Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Mystery Of The Canucks Ring Of Honour

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they preview tonight's 'Nucks home matchup versus the Bo Horvat's Islanders (6:00), they discuss what it takes to get into the Ring Of Honour in relation to Ryan Kesler (11:30), plus they discuss the NCAA lifting the ban on CHL players, as The Hockey News Editor in Chief Ryan Kennedy (30:00) joins the show. 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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This is my house. Good morning, Vancouver. 6.01 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. And we are coming to you live from the Kintex Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver.

Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough for 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. Hello, hello. North Star 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, Orfee, what are you waiting for? Kintec, we got a big show ahead on a Thursday. Lots to dive into on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Guest list begins today at 6.30. Our good buddy Ryan Kennedy from the Hockey News is going to join us. So yesterday, spoke to Frank Cervalli from the NHL General Manager's meetings.

And Frank wrote a big story about everything that was going on. One of the things that dominated the conversation there was this NCAA Canadian Hockey League decision where players are now essentially allowed to freely move between the two platforms. So we'll talk to Ryan at 6.30, sort of veteran hockey prospects writer for the Hockey News. But what it all means. I thought you were going to say a different name there. We're getting the guy everyone's talking about, Ryan Kennedy.

No, the other one, Ryan K. Ryan Kennedy is going to join us at 6.30. 7 o'clock, Adnan Virk from MLB Network. Juan Soto, Blue Jays, maybe? We'll talk to Adnan about that. It's confirmed. Not confirmed. We will also do a little hockey talk with Adnan as well.

730, Andrew Gross from Newsday is going to join us. He's the Isles beat writer. The Isles are in town tonight. Yes, Bo Horvat, back in Vancouver. It's the Isles and the Canucks, 7 o'clock from Rogers Arena. Tonight, we will preview the Isles side of things with Andrew Gross at 7.30. 8 o'clock, Thomas Drance, the Drancer from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk right here on Sportsnet 650.

We'll look at the Canucks side of things ahead of tonight's game. It is a good sports night tonight. We have 10 NHL games, including the Canucks and Islanders. We have a very good Thursday night football game between the Washington Commanders and the Philadelphia Eagles. And with this weather that we're having, Jason, not a bad night to stay inside and watch

sports and work on your couch groove. So we got a lot to get into. Lovely weather, I gotta say. Isn't that right, Andy? Love it. So cozy. So nice. Without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened hey did you guys see the game last night no what happened i missed all the action because i was we know how busy your life can be what happened you missed that what happened what happened is brought to you by the bc

construction safety alliance making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. Yes, the Vancouver Canucks had a well-deserved day off yesterday. But there's no day off for Canucks Talk here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. We managed to drum up two exciting pieces of content for you. Two questions to ponder. Well, they were pondered yesterday. If you want to ask what happened yesterday,

basically there were two questions that ruled the airwaves. Number one was, is Petey back? And number two is, should we forgive Ryan Kessler? Let's get to Pedersen first. I'm not willing to say he's officially back because one, I want to see it for more than two games and two, I still, and this is a credit to Pedersen, not criticism. I still don't think he's playing at the level he's reached before but i will say that i'm glad we're able to have this conversation because we weren't even entertaining this question what a week ago i would say probably uh at the end of october right feels like when

the calendar changed to november this conversation wasn't able to happen and then over the course of five games this month, I don't think it's five games. I think it's two for me. Two games for me where he's, like I know he's been doing some good defensive stuff and all that sort of stuff, but I think it's only two games for me. The Oilers

game and the last game against the Flames where I've been like, oh, maybe he's finding something here. Actually, you know what? The game in Anaheim, very low key might have been a turning point for him because he did get a goal. Remember, albeit they gave it to Quinn Hughes and they took it away and gave it back.

Six shots on net was the big one. If you listen to enough of the punditry outside of our bubble here in Vancouver, a lot of people were saying they correlated Pettersson's success or lack thereof with Pettersson not shooting the puck or at the very least not shooting the puck on target to where the goalie had to make a save. It was the way he shot the puck, though, in the last two games, not the Anaheim game.

