Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 9/5/24

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, the boys discus Elias Pettersson and his expectations for the coming season, they look ahead to Canucks training camp with Sportsnet's Iain MacIntyre, plus the boys tell us what they learned. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. It's goal-dependent in Paralympic Games record time. His second goal. That is a fantastic result. Gainesville to first. There it is. No hitter. When I'm feeling low, you know what always cheers me up? Is it love?

Kindness? Ooh, tough room. Video games. Good morning, Vancouver. 601 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford and his bruh. It is Sportsnet 650.

We are coming to you live from the Kintex studios at beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Regular Zach, a.k.a. Chad. Good morning to you. Good morning.

Hi, Chad. Hi, Chad. Yeah, there was a bit of an to you. Good morning. Hi, Chad. Hi, Chad. Yeah, there was a bit of an autocorrect issue in a text to Zach last night, and he got called Chad. So you are suggesting- Autocorrect. Autocorrect. Chad and Zach.

You're suggesting that Zach autocorrected to Chad. Yeah. Okay. Likely story. We're throwing doubt at- Yeah. Okay. Likely story. We're throwing doubt in there. I've written Chad a lot because he's a sales guy in my text. I think we all assume that you thought his name was Chad, the intern Chad. You know, Chad over there.

You got the C-H, right? That's what matters. It's a four-letter word with C and H and A. C and H and A. How C and H and an A. How is this not right? How is this hard for you guys to figure it out? It's almost Zach backwards. It is.

Old Chad. That's your new nickname, by the way, now. Like, sometimes you struggle to find nicknames like regular Zach. It didn't really catch on. Chad works. Chad is a good nickname. It is. Yeah, yeah.

It's also a halfway decent regular name for people named Chad. I mean, this is not like Francis auto-correcting to Zach or something like that. Francis would be a good one, too. I just thought of it in the moment. I'm like, did it auto-correct or did he just? He's like, you know, the kid. What's his name? Chad. No, no, no, no know, the kid, what's his name? Chad.

No, no, no, no, no. Am I turning into Pratt? Doing one of these. Just like you. Hey, big guy. What's up, my man? I think Pratt called me big guy at least 12 times. Yeah, Pratt never knew us.

Yeah, he knew that there was a show called Halford and Brough. He knew that we were on it and that was the extent of his knowledge. He didn't know which one was Half show called Halford and Brough. He knew that we were on it, and that was the extent of his knowledge. He didn't know which one was Halford and which one was Brough, but he knew both of us were big guy. All right, we got a big show ahead on a Thursday. A couple meat-seeker reads today as well. A couple meat-seekers in there, yep.

It is the return of the National Football League today, everybody. That takes precedence over any of our guests. We are back. We are back. We got football tonight. We got football on Friday. Two leagues playing on Friday. You got the CFL.

You got the Lions going to Montreal to take on the Owls. It's going to be a tough one. And then you've got a game in Brazil. As a matter of fact, we're going to talk to Brooks Kubina. I'm going to go out of order here. It's 730. Now, he's a guy that originally used to cover college athletics in the South and now is working in Philly of all places.

So we'll talk to him. His head must be spinning. What is going on here? He was like, I was in the South and then went to Philly, and now I'm in Brazil? What the hell is going on here? A crazy journey for Brooks Kubina. Anyway, he writes for The Athletic.

He covers the Eagles. We're going to talk to him about this very interesting game on Friday from Brazil where the Eagles are going to take on the Packers in their NFL kickoff. That's at 730. It's 630 Adnan. Virk's going to join the show. MLB Network.

We're going to talk baseball. Obviously, there was a no-hitter last night, a combined no-hitter by the Chicago Cubs over the Pittsburgh Pirates. I don't recognize them. Yeah, I know. Neither do I. Obviously, there was a no-hitter last night, a combined no-hitter by the Chicago Cubs over the Pittsburgh Pirates. I don't recognize them. Yeah, I know. Neither do I. There's certain no-hitters that are inferior no-hitters, and that is one of them.

Too many pitchers. Yeah. Too many contributors. You know what else we got to ask Adnan about? Beetlejuice is coming out in theaters. Very excited. Got my ticket. Ken Reeves. Are you serious?

What are you talking about? Are you serious? Are you serious? You have a ticket, an advanced ticket? Dude, the original Beetlejuice is a classic. Beetlejuice? Have you never seen the original? So hold on, hold on.

Of course I've seen the original. Hold on. How old were you when you saw that? Hold on. I don't know, 10? There's a good juxtaposition happening here because before the show. The new one's supposed to be good. It's getting good reviews.

