Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Canucks Are Embracing The Hard

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports (3:00), they talk NFL Week 2 action with Too Deep Zone's Mike Tanier (15:51), plus the boys discuss a new Canucks slogan being put into place by head coach Rick Tocchet for the upcoming season. (26:29) 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.

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Six o'clock on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. It is Alfred. It is Bradford. It's Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the

Kintec Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you.

Good morning. And Laddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Alfred and Bradford 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 brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of the program.

Hour 1 is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling. They recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. 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, we're dressed alike again today, except we're wearing our navy blues today. We're wearing our navy blues in studio here. It's a blue day. Blue sweatshirt and blue hats. The Sunday creams yesterday and the navy blues on Monday.

My navy blues, you know. Believe it or not, we do not coordinate this. We just have sad wardrobes. Sunday creams, we do coordinate. Well, you got it. Okay.

We got a lot to get into on the program today. Big guest list ahead on a Monday. Tons to get into. Lots of football talk. 630, our NFL insider from the too deep zone,

Mike Tanier is going to join us. What a weird day. What a weird, weird day in the National Football League yesterday. I'm at Vegas. It was a bloodbath out there in the desert. There was a lot of surprise results. A lot of things I didn't see coming. When did the New Orleans Saints become the best team in football history?

How did this happen? It's been a weird first two weeks, to be honest with you. Like the Bengals are 0-2. The Ravens are 0-2. Those are two teams we're talking up in the preseason and I want to have a shout out to my man Bill from Buffalo who last year him and I didn't get along we had we had beef me and Buffalo beef that's what I called them um I was down on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Baker Mayfield last year I want to right that

wrong by being the being the biggest bandwagon jumper in sports history. I am all about it. So Baker Mayfield, great leader, great quarterback, great person. Bucks are 2-0. I love it. This is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan show now. I should have probably apologized to a listener.

I think his name is Sonny, who's a big Packers fan. And I said, I replied to him, I was like, buddy, the Packers are done. That's right. You did do that. After Love went down. And then Malik Willis won them the game. Wow. He didn't win.

You didn't lose them the game. At the very least, they had a good running game. I didn't watch it, but they won. We've got some funny audio from that game as well that we're going to play later in the show. Greg procured it this morning. So as I understand it, we might be doing a guest hit early in the morning audible so we're going to audible on mike tannier he's going to be on the show in 12 minutes at 6 15 so we'll do a little bit of a different first hour of the program we'll try and get through as many

what happens as we can in this first sec then we'll go to mike tannier and then at 6 30 we'll pick it up so anyway mike tannier now joining us at 6.15 here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. 7 o'clock, J.C. Abbott from Three Down Nation, BC Lions beat writer, will join us after just a stink of a game, an absolute disaster, a debacle, not good at all from the BC Lions on Friday,

losing to the Argonauts, and on top of everything else, managed to wedge in a quarterback controversy as well on Friday, losing to the Argonauts and on top of everything else, managed to wedge in a quarterback controversy as well on Friday night. So we'll talk to JC Abbott about that at 7 o'clock. 7.30, Thomas Drance, the Drancer from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk right here on Sportsnet 650. He is up in Penticton for Young Stars. The Canucks are undefeated.

They got one more game today to hopefully run the table. We'll talk to Drance about who stood out for the Canucks at Young Stars. And then at 8 o'clock, I've always wanted to say this on the air, venerable sports scribe.

How's that? Ed Willis is going to join the program. He formerly of the province. He will join us to talk about his new book, a Vancouver Canucks book. That's cool.

That's two guys that are going to be on the show that have written Vancouver Canucks books. Hopefully's cool. That's two guys that are going to be on the show. They've written Vancouver Canucks books. Hopefully Ed's is better. We'll talk to Ed at eight o'clock about his latest endeavor. So eight o'clock. His book is called Never Boring, which I think is a pretty good,

good way to describe the Canucks. Yeah. The history of like, I mean, he covered the Canucks closer. Good or bad. They're never boring. Always a shot.

It's a shot at a Halford's book too. Always boring. Yeah. Right. Underhanded shot. It's a shot at Halford's book, too. Always boring. Yeah, right. Underhanded shot. It was one of the headlines that we rejected. Somehow the never boring book outsold the always boring book.

I'm not sure why. So 8 o'clock, Ed Willis. 7.30, Thomas Dran. 7 o'clock, J.C. Abbott. 6.15, Mike Tanier. That's what's happening on the program today. Laddie, let's tell

everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... 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 B.C. Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. Let's begin with the Vancouver Canucks stuff before we turn it over to the National Football League.

The Canucks are undefeated through two games at their Young Stars tournament up in Penticton. They opened Young Stars on Friday from the South Okanagan Events Center. Wow, so much for that regression theory. No, they're on fire. The Canucks are 2-0. And they've got a chance to go 3-0 today. Like undefeated. They're going to win the Young Stars tournament. And the way they're going to do it is on fire. They're 2-0. And they've got a chance to go 3-0 today. Like undefeated.

They're going to win the Young Stars tournament. And the way they're going to do it is on the strength of Max Sasson and Christian Felton. They scored on Friday with Nikita Tolopio getting a shutout in a 2-0 victory over Edmonton. And then they followed that up with a 4-2 win over Sunday afternoon against the Jets. The goal scorers, real quick, Josh Bloom and Elias Pettersson.