The last two games, the way he shot it and picks it up quickly, shoots it, has something on it. The next thing you're going to need to see is him beating guys one-on-one a little bit more but you know he's he made some great plays in the calgary game um i imagine we'll see the same forward lines tonight as we saw against calgary except for possibly the addition of Dakota Joshua to the fourth line. Presumably, I suppose if he would go in there, it would be in place of Baines, but this hasn't been confirmed because the Canucks had a day off yesterday. They'll have a morning skate this morning in the morning when morning skates happen.

Yes. But, you know, it's been, it's been a little bit non-committal from the Canucks when it comes to Dakota Joshua. So Rick Taka did suggest that Thursday was a possibility for him to make his season debut, but we'll just have to wait and see on that. Petey is likely to stay with Garland and DeBrusque while I don't see any reason to break up Miller with Leckermackie and Suter.

Let that roll. And, you know, to the original question, I do think that there's a lot of really positive signs here. Yeah, absolutely. I also think that the declaration of, is he back, is, it's a difficult one because I think what we're slowly starting to realize is that Pedersen is slowly going to get back to whatever form he had if he's able to get there. One thing I'm pretty certain on is it's not going to be that lightning bolt, snap of the fingers moment where it went really bad, and then all of a sudden he's like, all right, enough's enough.

It's time for Petey to be EP40. There's a gradual, slow burn that's happening. Although I did think – I thought it although i didn't i thought it would be different i thought it would just be kind of like he finds it and you know but yeah maybe it's going to be a gradual build i mean keep building keep building all season then pd by the time you get to the playoffs you'll be i don't know the greatest player in the world i did think that the remarks from rick talk that we played yesterday were pretty interesting which he said like pd realizes that enough's enough and it's time to get things going.

That would correlate with one of those, all right, let's take a jump forward. But you look at it, the last two games, his first and only multi-point games of the season, they come in back-to-back efforts. So you can kind of see an ascension here. Bottom line is it's a good thing because that allows us to focus on other problems with the team no what it does is it allows um that forward group that you really wanted to see one at full strength and they're getting closer and closer with the return of dakota joshua

although brock besser doesn't sound like he's gonna be back for a while and now we got to wait on that but if that's the only piece missing i'm gonna be dead honest you've got to be pretty happy if you when we do the islanders preview, we'll look at, they're ravaged by injury right now. They've got injuries all over the place. This is why you'll see a few guys tonight, you're like, I have no idea who that guy is. But if Petey can be close to that top level

and they get Joshua back, suddenly you're looking at a forward group and you're like, yeah, they're deep, they're dynamic, and it gives a lot of different glass half full. All his options, glass less half full. The negative part is that it's a log jam for Rick talking it forward. Austin and Langley text in. And if you want to text

in to the Dunbar Lumber text line, it's 650-650. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial Park. More room, more product, more awesome. Details at DunbarLumber.com. Austin writes in and he says, I think Petey is back.

Now, to be fair, I think he still has another level, but he's confident again. He's smiling and looks like he's enjoying hockey again. That's a lot of progress from a few weeks ago. You know, it's weird to cover an athlete like this, but yes, his smiles per 60 are increasing and like, I'm serious, but like, I know the guy, the guy looks when he is in a slump, he just looks like, and you know know the other day after the calgary game the other day after the calgary game he spoke to the ringside reporter and he looked genuinely happy about it like he was he was like you know he he had a genuine it wasn't a forced smile or anything like

i don't like covering sports like this. Like, is he smiling? Does he look happy? Is that a fake smile? Frowns per 60 down, smiles per 60 up. Turn those frowns per 60 upside down. I know, you know what I noticed was when Branstrom. Because it's funny because everyone says, sorry, sorry, but like.