Sportsnet's very own Ken Reed was on camera dressed up as Beetlejuice. And I'm like, why is he? I nearly just spilled my coffee there. I'm like, what the hell is going on? Brough, it's a pretty famous movie. I know it's a famous movie. And the sequel, likewise, is getting a lot of press. I'm with Brough on this one because I'm like, why is everyone so

fired up for Beetlejuice? Because the last one came out like 36 years ago. Right. And Michael Keaton's great as that role, so people are happy to see him again. I did not understand. Catherine O'Hara's back. I did not understand the cultural significance. Okay. No, I get the cast.

I did not understand. Please stop. Please stop naming Beetlejuice actors and actresses. I didn't realize the cultural significance. They're all called actors now. Actually, that's true. Halford's canceled. Again.

I don't see. Okay, you didn't understand the cultural significance. I didn't understand it. And. They're all called actors now. Actually, that's true. Halford's canceled. Again. I don't see actors. Okay, you didn't understand the cultural significance. I didn't understand it. And then I was like, bruv, I'm like, why is everyone making a big deal about Beetlejuice? And then you're like, I have advanced tickets to go see it. I'm very excited. Yeah. It's one of Tim.

I mean, Tim Burton hasn't really been in form for probably 20 years now. But back in the day, like his movies lately have kind of been, let's be honest, terrible. He's like a Premier League striker. In the 80s, yeah, exactly. Is he Everton? Yeah, exactly. He's Everton. It's a poor run of form. But back in the 80s and 90s, you know, like Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, he had some classics

and back in the day, he was considered to be one of the top directors, and this is the first movie he's made in a long time where people are like, hey, he's kind of like old Tim Burton again. A lot of practical effects, really zany look. People are excited. Text into the Dunbar Lumber

text message in basket right on cue. I have my tickets too. They didn't sign it because they didn't want to acknowledge that publicly. Unlike A-Dog. Anyways.

I have my tickets too. Signed Beetlejuice? It was just A-Dog texting him. Okay. You ask Adnan about this. Hey, good one, this, I guarantee you Adnan will be excited about this. Chad's a cool guy. Chad's hanging out at the beach this weekend, kicking sand in Beetlejuice's face.

Okay, 6.30 at Adnanburg, 7 o'clock, Axel Schuster, sporting director of the Vancouver Whitecaps. We're going to talk about their new designated player signing, Stuart Armstrong. We're going to talk about this weekend's match at home against Dallas. Jason asked me yesterday, how many regulars are the Whitecaps missing on the weekend? And I said all of them. At the very least, there's seven of them missing. It's going to be a very tall order.

And I don't believe that Stuart Armstrong, who, by the way, we're going to have on the show tomorrow. I don't believe Armstrong is going to be match fit for Saturday, but who knows? We'll ask Axel at 7 o'clock. As mentioned, 7.30, Brooks Cubina, who's going to talk about the Eagles-Packers game in Brazil on Friday. 8 o'clock, IMAC, who has a piece up now on Sportsnet.ca based off his interview with Canucks president of Hockey Ops, Jim Rutherford. Also, once again, we are giving away a four-pack of tickets

to see the Vancouver Canadiens take on Spokane in Northwest League playoff action next Tuesday. That's September 10th. Again, Spokane is mentioned at Nat Bailey. Best What We Learned gets the four-pack of tickets. Hashtag it WWL. And the Dunbar-Lumber text line is 650-650. That is what's happening on the program today.

Chad, 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?

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 begin with some Vancouver Canucks news. And that, of course, I just mentioned. Ian McIntyre, Sportsnet's very own, who will be on this show at 8 o'clock,

spoke with Jim Rutherford yesterday for a lengthy sit-down interview and then subsequent article in which Rutherford touched on a variety of topics, including the Canucks school attending. He did some dancing. He did. He did a little dancing. Now we've got to stop talking over each other because Bill from Buffalo texted in and said

all this talking over each other is giving him a headache. And Bill from Buffalo, we apologize. It's a dog's fault. He's excited for a child's movie. Jim Rutherford really did dance around the topic of Canucks goaltending. He was asked about, obviously, the injuries to Thatcher Demko, Archer Seelovs, and he said,

we haven't even done physicals yet, but I know our goalies are working hard and working towards being ready for the start of the season. As an organization, that's what we're hoping for. Well, guys, we can all rest easy. The Canucks goalies are working hard. That's true, and they haven't even had their

physicals yet. He also danced a bit, a little more dancing from Jim, who still got it, around the reports of the Canucks poking around the goalie market. I guess that's the phrase we're going with. Yeah. Poking around. That's the dolly wall.