No, not that one. Anthony Romani and Vilmer Ulriksen, my favorite Vilmer. And 30 saves on 32 shots from Ty Young in net for the Canucks. Yeah, I had Adog texting me videos from young stars of Lekker or Mackey. That's right. Nearly scoring. Right. A couple of times.

You like that? Yeah, look at this guy. Nearly scoring. Looks pretty good, eh, bruv? How do you feel now? We'll talk to Thomas Drance about this. I didn't watch any of the games. I didn't.

I mean, I was watching. The most dismissive review. I did not watch any of them. The stories are from the talks that people are having up in Penticton, not necessarily these games. Although, you know, it should be noted that Bukramaki was on a line with Baines and Aturatu, and they dominated as they should have, honestly, as they should have. One of the things that, you know, was kind of being whispered is like,

the Canucks sure sent a lot of AHL players, like experienced AHL players to a Young Stars tournament. Didn't Keith Baines was in the NHL last season, and he's playing in the Young Stars. Matt Savoy was in the NHL last year, and he's there for Edmonton. Why did they do that? They wanted to dominate in front of the home fans. Specifically the Oilers, too.

They're going to keep raising the bar each year in a few years. Like, JT Miller will be playing in the Young Stars tournament. Why is Brunette out there? Hopefully his penicils are going to be there. JT Miller looks very annoyed right now. This is the way that you embrace hard. We'll get to that in a minute as well. Oh, my goodness.

Other news from the Vancouver Canucks, in case you missed it last night. The Canucks have signed a goalie to a PTO in time for training camp. Dylan Ferguson. Fergie Ferg. Fergie Ferg. Kamloop Blazers legend. Yeah, he's from Lanceville, right? We have a listener from Lanceville, a painter from Lanceville,

if I'm not mistaken. So two very prominent Lanceville natives on the Halford and Brough show. Anyway, Ferguson 25 spent last year in the KHL. This is a body for camp. I think the bigger story isn't necessarily Ferguson, but that it seems pretty obvious

that Thatcher Demko isn't going to be a full and healthy participant in training camp. I did not realize that the Vancouver Canucks also reached out to Antti Ranta for the possibility

of him coming in either on a PTO or to be that sort of number three slash four guy um he had an interview with a finnish news outlet over the weekend and actually said he talked to alvin and to marco terrenius the goalie coach and said that he wasn't interested in what they were offering and now he's on his way to europe so there you go so we'll talk a little bit more about the vancouver canucks throughout the show uh perhaps in about 15 minutes after we or 20 minutes after we talk to Mike Tanier.

We'll go into an interview that IMAC had with Rick Tockett where he talked about what their slogan is going to be for the year. See if you can do better than embrace the hard because that's what Tock's come up with so far. Is it embrace the hard or embrace hard? No, embrace the hard. Embrace the hard. That somehow makes it worse. Embrace the hard. Embrace the hard. That somehow makes it worse.

Embrace the hard. And I love the thing Bruf sent the chat. Hold on, hold on, hold on. We're going to get into this later. We're not going to spoil it. We're going to get into this later. We're going to get into this later. We'll embrace it later.

I don't even know what I sent. It's probably good if I sent it. You made me laugh. You've got to embrace the hard now. Yeah. No, I can't. It's like, oh, I just took the pill five minutes ago. It's too early.

I've got to get going. Embrace the hard. We've only been on the air for nine minutes. Okay. Let's like, oh, I just took the pill five minutes ago, so I better get going. I'm going to embrace the herd. We've only been on the air for nine minutes. Okay, let's talk about these BC Lions. We're going to have a more extensive set of coverage coming up at 7 o'clock with JC Abbott, but the BC Lions two-game win streak came to a screeching halt on Saturday against the Argos,

a game that I watched in great detail and actually got more intrigued despite how bad the Lions were playing because they decided to play Vernon Adams for the first time since August 1st, midway through this game. A move that apparently surprised all the quarterbacks on the team, including the guy that got taken out, Nathan Rourke, and the guy that got put in, Vernon Adams.

It was a 33-17 loss. It was actually probably not even as close as the score suggested because they got a cosmetic touchdown. It was not good for the BC Lions whatsoever. By neither Adams or Rourke. No, they were terrible. I don't even know who that third string guy was. But God bless him.

He came in and got a touchdown at the end. He'll be starting the next game. They made the joke on the broadcast. Maybe he'll be starting. And then they're like, that's not funny. It was a disastrous performance all around, offensively, defensively, missed tackles all over the place. And it was frustrating because we thought the Lions had turned a corner.

We thought they had found their game in Victoria when they beat Ottawa, and then we were almost convinced of that when they go to Montreal and beat the best team in the league. God smokes the best team in the league too and maybe they got cocky. Maybe that's what happened. Maybe they came back they're like we got this figured out we got a bye coming up we're gonna look ahead to that bye maybe get some time off and they just didn't show up against a very good Toronto team that was in bounce back mode after not playing very well. Like they were the desperate team. They were the ones that were going to come into BC and where they hadn't won for a while.