It doesn't matter. No, no, no. But when everyone says that like JT Miller wears his heart on his sleeve and like you can always tell if he's frustrated or not, like different. But Petey is the same way. I'm with you. I don't like covering athletes and sports like this because I think if someone's the strong, silent, quiet type, that's their personality, right? They shouldn't change their personality so that a lot of people sitting at home can be like oh he looks happy or he looks determined or he looks focused but i did notice in the game that we went to against calgary when branstrom scored there was a real sense of elation from number 40 because he was on the ice at the time and i like obviously it's like another point

yeah first also happy for branster right and he's a fellow sweet like you could see the camaraderie there, right? So it's a good thing. It's a happy thing. Speaking of happy things, is the collective mood in Vancouver ready to forgive and to forget and to have a big grin on its collective face

when it comes to Ryan Kessler? So yesterday, Drance and Dodd had Kessler on Canucks Talk. Ryan Kessler is here coaching his kids' team, Detroit Little Caesars, very famous program in the U.S. And it's the Pat Quinn classic. It's it starts today. It goes through to the 17th of November. And once again, we got to the relitigation of Ryan Kessler's time in Vancouver and his legacy. Now, at that same game that we were at against Calgary on Tuesday night,

Ryan Kessler was in the crowd and the camera panned over to him and he stood up and he slammed a beer and everyone cheered very loudly, as you do whenever anyone on the big screen slams a beer. Now, the only difference here is that unlike most beer drinkers on camera, the crowd then started to chant his name. The Ryan Kessler chant went throughout Rogers Arena. And it really apparently, in the subsequent interviews, it took Kessler by surprise and it really warmed his heart. Yeah, he kept chugging beers and they kept chanting his name.

He was like, I'll get to me some more beers here. Every time the camera comes to him, he gets handed another beer. He's like, all right, here we go again. That also warmed his heart. Fluence. My conspiracy theory, by the way, is that the beer was only, had like a quarter of it left, but he made it look like it was full so he could chug it really quickly.

I've seen that one before. You slide your hand up the cup. Oh, yeah. To cover up the cup. I think I've done it before. I've done it before. That's why it's the conspiracy theory. Like, if you're ever in, like, a boat racing contest

or a beer chugging contest. Anyway, let's play the audio from yesterday. This is Ryan Kessler with Dranson Dodd on Canucks Talk talking about his time in Vancouver and what it's all meant coming back for this latest tour. You know, looking back I I probably should have should have stayed here um but that 2011 loss was probably the hardest loss I've ever had in my entire life and and to be that close I I wanted I wanted to do it and

you know I I like I wish I just could do it over again. You can't. It's 2020. But, you know, I enjoyed my time in Anaheim. But my heart was always in Vancouver. But Marge, look at that hang dog expression. He's learned his lesson. Let's get him a present.

Here's the thing. I thought we already got him a present. Here's the thing. I thought we already got him the present. We did this, right? Did I miss the part where we all sort of nodded and smiled and said, okay, we forgive you. We had him on this show. It's like everyone forgot. He's just reminding people again, you know, hey guys.

So Joe in the fort, which I'm assuming is like Fort St. John, not a fort he's built in his living room. Although, he's under the couch cushions right now. He said, I thought we'd already forgiven Kessler like two years ago. Yeah, I kind of thought the same thing. I didn't, I guess it's never a bad thing to retell a story,

especially in this market. Was it at the Sedin retirement jersey? Like when, was he there, right? Yeah. Because, yeah, was that when it was though? Right. And then remember, he also came back last year during the playoffs and did the horn.

Was he there for the Luongo night? Right, right, right. He cranked the horn. Was he there for the Luongo night? He cranked the horn. Was he there for Luongo night? I think he's been back a few times. I know that in his post-playing career, and this is me being sincere for a moment here, I know in his post-playing career,

Ryan Kessler's not had an easy go of it. I know that there's been a lot of health concerns that I think led to him sort of being in a dark spot with where things were going post-playing. Because he didn't really have a purpose, and he had a ton of health concerns, and he was trying to figure out what he was going to do next. And he's been very revitalized by coaching. If you go read Ben Kuzma's article, it's up at the Province. It's a really, really good look into how coaching with this little Caesars program is really reinvigorated Kessler and given him a sense of what I want to do and what's important to me.