Taking a sniff, if you like. Taking a sniff. Poking around. Poke, poke, poke. Smells like Lankanen. Ooh, could be anti-rattat though. He said, we look every day at every position. That's when you know, that's when you know that

there's something up when they say like, well, every day we're trying to improve our team. Doesn't matter if the goalie, right wing, left wing, center defense. He just, uh,

he went on. We don't just sit around and think we're all set. So we are aware that potentially we may have to take a goalie off of waivers in order to fill a gap for a little bit. The good news for us is we are in a position that we can do that cap wise, but we prefer to stay out of LTIR to start the season. That's important for us is we are in a position that we can do that cap-wise, but we prefer to stay out of LTIR to start the season.

That's important for us and we're pretty sure we can do that. A PTO could be an option. So again, I don't even know if Halford understands this. The reason you want to stay out of LTIR is so you can accrue cap space. Does this have to do with escrow?

It does not have to do with escrow. And so you can accrue cap space. Does this have to do with escrow? It does not have to do with escrow. And so you can accrue cap space and have more cap space available for you later on in the season, say at the trade deadline. The Edmonton Oilers are hoping to do the same thing by not putting Evander Kane on LTIR. And that's just so you can have some more flexibility

and have the ability to add players down the line. Because if you're into LTIR and that's just so you can have some more flexibility and have the ability to add players down the line because if you're into LTIR means you're pretty much just like using everything. So you're not accruing cap space. At any rate, I probably got something wrong in that too. That's fine. Rutherford does like the added depth up front.

He said, I believe that this position could be pretty competitive in camp when you look at some of the younger guys we have coming from the AHL that are either ready or very close to playing in the National Hockey League. You know, I started thinking about it the other day, just randomly. Whatever happened to Atu Ratu?

Like that's one of the guys, right? Like that's one of the guys that I want to see at camp and haven't really thought about that much. Another guy that I'm curious to see, I don't know if everyone is, but Max Sasson, because he gets talked up by management all the time. Sasson. Sasson.

Yeah, Max Sasson. Now, there's a reason that Vasily Podkolzin was traded. First of all, the Oilers needed some youth because they were in it with the St. Louis Blues at the time who were going after a couple of their younger players, including Holloway, who's a forward. So they had a need for a player like Podkolzin, and the Canucks were probably thinking,

look, even this guy has a really good camp. I don't know if he's going to make the team. And then we're going to be in that situation where we're playing chicken with other teams who are saying, well, put them on waivers then. Well, we'd rather just get a fourth round draft pick. So I think it will be pretty competitive up front.

And he said overall that he's optimistic about the upcoming season. He said this team is certainly in a much stronger position because the players have learned to play Rick Tockett's system and they've bought into it and they played it well. Also, we learned from experience with what we went through last year. You put all that together and stay focused and you prepare to take another step.

Now, in this whole article, and obviously I'm obsessed about this, so I made sure of it. Nothing about Pedersen. So I do want to ask IMAC if Pedersen came up at all, because goaltending, new additions, and then Pedersen would be another big topic for me. Sure. He asked about Petey and he just started swearing under his breath. It's really weird. You got to move off the topic quickly. Yeah, he did some more dancing. Like physical dancing. Danced right out of the room.

Gotta go. Yeah, the Patterson thing we'll have to ask IMAC about because there was nothing about it in the article. The one thing about it in the article that did get me thinking

was a pretty definitive statement that he and Patrick Alvin, sorry, Rutherford, not IMAC, and Patrick Alvin feel that this group is either stronger or significantly stronger and deeper at forward. So I thought, okay, let's go back and look at what the forward battles were like going into last year's training camp, right? So all you got to do is Google 2023 Canucks training camp battles. And it is a pretty stark reminder that this team has turned over a lot of players from one September to another.

Guys that were in the forward battle last year for positions. And some of these guys weren't even in the battle. They were in the lineup. Names like Andre Kuzmenko, Anthony Beauvillier, Ilya Mikheyev, Vasily Podkolzin. You forget that going into training camp, Tanner Pearson was firmly in that. Then he got traded the day before training camp started. So I look at what they've jettisoned out, and I'm thinking, yeah, maybe the executive kind of saw it.

Because you talked about this quite a bit last year. How good are they on the wings? And how good really are they especially at depth the depth forward positions because going into last year's camp you kind of went the old when it came to some of these quote-unquote battles like they weren't really overwhelming and look but at the time we weren't like how are they going to match up with the Oilers in the second round of the playoffs no so it was just a different conversation at that time. And I think with the benefit of hindsight, you realize that that group, it wasn't up to what Alvin and Rutherford wanted.

And I think for a variety, I think Speed was probably the biggest one. And I think Talkett too. Because Talkett was going into that camp, you sat there and you went, okay, well, Besser can play with Miller and Kuzmenko can play with Pedersen. Yep.

