd be like, so you're going to make Artie Seelovs your starter and put all that pressure on him to be your guy that's out there more than anyone else. You're going to do that to a 23-year-old? There was a real old school mentality with finding the guy and then anointing him the guy and then making him the guy.

It's not unlike what you see in the NFL with a lot of quarterbacks. It's like we take this guy and we're going to throw him in the deep end. And then if it works, great. That means he's got to cut the mustard. He's got it. What's more anointing for Pogge than when they traded Rask? That was the moment there. He cleared the decks for him.

It's like you're the guy now. And I just remember that being a thing in Toronto for the the longest time and in a lot of markets to be fair there's a lot of guys that got shoehorned into positions where like you're gonna be that guy and well the least used to do it all the time too i just remember that i just ran through a list of that was um from 2003 to 2016 they went through about 10 different goalies do you remember they when they drafted Luke Shannon, it was like, this is the future captain of the Leafs.

I'm like, no pressure. Yeah. Well, and, and, but that was, but that's old school.

That was Brian Burke. That's a Brian. Yeah. And it's funny for you kids out there that don't remember that Vancouver used to be the biggest goalie graveyard of them all. Is that, that's the one of the most, um,

shocking and probably least talked about developments over the 50 plus years of vancouver kanak sake is this place used to be death for goalie good goalies would come to vancouver and struggle it didn't yeah it there was we had a colorful array of goalies that stunk when they got here either because they were promised to be good and weren't or were good somewhere else and weren't or were drafted to be. It didn't matter. It was a goalie graveyard.

And then it just all changed. When's the last time outside of this last couple of weeks? But when's the last time? There was a couple of years. There was a year where they had really bad goal time. Pre-Rolly Melanson probably. When though? Right?

It was maybe during one of the Willie teams. And there was an injury, I think. Yeah, maybe. There was an injury. The Miller-Lack years? I don't know. Even Miller-Lack. I think they were both okay.

We've talked about it at length. Miller was just hurt. Is it after the rather unfortunate Dan Cloutier and then that subsequent couple of years? Once Luongo hit and then you went Luongo, Schneider, Miller, Markstrom. I'm trying to do this off memory, so I'll probably miss one. Lack came in and was really good for a short period of time. And then transitioning to the Demko era off of Markstrom.

It's just, it's, you know, it's, I'm not reinventing the wheel or revolutionizing hockey analysis. It's just crazy that what happened in Toronto for the better part of a decade used to be the norm here. And it's not anymore except when the goalie gets injured and the goalie coach leaves in the middle of the summer. But other than that, the goalie position has been pretty solid in Vancouver.

If he's worked with Ian Clark before, do you think he had a hand in being the guy that brought him in? I wondered about that when you said it. Yeah. I mean, possibly, who knows? Clark's worked with a ton of goalies too, right? And Pogge even mentioned it's kind of last minute. There's probably not a lot of guys out there

willing to jump into a job like this. Well, he was working as just a consultant with Columbus. So it was probably one of those hybrid jobs where you're not on the ice and doing the grind every single day. But that was a really cool interview. That was a lot of fun. Okay.

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