And I think most importantly is love of the game. Like he always loved hockey. You could tell that whenever he played. Now the divorce from Vancouver, I almost feel like it's a siloed off conversation because it was a it was a snapshot of a moment in time where he was upset he wanted to try something new the organization was upset dysfunctional if you will and it felt like it needed to go in a different direction as well well it not originally that that that was

the that was the thing right like the eventually everyone left right sure you know some the stayed on a little bit longer but eventually you know it it all came to an end but i think the way that kessler did it do you remember remember? I very distinctly remember that Kessler did it. Well, I remember talking to him in Sochi. And, you know, and then, so that was 2014, obviously. And then there were rumors at the Olympics that Kessler was telling people

that he wants to be traded. Yep. That's how it went, right? And then those rumors later became... Well, and then he denied them. Yeah. He said, that's not true. And I think that was part of it, right?

Like there was like, and a lot of, and you'd had the argument, well, what's he supposed to say? Yeah. I want to be traded in the middle of the season. Right. Like, but you know, he did, he did lie about

it. Right. And the, the all kind of the juxtaposition to that was kevin bx is saying i'm going down with this ship and i'm a cannot forever and then eventually bx did get traded but that was because the organization wanted to do it yeah and he helped facilitate something that the organization wanted as opposed to kessler who put the organization in a box yes it was like we're not going to get full and here's the thing yes as we relitigate all of this it starts to matter less and less because Kessler said I screwed up I made a mistake I shouldn't have done it I should have stayed in Vancouver and he feels bad about it if if someone's

going to come back and be that reflective and open and honest, how would you not forgive? How would you not forget? Someone's sort of on bended knees saying, hey, look, I know that what I did at the time hurt a lot of people and made a lot of people upset, and I have regrets about it. Regrets I have many. Can I also say that even, like Ryan Kessler said, I've never taken a loss harder than game seven in 2011

well yeah so the fans too and that contributed to it we were all hurt and fragile and sensitive and a little bit volatile in those years after that loss. Sure. And I think that contributed to the hard feelings towards Ryan Kessler when he left. In some ways, we were like, take us with you. You know what I mean? I'm upset you're leaving. Also, can I come? So here's the other question.

We're stuck here. We're the loyal fans, and you get to go chase a cup with a very good Anaheim team. And frankly, he came close. Yep. Like, they didn't get to the final but that series they played with chicago in 2015 i guess yep was it yeah that was an incredible game that was the black ops ultimately won but yeah that was that that was it yeah but i

think probably ryan kessler is like yeah yeah, Anaheim though. I mean, he's not going to go to an Anaheim game and the fans are going to chant his name. Half the fans there would be like, who's that guy chugging beers? That's cool that he's chugging a beer. Yeah, oh, look, he's got nice tattoos, right? It's just very different. And I think he realizes that Vancouver is a completely different hockey market.

Yeah. And if he wants to be remembered fondly in this game, if he wants to have a legacy, and I think this has something to do with his kids too, and his son was at the game, and I think that was one of the things that was very special for him, the game against the flames like your kid is there and you're in an arena with 20 000 fans chanting your name like that's a special

moment for you to have as a former athlete um his son being old enough to appreciate that moment as well. So I don't know, like I, maybe what happened also was that he saw that Alex Edler recently got a, got a, got a ceremony and he was like, oh man, it would be nice to be honored. You know, I guess we could have the, the old ring of honor debate when it comes to Ryan Kessler. I don't know what it meant when Alex Edler had his ceremony.

Does that mean that he's not going into the ring of honor? So this is one of the great, this is one of the great things. This is one of the great things about this city and this organization in this market. Is there certain very distinct and unique conversations that you can only have as a Vancouver Canucks fan? Alex Edler's no ring of honor ceremony.