And that's exactly what it was, right exactly and you know and there was thinking that Beauvillier was going to be the guy that was going to play with um with Miller and Besser as well at times and it became pretty apparent through the first bit of the season even prior to when they realized they were moving guys out is um they wanted a different look with a lot of different forwards and you know one thing I'll say about this management group is every free agency period um they have made very distinct moves to build the identity of the team that they want and i think a lot of that has to do with talk it's input like this is the second second summer in a row where they've gone like size on defense is a pretty obvious one height particularly right and at, I think they've made very slow

steps to get faster. Like it's not easy just to snap your fingers and say, let's get faster. Okay. I took the summer off from talking about Pedersen aside from the odd question here or there. They dragged me back in.

Here's a question. Okay. Because I'm back in. It's hockey season now. It's back baby. Jason, do you not have confidence that PD is going to have no issues this year and he will finish the year at about 90 to 100 points?

Why are we making such a big deal about his regular season? His whole career, he's been good in the regular season. Did you miss his regular season for the second half of last season? It was awful. It started at the all-star break and it just so

happened coincide with the Canucks putting pressure on him to sign a contract. What was going on in PD's life? What was going on in Petey's life? What was going on there? Was it just tendonitis? Some people will just say it's just tendonitis. So when you ask me, do you not have confidence that Petey is going to have no issues this year

and he will finish the year at about 90 to 100 points, here's what I'm going to say about Petey. I have no idea what to express from him. I'm optimistic that he's going to come back and he's going to be energized and have better players to play with. A guy like Jake DeBrusque, perhaps they have chemistry there, but you don't know about chemistry until you see it. I have optimism that he's going to be working hard or has been working hard all off season with the strength trainer as rick tocket alluded to in uh an interview with thomas drance earlier in the summer i have optimism that rick tocket's going to be able to work with petterson and impart some knowledge to him, which is something that the head coach, not me, said.

I still don't think, or see, this is maybe just a general disagreement in opinion because I am not the god of all sports knowledge. But to me, the way Patterson played in the last few months of the regular season and into the playoffs was not just a slump. That was not just, I've seen slumps. That was a shocking fall in form, in body language,

in appearance, in battle level. It wasn't just like, oh, he's snake bitten. He wasn't getting chances. He was bad defensively. So I hope he comes back this season after clearing his head in the off season and also maybe strengthening his body. And I hope he comes firing out of the gates. Would I be surprised if that happened? No, I wouldn't. Because the reason I'm so hard on Petey is we've seen him play at such a high level before. Now, I'm fully prepared for Pedersen to come back and fire out of the gates and people to say,

Bruff, you didn't think he could do it when I literally just said I wouldn't be surprised by that, but it is a major factor for me. It's a major because I watched the games. I'm not just looking at points and going, well, back then, you know, he's always put up this many points per game. It's like, did you watch the games? He was dreadful. Honestly, I don't even care about the regular season. I mean, I hope he finds his form in the regular season. I care about the playoffs. Can he

be the best player on the ice in the playoffs? That's what matters. That's what's important. Yes, he needs to find his form. He needs to have a good regular season. I'm pretty confident he will, but even if he has a good regular season, assuming the Canucks make the playoffs, my question going in will be, okay,

can this guy be a factor in the playoffs? Does it matter that we have seen him perform at a high level? It was in the bubble. Yes. But he played really well then. Yeah, he should be able to do it. To me, that wasn't the story from last season. I don't see Pedersen struggle as, well, the playoffs came

and then he started to struggle. Well, because he was already struggling going in. Because he was already bad. Yes. You know, maybe Hughes a little bit. That would be a narrative that I would see. But imagine how good the Canucks would have done last year, potentially, if Petey was good in the playoffs.

Imagine what would have happened. Let's pretend for a second Petey was at the top of his game last season during the Oilers, in the Oilers series. Obviously, it's a lot of what-ifs, but pretend that happened. It would have been a completely different series. That's what matters. Playoffs is what matters. We're assuming the Canucks make

it, and we hope they do. Petey has to be a factor in the playoffs. That's the key for me. Just to parse through some of this stuff, the regular season in its entirety was an 89 point campaign for Pettersson, which is great, but I mean, Brough's spot on. You can go back

and look at the exact moment. It was right at the All-Star break, and then when he came back, the production fell. He had seven goals in February, March, and April. Guys, it wasn't just the production. Like, you watch the games, right? You know what?

You know everyone says, you got to watch the games. Well, I watched them. And I watched a guy who fell off in a way that I found very perplexing and unusual. And I was wondering what was going on with him. And I wonder if it had anything to do with the Canucks negotiations with him. Maybe that affected him. Obviously an injury could have been a major factor. It could have been a minor factor.