And they were going to be focused. But the whole thing was a disaster, including the coaching job by Rick Campbell. A lot of people pointed out like, hey, I know that Nathan Rourke didn't really start that well. But he looked like he was finding his game. And then you yank him. And then as JC Abbott wrote, and we'll talk to JC in just a bit, in Three Down Nation, Rick Campbell said, well, we were looking for a spark. I was like, well, you just found the spark because Nathan Rourke found his game

and found the end zone. So here's what I wonder. Okay. I wonder. This is pure speculation. Oh, good. And this is the stuff that Sports Talk Radio gets to do with absolutely no information

behind it or no evidence behind it. I wonder if there's some dissension in the room. Dun, dun, dun. And I wonder if Rick Campbell's just trying to prove a point that Nathan Rourke isn't, like, he's not being guaranteed the job here. And he almost wanted to get VA into the game. You know, like he had kind of convinced himself, like, I'm going to get this guy into the game one way or the other

if Nathan isn't completely balling out against the Argos, because I want to show maybe them, but also everyone else, that we have two quarterbacks here. And Vernon Adams isn't forgotten. And Vernon Adams is still going to get an opportunity. Because the whole thing just seemed forced. It seemed like he had his mind made up that Vernon Adams was going to come into the game. The whole thing struck me as weird.

I don't know if my theory holds any water. I don't know what Vernon Adams thought when the BC Lions went out and got Nathan Rourke. But I heard a few rumblings that he wasn't thrilled. Okay, so we're going to talk to JC Abbott at 7 o'clock. No thoughts on that? Nothing? Well, we're going to move along because abbott at seven o'clock no thoughts on that nothing well we're gonna move along because we got uh a couple other things i want to get to before i just put out a pretty good conspiracy theory and you're like we're gonna move along um okay i think it was bad coaching i think it was really bad coaching i think that it was a ridiculous whatever it was

whatever the impetus was for rick campbell make that decision, I think it was very bad coaching. Vernon Adams Jr. didn't take a single first-team rep during the week, so he got no practicing opportunity with the guys that he was supposed to go out and play with. Secondly, he hasn't played since August 1st, and I don't know why you would put him in this sort of not-advantageous scenario for a guy that hasn't played in six weeks to try and get back into game form without having taken any first-team reps. He clearly didn't tell either guy that he was anticipating

or even suggesting this move because it caught both Vernon Adams and Nathan Rourke off guard. Nathan Rourke said after the game he was surprised by the decision. So why didn't you say that the first time? That was terrific. That was way better than what I said with my weird conspiracy theories i just i well because i i will one i was trying to save it but two i think that this is bad coaching i think this is i think it's just uh if there is a conspiracy that i'll align myself with on yours i think

maybe he thought that this might have been like keeping guys on their toes or no one is safe or everyone has the possibility of being benched. And if that's the case, it makes a bad coaching decision even worse because this might have ruined it. I mean, this is the Canadian Football League. A nine point lead is not insurmountable. You can make that up in the last 90 seconds of a game. Like, I don't understand any football. Yeah, I don't understand why it almost felt like there's a predetermined act from the head coach.

He was going to go to Vernon Adams inams in the second half regardless of what was happening and that's a very strange move from a veteran head coach who's got a team that has a great cup aspirations adog is furiously working the phones here trying to get a hold of mike tan here i don't know how much mike covered the seahawks game but we will mention really quickly 23 to 20 victory in new england um just two games now in the seahawks that i where you're like they got the win you're happy with the result maybe a bit of a flawed process but at the end of the day you can't really argue with the fact that they're two and oh and they're just kind of now they got miami coming to town and miami won't have two uh now they're gonna be a three and oh football team i think the Seahawks are 6.5 point favorites against the Miami Dolphins.

6.5 point favorites to go 3-0. Do we have Mike Tannier on the line now? To the phone lines we go. Our NFL insider from the 2 Deep Zone, Mike Tannier here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Michael. How are you? I'm doing great, but that's a perfect lead-in.

There are going to be some weird 3-0 teams next week, and the Seahawks may be one of them. I was reading the Too Deep Zone this morning. By the way, everyone should go to MikeTannier.Substack.com and check it out right away. You mentioned that this is the Monday where we all go in and we talk about which teams are 2-0.

So let's do exactly that. We're trying to figure out what's going on here because I don't think anyone expected the Vikings to be 2-0, so let's do exactly that. We're trying to figure out what's going on here because I don't think anyone expected the Vikings to be 2-0 after two weeks. I don't think anyone expected the New Orleans Saints to be 2-0 and have the best offense possibly in NFL history at this stage of the game. So let's start with the Vikings

though because that one, as it pertains to the Seattle Seahawks, 23-17 win over the 49ers without Christian McCaffrey. What did you learn from this one? A resilient effort by the Vikings. And one of those games that the 49ers have, and then, you know, you can dismiss it to a certain degree. You know, they have a Monday night win, then they go on the road. And teams, yeah, the Monday night win and they go on the road. Sometimes they're flat. And the 49ers looked a little flat. But, you know, I was most impressed by the Vikings.

They get this 98-yard touchdown by Justin Jefferson, and it's like, okay, well, if Justin Jefferson goes ham, they can beat anybody. Jefferson gets hurt, and the 49ers start roaring back. But it was still a tough little game. You know, the Vikings' defense looked very good. Brian Flores had Brock Purdy confused. Darnold was doing just enough.