Like, we have this big ceremony just because I feel bad about not being a ring of honor. Because we're so hyper-focused on everything the team does, and because the team makes these decisions sometimes, that they probably mean well, but as we always say, the unintended consequences of it all is there's now unofficially three tiers of recognition and three tiers of legacy in vancouver the first is the most obvious one you get your number retired and it gets raised to the rogers arena rafters that's the highest honor it's for a select few everyone knows it then there's tier two and that's the ring. Now, I'm not saying that this is how the Canucks organized it

and laid it out in a plan, but this is just how it's kind of evolved. And for some guys, it's a real honor. For other guys, it's a slap in the face. Which is what happens when you have tiers of legacy. Now, apparently, there's a third tier where you come back and you get your one day contract as a Vancouver Canuck and they bring you out in a sort of ceremony.

Also known as the kiss of death. But it's not supposed to be that way. It is. That's what BXA got. Right. BXA had, he signed a one day contract with the Canucks and he retired with them. All of these are supposed to be nice moments and gestures to recognize all of these players.

It just happens to be that there's different layers of them now, and there is a hierarchy. And the tipping point, obviously, was Luongo. I think we can all agree that suddenly it became the difference between getting your jersey retired and being being in the ring of honor and i know nobody meant it to be this way but i do wonder at a certain point if someone was looking at it and they're like hey i wonder if this is ever going to become contentious instead of being a nice kind gesture that we give to x players and also the ring of honor is getting quite full

well that's what kessler pointed out a lot of so in the article with coos he said it's filling up pretty quick not a lot of spots left, to which I said, I'm not sure that there's like a cap on the Ring of Honor. Well, graphically there is. You're going to have to shrink all the pictures and stuff. I don't think that's it. Just add another deck to the stadium. Yeah, sure.

I don't think it's that difficult to change the font size. It seems like a lot of work. It's great for sports radio because you can have so many arguments about this because, you know, you can be like, well, the difference between Kessler on the one hand and BX and Adler on the other is that Kessler won a major NHL award with the Selke trophy.

So that gets you into the ring. Like, I think, I mean, apropos of nothing here, I think it's fair to suggest that if matthias oland is in the ring of honor that alex edler should be in the ring of honor as well like the stats support my argument as well like quinn hughes is going to surpass alex edler not matthias oland and And Alex Edler surpassed Matthias Oland. As a matter of fact, if you go to the Wikipedia page for the Ring of Honor, the key note for Matthias Oland's

entry into the Ring of Honor is that he was the quote-unquote former highest scoring defenseman in franchise history. Right, and that's because he was passed by. So what's the key category to get you in the Ring of Honor? Because there doesn't seem to be a criteria then. Well, it's like the Hall of Fame, right? It's, we don't know how the debate goes.

Maybe they felt that, I don't know, Matthias Ohlin just had something that Alex Edler did in all this. Edler would wave. I'll have you all know there is a certain radio host. If you would have waved, we would have put you there. There is a certain radio host in Vancouver that did write the definitive Ring of Honor piece in 2018. That was you. That was 2018. That was you.

That was me. That was you. Did you actually talk to some people in the organization? Yeah, I actually did some reporting. Wow. It was the only time you ever did that. It was once. Actually, twice.

I did something on the Young Stars Classic, too. This was about Burroughs, whether or not he would get in. So this kind of dates the story. And this was right after he had been bought out by Ottawa. And you could see that the end was nigh for his NHL career. And I remember thinking at the time, someone should figure out exactly what the criteria is. So we stopped guessing all the time.

And then I went and asked around the organization and I got back a lot of like very vague and very nebulous responses, which led me to believe that there isn't like the two tablets written in stone about what the rules are. I guarantee there's not. There's not at all. There's a selection committee,

which is comprised. See, and that was the thing. It's comprised of certain people, but other people contribute to it. Like, it's not like the hall of fame at all. And also the organization moves on you know and when matthias olin was put into

the ring of honor they hadn't i mean they still haven't won the stanley cup but the 2011 era hadn't happened then yeah well right the funny part was when they first started the ring of honor they put people in with regularity like if you go back and look like they were putting people in routinely and then it slowed down and then it's funny because actually ohland went in in 2016 so what olin went in in 2016 yeah i i was just like i don't know i'm just confused by it Olin's one of the more recent entries. Like, they've only put in three people in the last eight years. So are they going to wait then?