Maybe he wasn't very happy with his line mates. You know, I, I, I'm not pretending that he got the best line mates. He didn't. But I think we should all remember that Rick Talkett down the stretch tried his best to play Petey with all his best wingers.

He got Besser for a bit. He got Garland for a bit. You know, like he got these guys. He didn't do anything with them. And then Talkett was sitting there going, well, I got to put, you know, Garland back with Joshua. And I got to put Besser back with Miller because those guys are doing stuff with, you know, there is something.

Like I can't just constantly trying to get Petey going. So, you know, I'm very curious to see what this guy is like at training camp. And again, I'm going to take bullets if Petey is really good because I've been really critical of Pettersson. I don't really care about that. But remember what I'm saying right now is like, I have no idea what to expect from this guy. Okay, we do want to change the tone as we go to break here

to finish off the first segment of the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. As many of you probably saw either on television or social media last night, there were very, very emotional vigils in both Calgary and Columbus last night for the passing of Johnny and Matthew Goudreau. In Columbus, the Blue Jackets couldn't immediately provide the size of the crowd that was in attendance, but it was believed that it was well into the thousands

and over 2,000 candles were handed out for a team-sponsored vigil. The first of two that happened last night, the second one in Calgary, which I'm sure many of you saw the visuals from last night, thousands of Flames fans stood outside the Saddle Dome. They recognized a 13-minute and 21-second period of silence to represent the numbers that Johnny Gaudreau number 13 and Matthew Gaudreau number 21 wore during their professional careers. And in addition to that, a number of the audio from some of the teammates who are very, very clearly still very much in the shock and grief period of this. And that's probably going

to continue for a very long time. Many of the players still spoke almost flipping tenses between present and past when speaking about Johnny Gaudreau to kind of underscore just how difficult this is to come to grips with and how some of them just can't believe that it really happened. We've got audio here as we go to break from Johnny Gaudreau's former teammates in Columbus, Zach Rorensky, one of his best friends in hockey who he played with in Columbus and in Calgary, Michael Backlund. Here now, about a minute of condolences and eulogizing from former teammates of Johnny Gaudreau. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Seriously, I just want to say thank you, John, for choosing Columbus when other people wouldn't. You brought so much joy and excitement to this city. I've never quite seen anything like it.

Something only truly special players can do, and that's what you are. You're an amazing father. I'll forever remember you complaining about a sore back after spending the night in Noah's crib. And the pride you carried the day you brought Johnny into the room for the first time. The love you shared with Meredith was a sight to behold. You were truly a family man. And we will continue,

and you will continue to inspire me to be just like you. Rest in peace, Johnny Matthew. I hope you're having your past just the way you like it up there. Love you, man. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. 803 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody.

Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough in 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, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 3 of the program. Sportsnet's Ian McIntyre

is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off Hour 3. Hour 3 is brought to you by Campbell & Pound real estate appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at Campbell-Pound.com today. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio, Kintec Canada's favorite orthotics provider

powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sorfy, what are you waiting for? Kintec. To the phone lines we go. iMac. Ian McIntyre joins us now on the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Ian. How are you? I'm doing very well gentlemen and i use that term loosely as you know but it's nice to be back on with you i enjoyed some of your pictures that

you posted from across bc you're almost as good as taking uh panoramic pictures as i am maybe there could be a little contest we can have a little we can have a little uh we can we can call up an art gallery and who is the true pano man who is that yeah do you use the panel function or are you just uh i i actually don't use it very much because only the experts do yeah yeah the generalists those those who can't who can't artfully create a specific subject just to a panorama. But, you know, I love taking photos. You know, just as you guys have a history before you became big radio stars, before I became a sports writer, I trained as a news photographer.

Really? Yes. So I have that in my DNA. I've always loved photography. Growing up, that was my nerdy thing. I have other nerdy things, but that was the main nerdy thing. And at one point early in my working life,

I was at this crossroads. Do I follow the written word or the visual story? And I thought there was a little better future in words. That part's kind of worked out as well. Were you actually working at a newspaper when you were doing this? Did they send you on assignments? Uh, I did some assignments for the Richmond review. I trained, I, I sort of job shadowed and and then did some photography training but i was doing both and in college i was taking photos and i was writing stories and then i got out of journalism school and and uh got a job as a sports writer in kamloops and that was that all right well let's

talk some sports then you had a a conversation with Jim Rutherford. What was your – how long was the conversation, first of all, and what did you take away from the conversation? We talked for about 20 minutes, and I didn't expect him. I would love if he had told me the play-by-play of everything that's happened with his goalies this summer, but I wasn't naive enough to, to expect that, but I was, uh, in some ways relieved, you know, that, that, uh, he, uh,

on behalf of the team acknowledged that they've got these issues that they're, that they're dealing with, but he's, you know, 75 year old hall of famer. He's kind of been through everything. I guess my takeaway, other than just it was nice to get a little bit of news from him, is just the confidence and comfort level that they have in their hockey ops department, that this isn't by any means a crisis for them. There's not certainly the panic that there seems to be in some parts of Canuck Nation, although we're always panicking about something, right?