I don't know if it's sustainable, and I think it's a problem, even if Jefferson misses a week, but I'm impressed by how hard the Vikings are trying to salvage this season. It looked like it was lost when their rookie quarterback got hurt. I have to ask the question. I know it's out there, and I know it's obvious, but is Sam Darnold for real? No.

Sam Darnold was slipping into Darnold mode in the second half of that game, but they had the lead, and then they got a couple sacks on Purdy and a couple turnovers the other way, and he made just enough plays in the fourth quarter to salvage that win. Darnold's going to be Darnold again in two

weeks. Now, is he like the 27th best quarterback in the NFL or 24th or the 33rd or something yeah he's definitely in that range are we going to be talking about him in november chislet we are not going to be talking about sam donald as a serious quarterback in november and december are we going to be talking about uh car and the new orleans saints in november that's different because the saints first of all the saints obviously look better than the Vikings right now. They steamrolled the Cowboys yesterday.

You know, the Saints have a lot of assets right now. They have a lot of speed on offense. We start looking at Olave and Rashid Shahid and a rejuvenated Alvin Kamara. Their offensive line is not that bad. Their defense is full of veterans, and their new scheme is really good. If you watch the Saints, and if you remember them last year, and they were just dumping the ball to Kamara

23 times a game, and you're like, this is horrendous. Now Clint Kubiak has them motioning guys all over the place. Taysom Hill and Kamara and Jamal Williams and Shaheed are in the backfield, and then they're shifting out, and they're faking a hand off the one and pitching it to the other.

It really has defenses off guard. It's kept the Saints on schedule. And what does that do for Derek Carr? Derek Carr is handing off, pitching the ball, dumping it, and then it's a play-action bomb. And when it's a play-action bomb, it's a clean pocket because the defense is confused. They don't know where the ball is going,

and that lets Carr do what he does best, which is distribute the ball. So Saints have a pretty easy schedule. Saints are playing extremely well. Watch out for this team. It looks like right now they're a playoff team. We're speaking to Mike Tanier, our Monday morning quarterback here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Mike is a presentation of the Clayton Public House.

Pre-game to post-game, the Clayton Public House is your home of football. Catch all the action on 15 screens and two giant projectors. Visit them at theclaytonpub.com. The Pittsburgh Steelers, I love this because they're 2-0 on the strength of defense and field goals. Although Justin Fields hasn't been terrible. They really won that one for the Gipper. The Gipper, in this case, being Russell Wilson. What did they call the ball that they gave him?

The petty game ball, which needs some work. It needs some work. Yeah. Which needs some work. Right. I appreciate the effort. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, the petty game ball, but it's an interesting team. They're 2-0.

They gave Russell Wilson a ball for being petty? Yes. Justin Fields said, everyone knows that Russ got done dirty in Denver last year, so we wanted to give him this one because it felt good to go in there and get the win for him. I guess it has Tom Petty's picture on it. That would probably be the only explanation.

But is defense – I thought it was Petty like Petit, like it was a French thing. I guess it's not. Okay, so defense, Fields' defense looks very, very good as always. Fields is not terrible, but he is just handoff and dump in the flat, handoff, dump in the flat, and then he finds pickings for it, like a catch, that's it. They have not played anybody.

If you look at the Seahawks, you're like, I don't think the Seahawks have played anybody. It was the same Broncos team the Seahawks beat last week where they don't throw the ball downfield at all, where Bonex goes out there and tosses the ball across his living room in the flat to a guy who gets tackled right away. And the Steelers hung on for dear life in that game. The thing is with the Steelers, Steelers did that.

The Chargers went out and beat the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers. I mean, the Panthers are horrendous right now. Both of those teams are 2-0. So we talk about the Seahawks, maybe they get a win because of the depleted 2-0-less Dolphins. Either the Steelers or Chargers are going to be 3-0 next week, and I don't know if either of them really has an offense. Hey, Mike, we were talking about this offline

in the wake of Christian McCaffrey's injury and then the Niners lose to the Vikings. And also, I mean, in week one, I was really talking up TJ Watt for the Steelers, and he's such an important part of their team and their 2-0. Who do you think is the most important or the best non-quarterback in the NFL? Tyreek Hill. Yeah. Tyreek Hill.

McCaffrey would be in the top ten and Watt would be in the top ten. It would be a bunch of all-purpose playmakers and probably edge rushers at this point. If you saw Aiden Hutchinson with four and a half sacks yesterday, he's climbing into that list. But it's got to be Tyreek Hill. And, again, you're facing that Dolphins team next week. What you're probably going to see with Skyler Thompson,

that quarterback, is reverses to Hill, screens to hell, pitches to hell, all trying to just get him the ball and say, go make eight guys miss, and that's the way we can generate offense. So, what are your thoughts on the Miami Dolphins quarterback situation right now? You can go in either way you want, whether it's

Tua-focused or what they can do in the meantime to hang on. I think it's going to be Skylar Thompson for the foreseeable future. I don't see like Ryan Tannehill coming back and learning that intricate system. So that's what we're going to see for a while. Tuatunga Viola meets with his doctors, not his doctors, he meets with neurologists this week, and he's going to get a little more information there. I think he's done.