That's the thing. The criteria is very vague. It just kind of feels like whenever they feel that it's time. Burroughs went in almost right away. Yes. Oh, trust me. Having done far too much research on the Ring of Honor, there's not a lot of rhyme or reason to any of it.

There's no magic algorithm that we're going to find on this? I asked, is there a waiting period between when you retire and when you're entering? No. I'm like, is there an amount of time like the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame where if you're on the ballot for 10 years, you can no longer be entered? Nope. There's nothing like that. None of this stuff exists.

It's just kind of left up to a handful of people, which includes Stan Smeal on the selection committee. And I think they just honestly arbitrarily decide when it's time. It's like, it's your time now. Flipping one. Matias Oland, right. And then,

or Roberto Luongo. And he's like, I thought I was getting my Jersey retired. And they're like, not so fast. So anyway, we're way up against it for time. Coming up on the other side,

we're going to dive into this CHL NCAA hockey decision here. The future of junior hockey in Canada and the future of college hockey in the U.S. has forever been changed. What it's going to look like, we don't know. So we're going to defer to Ryan Kennedy from the Hockey News, prospects expert for the Hockey News. We'll talk to him about this massive seismic change in the landscape and what it means moving forward. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Canucks Talk with Jamie Dodd

and Thomas Drance. We'll dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks. Listen 12 to 2 p.m. on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. 634 on a Thursday. Are we doing Yacht Rock Thursdays now? We should. We were talking about this at the break. Former ESPN sports guy Bill Simmons has an HBO documentary coming out on Yacht Rock. Kenny Loggins.

Christopher Cross. What a fool believe. Michael McDonald. Holland O Michael McDonald All your favorites So are they happy that they're considered Yacht Rock guys? I've only seen the trailer obviously Christopher Cross was like Sailing was actually a

Beautiful song So from the snippets of the trailer It definitely seems that they are Aware and cognizant of the fact that Yacht Rock kind of pokes fun at the genre itself by calling it Yacht Rock. But they're also kind of happy that they're relevant enough that they were like just to be made fun of. Well, I thought I'd be irrelevant. Right. This is better than that. Relevance is good.

If anything, modern society has taught us it doesn't matter why you're relevant as long as you're Right. This is better than that. Relevance is good. If anything modern society has taught us, it doesn't matter why you're relevant as long as you're relevant. Ah, that's great. Okay. Ryan Kennedy is going to join us in a moment here. Before we get to him, we need to take care of some business. Halford and Brougham for 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 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. To the phone lines we go.

Ryan Kennedy from the Hockey News joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Ryan. How are you, bud? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Ryan Kennedy from the Hockey News joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Ryan. How are you, bud? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate you taking the time. We're going to be lobbing a lot of questions your way because we don't really have a super firm grasp of what happened last Thursday. Here's what we know. Landmark ruling by NCAA Div. 1 Council. So players that were previously deemed ineligible to play NCAA hockey,

that's guys from the OHL, the WHL, the QMJHL, can now join NCAA Division I teams starting next season. This part we know. Everything else we kind of don't. So in the immediate aftermath, Ryan, of last Thursday's landmark ruling, what are sort of some of the big things that have already happened? Well, the most amazing thing is the speed at which we've seen movement on this. There was a couple of players that kind of anticipated the move and left the USHL for major junior.

But we've started to see a whole bunch of commitments. And what's really interesting to me is that the CHL leagues are very excited about this and have been promoting, you know, like Kitchener's goalie Jackson Parsons has committed to Clarkson University and they did a big graphic for him. You know, I know that the Calgary Hitmen out west, they got Noah Kosick, who had previously been in the USHL. He's still planning on going to the University of Michigan,

but I watched him last night with the Hitmen. So we've seen some movement already in terms of UShl uh to the chl but also just a lot of players are already making commitments for next season to ncaa schools while they uh complete their major junior careers i will say the most interesting thing here is i feel like the chl thinks that only kids that are done their eligibility are going to the NCAA whereas what I'm hearing from agents is that the NCAA schools are more than happy to take players that have only been in major junior for a couple of years. When you join a major junior team what's the contract that you sign and what's the commitment to that team?