It's part of the deal. We know ourselves well enough to acknowledge that we're always panicking about something, but certainly there's none of that within the Canucks at this point. But the regular season is still a little more than a month away, so we'll see what happens in the meantime. But they're looking for more depth in goal, but if they make a move, I don't think it's to bring in anyone to replace Silovs or demko indefinitely it's it will just be to to have another body around for for training camp and pre-season

and then you know we'll see what everyone's status is a month from now what else did you get into with jim i i liked uh the conversation about what he likes about the team. I always find it interesting, you know, to see because they've made a ton of moves. Like if you, if you go back to last season, yeah,

the core is the core, but there's been a ton of moves made. There's been few GMs more active than Patrick Aldean in the last year and a half. And I was interested in Rutherford's take on where they're better. I also found it interesting that he said we're better than we were at this point last year, which isn't to say they're better than they were at the end of the season, but they're starting off from a stronger point. They're launching into this season from a much stronger point, uh,

roster wise than they were a year ago. And he, he, as I noted in my story, he really likes the balance and depth of their forward lines. And I kind of like that too. I still wonder, is Pugh Suter going to be, you know, a productive third line center? Is he going to have as strong a season as a third line center as he did, you know did as a winger in the top six? That would be my only question, but I think they have a lot of depth. I really like what they did in free agency. I know I'm getting off on a tangent now and talking about what I think instead of what Rutherford thinks.

I really like what they did in free agency. They signed four wingers, and there's only eight of them in the game. They signed four of them in free agency. And they've got some, you know, pretty good incumbents coming back on the wing. So that's going to be really competitive. But generally, what I liked about what they did in free agency is so often teams overpay to reward guys for what they have done to get free agents.

That's sort of the nature of free agency. The Canucks, it seems to me, potentially have underpaid some guys on bets what they will be able to do. There's still a higher ceiling for Danton Heinen given an elevated role in Vancouver than what he has done already. He's already built a pretty good career. And the same with Kiefer Sherwood and Sprong is a wild card. And of course, Dabrowski was their marquee guy,

and I think he's going to be just fine. Maybe not as sexy as what some people were hoping for as far as a top six winger, but I think he's going to be a really reliable guy.

And I also think when they were tweaking the team from the end of last season to this. They're doing everything with an eye to the playoffs and what might make them a better team in the playoffs. So I think it's an exciting time.

I guess it's always an exciting time, you know, the week before prospects and then prospects launch you into the main camp. But I think they've got a good team um did the topic of elias petterson come up uh it did and i'm gonna keep that to myself for now okay uh because i haven't i haven't uh written anything on it and there was nothing i'll say this i mean there were no five-star news bulletins on on anything that jim told me uh about petterson but i think it's clear uh i think it's clear to everyone that petterson is a huge x factor uh for this season because if if you look at their core players you know quinn hughes, well, he was the best player in the National Hockey League, or best defenseman in the National Hockey League last season.

And he's remarkable in that he, every year gets better, and he thinks he's going to continue to get better. Realistically, how much more can anyone really expect from Quinn Hughes? Can anyone really expect more than 40 goals realistically from Brock Besser? Can JT Miller play any better than he did last season? And, you know, you work through these. You know, Conor Garland had a great year. Dakota Joshua had a great year. And maybe those guys get more points. But when you're looking at the core players on this team, where is there still upside? Well, I think there's a lot of upside still for Elias Pettersson based on how the second half of his season went.

So he's a big X factor for this club. And I will say that one of the things Rutherford told me is they have no concerns about Elias Pettersson. They believe he's a superstar. And I'm saying this now, that's not what Rutherford said, but they believe he's a superstar, worth the money that they have agreed to pay him for the next eight years. And organizationally, they're not worried that there's anything wrong with Pedersen or that he's not going to be the player that everyone thinks he can be. iMac, another thing we were talking about on the show this week was Rick Tockett's contractual status, and we actually referenced a tweet that you had on June 5th, and I suppose that was when the Canucks were announcing some changes to the coaching staff, and Rick Tockett did a Zoom,

and he mentioned that he had not talked to the Canucks about a new contract, but you, I don't know if he said this or you were reporting this, Talkett has next season guaranteed plus a team option for 2025-26. Did this come up with Jim Rutherford? Do you anticipate any news about Rick Talkett's contractual status or do you expect this all to go into the season as is? Yeah, I don't think there's going to be any news. I did ask Rutherford about that at that time,

and the context was, of course, that Mike Peo was leaving the organization, and part of the reason he was leaving is because he'd only had the offer of one year. I think it was reported by others that he'd only been offered one year by the Canucks and I think he ended up getting three or four with Travis Green in Ottawa. But the reason, the thinking from the Canucks was that they wanted to align his contract with Rick Talkett's. And there was some, there was a lack of clarity about exactly what Talkett's status was. And, and the team does have an option for him for, for next season.