I'm going to say he is done for multiple weeks. And I hope that as he moves forward, he gets the best neurologists. He listens to their advice. He listens to his wife's advice. And he makes decisions based on that, not on some need to rush back, not because he's getting texts from Mike McDaniel or whatever, and he makes his choices. I'm not going to be one of these guys who says he needs to retire right now because I don't know all the implications. I'm not a 26-year-old athlete with a $100 million contract. I don't know all of that. I'm not going to tell someone else how to live their lives.

I don't want to be sitting at my desk when he takes the next hit and have to worry about what I'm going to write about if the next hit is really the last one. Before we let you go, normally we do a Monday Night Football preview, but I wanted to focus on the teams that aren't 2-0, but rather the ones that are 0-2, the two big ones, and we mentioned them earlier in the show,

Baltimore and Cincinnati. If either one is in big trouble, which one is in the biggest trouble? Gosh, they both are. I lean on Baltimore, because I can see Cincinnati gettinginnati getting t hagen's back maybe getting jamarck chase straightened out and then they were winning for much of that game they they were in that game it got very strange at the end uh so i would say the bengals can turn

things around the ravens just have a problem where they don't have a lot of wide receiver don't have a lot of wide receiver don't have a lot at the edge don't you know have a lot of wide receiver. Don't have a lot of wide receiver. Don't have a lot at the edge. Don't, you know, have a lot of guys at safety and in the interior offensive line and left tackle, Ronnie Stanley, and defensive tackle. If you're not really good on the edges, you're not going to be able to compete against your top competition in the AFC. And they're already falling behind, the Chiefs and the Bills. And if they've got to fight an uphill battle to get back there,

I don't think they're well-equipped to do it. Mike, this was great. As always, thanks for taking the time to do it. Enjoy the game tonight. We'll do this again next Monday. Absolutely. Take care and enjoy the week. Thank you. That's Mike Tanier,

presentation of the Clayton Public House here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, we're going to get things back in order here. We've still got a bunch of what happened to get to from the weekend. Also, we need to talk about the Canucks slogan for this season. They're embracing the hard, folks. And that's not me spinning it or me trying to come up with some clever wording.

Rick Tockett did that on his own. And the wording is embrace the hard. That's what we're going with this year. Well, I don't know. I think he was looking for ideas. He's like, I don't know if this is working, but this is generally what we're thinking. Embrace the heart.

See, I felt like he wasn't looking for ideas about the slogan. He was looking for ideas on where to put the slogan. So we'll see what you're talking about. Oh, I'm hard. IMAC has a long, wide reaching interview with the Canucks head coach. We'll talk about that. A lot more Canucks talk to come. We got a lot of football talk as well. Before we go to break, I need to tell you about Tile Town. Yes, Tile Town. As BC's favorite hockey team kicks off a new season, you can receive 20% off any

regular priced in stock tile. Visit them online at mytiletown.ca for details. Canucks talk, NFL talk. It's a loaded Monday show. Don't go anywhere. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. We have to embrace the hardness. It's going to get really hard. 632 on a Monday.

Happy Monday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. This could be the music. It's been a hard Monday. This is the music you play when you need to embrace the hard. Talk is looking for ways to implement the new slogan. Funny hats. Tight t-shirts.

Speedos. I was the one that suggested tight. You just suggested t-shirts. Some posters. Motivational or otherwise. Connects are all about embracing the hard this year.

You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show by the way on Sportsnet 650. Halford & 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. So if you tuned in to hear about what happened at the Young Stars tournament this weekend, we're going to talk to Drancer about that at 7.30. If you want some more BC Lions talk after that scintillating

performance on Friday at BC Place, we'll have JC Abbott from Three Down Nation coming up at 7 o'clock in hour two. And if you want some talk about the White

Caps, the White Caps won 2-0. There's your talk. There you go. I'm not even going to talk about the Scottish boys. That's unfair to them. But San Jose is terrible. I'll say this. They got the stink out of BC Place after that. There you go. I'm not even going to talk about the Scottish boys. That's unfair to them, but San Jose's terrible.

I'll say this. They got the stink out of BC Place after that. That's true. The block on Friday night. They went in there and some Febreze and got rid of the stink. Stuart Armstrong scored? Yeah, it was a nice goal from the Scots. As they say in football, he opened his account with them.

Nice. Isn't that a soccer thing? They say that? I mean, I like this. He's opened his account with them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I that, is that a soccer thing? They say that? I mean, I like that. And he's opened his account. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll allow it. Yeah. It was good. It was good. And yeah, he got set up by his fellow, Scott, Ryan Gould.

It was a nice team goal. They use that a lot in football. You don't say it was nice passing. You say it was a nice team. And they went out and celebrated and tipped 7% because they're Scottish. Scottish. Scottish. So embrace the hard.

Yep. Where is this coming from? Why are we doing it? This is coming from Rick Talkett. It's not our fault, but Rick Talkett is a big slogans guy. He loves them. And, uh, remember last season, it was meet pressure with pressure.