Well, they do have contracts and they do relate to the educational packages they can get. But the NCAA doesn't have any sort of transfer agreement with Major Juniors. So from my understanding, and because it was Hockey Hall of Fame weekend, week, whatever you want to call it, in Toronto, a lot of the commissioners, a lot of the stakeholders internationally were in town. I had a chance to speak with them. As far as I can tell, the NCAA hasn't had any real sort of official contact with Major Juniors. So in the NCAA's eyes, they don, the contract would have to be compensated

by the teams and vice versa. You know, we do see things like that. But in terms of a player leaving Major Junior for the NCAA, from what I can tell right now, there's nothing that can stop them. So who are going to be the winners in this and who are going to be the losers? Well, the players obviously are the big winners here because you no longer have to, excuse me, decide at 15 years old, you know, and I guess in the case of the dub, even 14 years old, whether or not you want to go to the NCAA. You can take your time now. You can play in major, junior, and you can say, okay, well, here's a school that fits my style of play. Here's a coach that I like in the NCAA.

I'm going to go there when I'm ready, you know, obviously when they're done high school. And, you know, if you are a NCAA player, obviously, you know, you can get get more seasoning in Major Junior if you want to. I think it's very good for Major Junior in the sense of they're getting players already that they would not have gotten before. Any player that wanted to keep their eligibility had to go play junior A or USHL, or I guess on a lower tier, the NAHL in the States. It's great for college teams, obviously, because their pool gets expanded. The losers, it seems right now, right?

And I mean, it's all up in the air, but the USHL is going to take a hit, no doubt. They had tried to get more Canadian kids in the past sort of 5, 10 years, and have done pretty well there. You know, you think about Owen Power, Adam Fantilli, players like that went to the USHL before they went on to the NCAA. Those kids can just play major junior now. The BCHL, which is considered a quote-unquote outlaw league, they're not part of Hockey Canada anymore,

it's going to be difficult for them to recruit because you don't have that ease of movement. And again, you don't have the same motivation of NCAA eligibility. And then the last one is U Sports. I think they're going to get crushed just in terms of the level of talent they get. Because up until now, if you were a decent major junior player and you didn't want to go to say the ECHL and you weren't going to get to the AHL you play youth sports once your junior eligibility was done now you know Bowling Green might call Michigan might call North Dakota might call uh and I think that's you, just in terms of the athletic scholarships, the attention, the fan base, it's a lot more, you know, persuasive to go NCAA. So is NCAA, are their rosters going to get older now?

They might. And what's also interesting is this is happening at a time where NCAA rosters are going to get shrunken a little bit. You used to be able to have, I don't want to say as many players as you wanted, but you had so much scholarships, but you could sort of break them up. Now there's going to be a hard cap starting the next year of 26 players. So teams are going to be more choosy i think this rule will probably in a weird way give you a little more parity because guys that were maybe um you know a little bit older maybe not the greatest maybe they had small roles on big teams they can go to smaller schools and help out there and maybe grow their games there.

But yeah, I think the NCAA, you're going to see it get a little bit older where, you know, if you can get a guy that just scored, you know, 100 points for the Erie Otters as a 20-year-old, why wouldn't you bring him in, right? You know, he's, he's probably going to be stronger and more ready to go than an 18 year old, uh, coming out of the USHL. I generally think, and feel free to disagree with this, but I generally think that this is a good thing because, you know, you're asking these kids a lot of the time, especially the high end ones when they're like 15 years old to decide on their future. You know, you're like, you know, you play one game in the dub and NCAA is done for you. Like they completely close that off. So you're kind of like, all right, well,

I guess I'll go to the BCHL or the USHL. Um, but then you're not playing at as high a level as the CHL. So wouldn't you want to give the players the option to go play a few years in the dub if you want? But if your dream, if what you really want to do is go down and play NCAA college hockey because you want to be, you know, for a number of reasons. Maybe you want to get an education. You want to go to one of those programs and it feels like a cool experience and that's what you want to do and still have a shot at the NHL. You can do that now. Certainly. No, I agree wholeheartedly with you. It's awesome for the players.