So the, the way the team views this is that they've got Rick Talkett for two more years. And I did ask Rutherford about that at that time. And he was pretty clear that he didn't see this as being an issue. He also didn't see it as being a problem moving forward. But again, because they view it as Talkett having this season and next, there was no urgency to get anything done now. And I'd have to go back and read the quote from Rutherford.

But I think he said that he thought it would be something that would be taken care of after this season. IMAC, good to chat with you again. You must be excited about all the Scottish guys that are leading the Whitecaps now. I'm so relieved, but also angry about the Ryan Gould situation. Like watching Scotland try to squeeze water from a stone, which is what most of their feet were made of at the Euros, to score goals and create chances, it just drove me nuts that the most creative Scottish player was sitting in Vancouver, ignored because he had, what, his cardinal sin had been to leave Scotland

as a young player and his football future. It's ridiculous. So I'm happy he's back. I haven't seen any lineups for the friendlies. They play Poland today at 11.45. The lineups usually come out about an hour ahead. If they don't

cap him and they don't play him because they play Portugal on Sunday, I will be bitterly disappointed because you're right. That's kind of cruel. Well, after the showing at Euro, like doing things as you had done them in the past is not an option anymore. You have to see what you've got with him. And you're right. Like he's incredibly creative and he can create chances where a lot of these other guys.

And, you know, now I'm going off on a tangent, but there's a lot of Scottish guys playing. I didn't mean to start this whole Scottish football conversation. You know there's six Scotsmen playing in Italy now. Six of them in Italy now. So there's no shortage of guys that have the quality, but they're not able to do it at the national team level. So why not give golf a chance? Yeah, absolutely.

And as far as players leaving Scotland, why would you stay? And, you know, my parents are Scottish. I consider myself Scottish. But that league, once you get beyond Celtic and Rangers, what is there for you? Third place. I don't blame these players for leaving, but the Scottish Federation has to have a broader view

of things and not hold it against guys because they leave. But anyways, I hope that Gould plays. I hope he does well. I kind of, I was on board for Team Canada. Ryan Gould, Team Canada. I don't know how realistic that ever was

going to be. But obviously if he plays for Scotland then he was going to be. But obviously, if he plays for Scotland, then he's going to be a Scottish international. iMac, this was great. Good talking to you again. Enjoy the weekend. All right. See you guys.

You too. Ian McIntyre here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sports Night 650. I did offer. Remember when we had Ryan Gould on the show and I offered to stand in line at Sinclair Center Forum and wait the three hours for the passport. He didn't take you up on that. He did not take me up on the offer,

but I try, look, Canada, I did my part. Okay. Halford actually got a, got a call from CSIS. Cause you can't be doing that,

sir. Please stop doing this. You can't just offer citizenship to people. Um, so we got a bit of a preview there from IMAC. He's, he's holding some Rutherford quotes back about PD. Obviously you're going to write a story. That's a veteran journalist a veteran journalist yeah you do you do the interview and you get lots

of stories from it yeah like four you get four stories out of that right up until training camp yeah they're all in your notebook um imac did share that uh rutherford and the canucks say they're not worried one bit about petterson and And we got a text in to the Dunbar Lumber text line and said, I mean, Canucks brass better say that about PD. Yeah, they made a massive commitment. You don't want to be like, his contract kicks in like now. Yeah. I'm like, we're worried.

That'd be a great headline. It's like Rutherford, we're freaking out. Okay, I want to do uh what we learned maybe we can squeeze in a couple here we'll see before we turn it over to the humanoids on the other side uh i got a what we learned and this just happened about a half hour ago 45 minutes ago our own company sportsnet yeah sportsnet has announced that they have a new host for the 32 Thoughts podcast. Kyle Bukaskas is going to take over from Jeff Merrick. They announced it this morning.

The 31-year-old. I can't believe he's only 31 years old. From Campbell River, local guy. You all know him very well. Longtime television host. I can't believe he's only 31 years old. Have you seen him? What?