That's right. And that was how the Canucks were going to overcome all the pressure that they were facing heading into the season. And especially with regards to the start of the season. Right. We were all talking about how they needed to

have a good start because in previous years, they buried themselves and they've gotten to the point where they had to fire coaches and, and, you know, we had a meaningless second half of the seasons and they wanted to avoid that. So they came up with meet pressure with pressure, which was basically just saying like, Hey, there's going to be pressure

playing in the NHL. Meet that pressure with pressure. It made sense. And we all went, all right, okay, fine. So the year went really well. They met the pressure with pressure. Relative to expectations. It wasn't perfect, but this season,

what Rick Tockett is trying to say is like, it's not going to be easier. In fact, it's going to be harder because the expectations are higher. The Canucks will not be able to sneak up on any team, especially early in the season. And basically, he is saying that we need to embrace that it is going to be difficult. Don't shy away from it.

A lot of his slogans are don't shy away from stuff. It's like if there's pressure, meet it with pressure. If it's going to be hard, embrace that. You're in the NHL. It's not supposed to be easy. Embrace the hard, though. What do we think of this slogan? Is this something that we can go with?

Is this something because Tuckett was saying uh like we're gonna get t-shirts made and there's gonna be signage around the dressing room because so if there's if there's gonna be t-shirts made i i don't know if embrace the hard is the right thing to put on a t-shirt. Right. Unless it's date night, honestly. Hey, look at my shirt. Look at my shirt. Buy buttless chaps with embrace the heart on that. All sorts of different things you can do. What?

All sorts of different things. You can't just say buttless chaps. Where are you going to put that? 637 out of nowhere on Monday. Also, where are you going to put the slogan? Are you going to be creative like a little U-shape? I don't think so. I don't think that's going to work.

I'm just saying there's a marketing opportunity here. They really have to embrace the hard of the marketing opportunity. I feel like the marketing part of this is happening right now, which is where you send something out to market and you're like, what do you think about this? They're listening to our show. What if you got an embrace the hard shirt? Would you wear it? All right. We want you to listen to Halford

and Ruff tomorrow morning and write down any ideas that they have. Can we all agree that embrace the hard the Hard doesn't have the same zip as Meet Pressure with Pressure? No. It also has like 10 times the innuendo. And that's not our fault. Maybe that's the point. No, it's not. It's definitely not the point.

No professional NHL coach is like, could we have something that's slightly suggestive? No, no. I think it's the point. I think Taka does like to do that once in a while. I don't No, no, I think it's the point. I think DACA does like to do that once in a while. I don't know, man. I'm a big fan of alliteration with my slogans.

Yeah. So maybe something like, oh my God, like, the problem with hard is that like alliteration is difficult. Yeah, H is tough. It doesn't lend itself to a lot.

You know? Yeah. Like, like P when you got meat pressure with pressure. Yeah. Like there's a reason P. It pops. Is the first word in punch.

Yeah. There's a punch. So I actually asked, this was sad last night. All right, chat GPT. What do you got for me, buddy? And?

It said leave him alone. Yeah, he's like, what are you talking about? Please do not bother me. Well, I came up with some bad ones, but it's a tough assignment. But one of the best one, the best one I could come up with, I actually asked like, using alliteration. Dear chat GPT. Came up with power through the pain, which it's not bad, but it's, I mean, it's AI, right? There's no heart to it.

Yeah, that's true. So anyway, here's what Talkit actually said. He said, whatever the slogan is, I don't believe in, hey, you work hard today, it'll be easier tomorrow. It's always going to be hard. That's just the way it is. So why not condition your mind? I talked to the players after a game in the playoffs. You know, you're limping.

You've got an ice pack after winning. That's the best feeling in the world, but it's not going to get easier tomorrow. It's going to be even harder. That's the way I look at this season. So I think all of this is coming from a great place. One thing I really like from Rick Talkett is he just calls it like it is. He's not trying to, he's not trying to protect the team.

He's not trying to do anything that's, you know, like, how can we, how can we get out of this? Yeah. How can we, how can you know, like, how can we get out of this? Yeah. How can we trick this into, how can we trick our minds into having a successful season? You can't do that. The whole idea of this Canucks season is going to be, are you guys for real? Because what we saw last season was impressive, but there are a few things, you know, the stat guys will be like, oh, that shooting percentage was pretty high.

That's pretty unusual. For the most part, you guys stayed healthy. You were more fortunate than you were unfortunate when it came to shooting percentage and injuries and that sort of thing. Now everyone is heading into this season and going, okay, you're a playoff team. You're probably a top three team in your division. Oilers, Vegas, the Canucks.

So how are you going to deal with success? Because last season was, how are you going to deal with the prospect of more failure? This season is how are you going to deal with the prospect of more failure this season is how are you how are you going to deal with the success that you had last season not only matching it but building on it what are the best ways to embrace the hard you just want to get back to this don't you you have no time for the real talk i just want to know what the tips are for embracing the hard we're up North Van says this segment is hard to listen to and added that you guys are my favorite, but right now this is hard.

We didn't make this up. Is he not embracing it? No, he's not embracing it. He needs to embrace the hard. I know. He doesn't have a winner's attitude. I think the other thing that you missed out on when you were talking about that is that if the Canucks crept up on anybody last year

or maybe weren't taken seriously by anyone, and I'd say in the first couple months of the season that might have been true in a couple different occasions, it's not happening this year. They pretty much announced their arrival to a lot of teams last year, but arrival is one thing. Sustainability is another, right?