Kyle Bukaskas? He feels like he's been on TV for forever. Yeah, but he looks 23 i know well zach's 23 sorry chad's 23 yeah yeah that's what a 23 year old should look like right they look we look the same age i agree yeah no no cal bucas because his hair is like a pomade from the 50s in it yeah but it's great it is good hair it's got very really good hair anyway, I say all this because Sportsnet announced this morning that he is now going to be hosting the 32 Thoughts podcast along with Elliott Friedman. And if I'm not mistaken, they have their debut episode as a tandem coming out tomorrow morning.

So that'll be available for public consumption and download. So congrats to Kyle. We will be trying to get him on the show, if I'm not mistaken, as well. Okay. Give Kyle Bukowskis the Halford & Brough Moo Cow. Mookowskis. Mookowskis. Sorry, there's going to be some more soccer talk here.

But don't worry, it won't involve Scotland. And it's not coming from me. Well, I need your advice on this. Yeah, go. your advice on this yeah go so for the first time since 2003 i learned that neither messi nor ronaldo made the 30 man short list which is not a short list that's a long list yeah the 30 man short list for the uh what i like to call the golden balloon oh you mean the ballon d'or yeah which goes to is that just the best soccer player? It's French football, but yeah, it's the best player on the planet.

Yeah. Right. Who gives it away? Some French guy? It's a French magazine called France Football, but it's not a French award. It's a global award, but that's where the voting panel comes from. So Messi won it last year, though, right? He sure did. It was his eighth award. Okay. Sodo has the most nominations for a ballon d'or being on the

finalist list 18 nominations but messi has the most ballon d'ors right how many does ronaldo have i can't remember no okay um so who's gonna win oh ronaldo won it five times okay sorry so who's gonna win it this year? Vinicius Jr. They call him Vinny. Yeah, Vinny Jr. From Real Madrid. He's from the Bronx. Nope, he's not from the Bronx.

Vinny. Yeah, he's from Brazil. He knows AJ. Focus. Please focus. Okay. He won Champions League with Real Madrid. He was named the Champions League player of the tournament.

He won La Liga with Real Madrid. Obviously, his international exploits weren't great because the Brazilian national team did not fare particularly well at Copa, but I think they're going to overlook that by the fact that they won the Champions League and La Liga, and he was dominant in Champions League.

Rodri will also get some love. The one-name guys always have an advantage, I think. Yeah, Rodri from Man City. Of course, Man City had great exploits. He, of course, is Spanish. The one name guys always have an advantage, I think. Yeah, Rodri from Man City. Of course, Man City had great exploits. He, of course, is Spanish. The Spanish won the Euro. But I think and I'm not really like breaking news here. Like I think most sports books

have Vinny as the favorite, right? If I'm not mistaken, he's the odds on favorite to win. Not the heavy favorite, but he's the favorite. He's the favorite. And he's going to win the Ballon d'Or. He's a pretty young guy isn't he 24 or something like that

yeah how many how many players does Real have like how many elite they're not

quite the Galacticos of the early 2000s they're not not yet but they're close so who have they got they're very close

who have they got Mbappe Vinny Modric Jude Jude Bellingham. Right. So here's the thing. They haven't achieved what the Ticos did back then, but they're on their way because it's a super team.

It is a super team right now. And it's funny because they still got Modric here. He's like the old overseer. Right. He's like, in my day, we did it this way. Like, I know what the Ticos look like. So anyway, this is a season. This is obviously the first year that Mbappe is in the fold.

So this is going to be the year where everyone's thinking, can they literally sweep every competition that they're in? Because they're, I mean, if you look at their ideal starting 11, it is kind of comical right it's it's just it's star-studded beyond belief right and um because you got to remember like bellingham had a fantastic hero where's barcelona now still in barcelona i realize still yeah uh check the map still in spain yep no they're still there um they'll be second in la liga i mean they've got a bunch they won seven nil last weekend if

i'm not mistaken they're playing in a temporary stadium right now yeah that's right okay god you know a lot about international football look at you i'm learning i'm learning i pick things up along the way did you know that only one player on the field is allowed to use his hands the uh box the box midfielder no it's not it's not we're just joking that was funny i was like what is a box the box midfielder axel's exact quotes are a little ruse like it's literally what i just said you stupid idiot he didn't say that part but he was thinking it he was thinking it uh axel also i should have asked him follow up where are these boxes yeah are they are they like boxes on the field you did come back with an appropriate response though with the 200 foot

player and then axel was excited because he learned something as well yeah he's like you're not so stupid he didn't say that axel axel um axel also has that uh tendency that uh some people do this i've noticed when you ask them a question, their immediate response is to chuckle ever so slightly. He does one of those. Right. That's that's an ax. I see this man as an idiot.

Yeah, I will pity him. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.