You can show up for one year and get a lot of results and have a bounce-back campaign and then have the kind of year that gets a coach at Jack Adams, which is the rebound year. You were a bad team. Now you're a good team. Your coach gets the Jack Adams. Sustainability is the key. Maybe that should be their slogan.

Sustainability. It's the key. No, but a season, a good season, dare I say a cup winning season is predicated on a good slogan. It all starts with the slogan. If you don't have a good slogan to start the season, you might as well just not show up and is predicated on a good slogan. It all starts with a slogan. If you don't have a good slogan to start the season, you might as well just not show up and play. You need a good slogan.

I don't like these at all. Like what? Conceptually, like the slogan. You don't like slogans? No. It sets the tone, man. It's a tone setter. What?

Embrace the hard, Mike. There's no subtlety to it whatsoever. I think everyone understands. I don't think you need it like, don't make me tap the sign. Guys, we have not embraced the hard, like, as hard as we wanted to this year. No, that's what you got to do. Also, sometimes I feel like it's going back to the well. Because last year, I actually thought what he said was prescient, and it worked.

Like, there's going to be pressure. Meet it with pressure. Yeah. Let's fire back at critics, naysayers all you like there were guys that said you guys couldn't play hockey like you didn't know what you were doing a serious team you weren't a serious you were an unserious organization let's fight back against that right i was one of those guys yeah you were the pressure in a very weird way yeah and i think that it kind of works i also think that those things oftentimes just um their momentum that exists it's not a year over year

thing right it's like teams change the dynamics evolve personnel changes all that kind of stuff i have time for your like you don't need to have a slogan but i fundamentally disagree with the fact that you don't need some um some sort of theme for every season. I don't know if it has to be snappy and fitting on a t-shirt, but you need to have a narrative that you build for your own team. And I think what Rick Talkett is saying is that, you know, last season was last season and this season presents new challenges and we can't just go into another season with meat pressure with pressure. You can't have the same slogan.

Things have changed and he wants to emphasize different things because he wants to grow this team. Now, speaking of pressure, one of the guys that's going to be under a lot of pressure is Elias Pettersson. Not D. Petey. He's playing in the Young Stars. That's great. The original Elias Pettersson.

And Talkett had an interesting quote on Petey as well. And he said he had a good conversation with him on the phone a couple of weeks ago when Petey was still in Sweden. And he said, there's a couple of interesting things that Talkett said. He said, um, he seemed really upbeat of Elias Pettersson.

He's got a lot of good things happening in his life. He just sounded excited last year. When I talked to him, he was very subdued. And I think that's a really interesting thing to admit from a head coach because how many of us watched Petey last year? And maybe it was understandable because especially at the end of the season into the playoffs, he was having a tough time on the ice. He just looks so unhappy all the time.

And he didn't even look particularly happy when he signed his big contract extension. It was almost like, you know, like I got strong-armed into this, right? Like there was, he said all the right things. If you go over the transcript, you'll read it and, you know, you'll be like, he wants to be in vancouver he was committed to it is excited about it but it it didn't sound like it and and maybe that's just his personality but talk it's saying that he spoke to him on the phone and he sounded up beep and then admitting like unlike last season when he was kind of an eeyore around the team. Yeah, and there was no point in trying to gloss over last year.

I mean, the most, I think even more public and even more pronounced was when he had the press conference during the playoffs. And it's sort of, we're talking about Elias Pettersson. After the playoffs? No, no, during the playoffs, where it was just these sort of muted one-word responses. Right, right responses right right i forgot about that yeah he looked like he wanted to be any place that was uncomfortable wanted to be any place on earth other than in front of those cameras and microphones talking at that point and i mean one thing i'll say about talking and all the slogans

and everything else is there is a commonality with his approach and that is don't shy away from anything. Like, don't hide it. Don't sugarcoat. Don't gloss over. Just address stuff. And I think if you want to have a takeaway from here, it's like he's not going to – I don't think he's ever going to try and put a spin

on what this situation is with Pedersen. I don't think he's done it at all, right? Every time that he talks about Petey, he acknowledges that last year didn't go great, especially down the stretch. There are a multitude of reasons for it. Then when you ask him about maybe the off-ice stuff or the personality or his moods and emotions and feelings,

Tockett's going to be pretty straight up with that too. So this was something else he had to say about Petey. And by the way, you can read all this on sportsnet.ca. Ian McIntyre with the interview of Rick Talkett. He said of PD, he's going to be a driving force for the way we do things.

I need him right there with me. I expect in pressure games and stuff like that, he's going to be there for the team and for his teammates and for himself. I expect that because I've seen it. A lot of interesting stuff within that. I expect that because I've seen it is what my argument for being so hard on Pedersen is.

This is not talking about Jake Furtanen or Nikolaj Goldobin and being hard on those guys. This is, I've seen what you can do. I've seen you perform at a high level. I've seen your work rate being high. You know, it's funny. Sometimes I read criticism of a PD and I'm like, have you ever watched this guy play when he's on the top of his game?

Because there's this feeling out there like, you know, some people, the way they talk about him, he's always shown no heart. He's always shown no hustle. He's never won a battle along the boards in his life. What was truly shocking to me about last season was he lost all that. There was no second effort to his play.

You know, yeah, once in a while he'd line up a guy with a big hit, but that's different than battling for a puck. That's different than going in there and maintaining your battle level. And if you don't get the, you know, you watch Conor Garland, right? He goes into a puck battle.

Sometimes he'll lose the first part of the puck battle, but he sticks around. You know, the guy skates away. He's like, oh, I win the puck. And then Garland is still there. Lost that with Petey last season. And for him to say he's going to be a driving force for the way we do things, I need him right there with me. I expect him pressure games. He's going to be there for the team and for his teammates we do things. I need him right there with me. I expect him pressure games.

He's going to be there for the team and for his teammates and for himself. The Canucks are all in with Pedersen. So this is Tuckett's only real option for him just to say like, hey, he's got to be there for us. He's our most expensive player. No Canuck has ever received a contract like this.

We know he can do it. He's just got to do it now. And I hope that this offseason for Pedersen has accomplished two things. Number one would be the strength training that he needs to overcome some of the tendonitis issues that he dealt with, the training, the physical side of things. But I think more importantly, clear your head, man, because what we saw at the end of last season and into the playoffs was a guy that, and Rick Tockett said it, I think subdued is understating it.

Yeah. He looked like he didn't want to be anywhere near hockey. And that was really concerning because the Canucks had just signed him to an eight-year massive extension. So I hope he was able to get away, clear his head, maybe not think about it, not have to, you know, turn on the radio and listen to us hammering away at him or whatever, not see the media, not see a lot of things that remind him of the tough times and just get re-energized because I want him,

and I think everyone wants him, to be so noticeably better and energized at training camp and into the exhibition season. Yeah. I think another part of being energized this offseason might end up being the fact that they got him a running mate in debrask i mean i don't again i sometimes i would always think about i wonder what the guys think about the acquisitions that are made in the offseason like are the the guys that are really into it like actively scouring cap friendly the days before july 1 and trying to pick guys out nah

they can't be like that. But then you hear Quinn Hughes talking about how he was, I don't want to say an integral part, but he was there telling Patrick Alvin, like, we need a Sherwood type. As a matter of fact, we should get Sherwood. And lo and behold, he signed on day one of free agency. I do wonder if the acquisition of Dabrowski,

and the understanding that no one's really dancing around the issue. They're like, hey, Jake, you're coming aboard and you're going to be Elias Pettersson's winger. If that's an energizing thing as well, because of the myriad of things that might have caused the funk or the malaise or

the subduedness of last year. I mean, Talkin has mentioned as well with everybody else is there was this rotating cast of guys that he was playing with and sometimes chances were falling under the sticks of guys that just couldn't get the job done that puts a lot of pressure on debrask as well how much of that you you're always the one that that that kind of mentions that and i'm always the one that puts it on pd because i'll recognize that his line mates weren't getting it done. Absolutely.

But I also know that Talkett tried Petey down the stretch with Besser and with Garland. He did try to put them with better wingers down the stretch. Yes, but that was Rob Peter to pay Paul because then you ended up – that was what I saw, the problem that I saw with that. But Petey didn't get better. I know. So how much of this do you,

like, if you were to dole out, um, I don't know, I guess blame, what would you put on PD versus what would you put on his lack of line? I mean,

you've always got to be responsible for you. You can't blame everything around you, but at the same time, I mean, I, I look around the league and I see other guys that have elite running mates and it's like, well, you know, is it about propelling guys that can't do the things you can do?

Some of it, yes. Other times, no. Other times you need someone of an equal skill set or the ability to finish. Did you not find it shocking, though, his body language and just watching him on the ice? It was a lot. How little he was engaged out there.

Yeah. How little he was making an impact. Even if you're playing with fourth liners, you're Elias Pettersson. You should be doing cool stuff. But he wasn't. And now for me, the question is going to be, what does it look like now? Because I would say most of the excuses that were baked into the recipe have been pulled out.'s a not only did

they find him a guy that's a fit they went out and this was like an identifiable day one free agency target like there was a sign above that signing that basically said here you go here you go Petey here's a winger right here's your's your guy. So there's a very direct and very pronounced statement from the organization that this is okay. Like, time's up. Excuses are over. You've had your summer to pull yourself together a little bit. And now it's time to embrace the hard.

I don't know if they're going to say it just like that, but they might. And I do wonder if it doesn't go well what the next step is well let's cross that bridge that's that's where i'm at with it it's like everything's in place now if it doesn't go well what do you do you guys have not been embracing the heart so the sign look at the sign tap the sign the bc lions um are off on a bye week and they need a PD refresh themselves summer during their bye week where they need to pull themselves together because they had a disastrous performance on Friday against the Toronto Argonauts. Nathan Rourke for not playing well to start the game and forcing Rick Campbell to change quarterbacks and go to Vernon Adams who was no better than Nathan Rourke or you want to blame the defense for regressing when it came to their tackling man some of the tackling was just it was

just it was dreadful and we thought they'd figured that out but but they hadn't. It was a bad performance. And now they're 7-7, and again, I want them to win the division. I want them to host the West final. Winnipeg is still 7-6, so Winnipeg is in first in the division, and they'll have the tiebreaker on the Lions. So the Lions have some work to do.

They've got to pull themselves together after that dreadful performance against the Toronto Argonauts. But we will talk about that performance with JC Abbott from Three Down Nation coming up next on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.