And even if you think about on a granular level, say that you committed to Wisconsin as a 15-year-old. Well, Tony Granato was the coach at that time. Very offensive-minded guy. Now he got fired. Mike Hastings is the coach now. He favors older defensive players. It's like a completely different program. If you had committed three years ago, you would now be walking into a program that doesn't make any sense for your skill set potentially. So it just makes more sense to do things in the here and now. And, you know, I mean, tip of the hat to all the uh assistant coaches in the ncaa that are going to be you know jetting around the continent and doing constant zoom calls trying to recruit kids now i think recruiting is going to be bonkers uh but i mean for us and for the kids i think it's gonna be super fun we're speaking to ryan kennedy from the hockey news here on the halford and brough

show on sportsnet 650 ryan one more. And for me, it's the biggest question out of all this. I understand what it means for collegiate hockey and junior hockey, but at the NHL level, I do wonder does this make it time for the NHL to move the draft age up from 18 to 19? I mean, that's very interesting because something else I had heard is that we might be able to see, you know, 19-year-olds from the major junior track

be eligible for the AHL because, you know, I mean, you think about the money being made in college right now and all the shifts. But moving in, see, I always liked I always liked the 18 year old draft, because if you bump it up a year, you're probably going to have to have exceptions, right? You're Connor McDavid, you're Connor Bedard, even Macklin Celebrini, who played an entire year of college as a 17 year old. So I like it how it is. I know it's easier to scout kids one year later, but I feel that, you know,

if you have a really good scouting team, you're going to hit on those guys. But honestly, at this point, it feels like the landscape is shifting so much that who knows what's going to happen. Ryan, this was great, bud. Thanks for taking the time to do this today. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week and everything. We'll do this again later on down the road.

Sounds great. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on. Ryan Kennedy from the Hockey News here on the Halford & Ruff Show on Sportsnet 650. Laddie, chomping away. A little dog nipping at our heels here. I'm not chomping anything. You are.

You said, are we going to have time after Ryan Kennedy so we can explore a couple of questions and points you wanted to make about this new landscape? So, Laddy, the microphone is yours. Well, I just a lot of this impacts local stuff, right? How this trickles down to the junior A level, junior B level, BCHL, like you mentioned, independently. They are now essentially just direct competitors with the whl which is very fascinating something we haven't seen yeah in the past and for the people that think oh well everyone's just going to go the chl route that just makes the most sense i don't think it's that cut and dry because a lot of these ncaa programs have very good relationships with the coaches that are coaching in the bchl and

if those coaches stick around and continue to run their programs in the bchl they're going to want their players to develop under those coaches because they trust them they've been sending players there for years so won't there be new relationships built between yes dhl teams and college so that's the flip side it's it's an all-out recruiting war now essentially is what what ryan was getting at it's going to be fun to watch it's going to be fun to see what the teams do um and it leaves more options open for the players, which is first and foremost the most important thing. Players now have the control, which is good. It's a good thing.

Teams can't kind of funnel players where they want them to go anymore. It's up to the player. And I think that's what's going to draw some ire from the CHL. The CHL fans now is that these players have the option to leave their programs and go to the NCAA whenever they want. That's not going to be a positive for the CHL. You got a 17-year-old kid. He's not liking the playing time he's getting.

Up unhappy with his team. Doesn't really see a trade working out. Oh, I'm committed to North Dakota. They've got a couple injuries. Sure, we'll take you on mid-season. You can leave your team come on by and start playing for North Dakota that's gonna happen it's gonna happen on multiple occasions so I don't think CHL teams are gonna be happy about that but like I said at the end of the day the

players have the control now which is bad for the team's good players I can understand that like some of these organizations here's what everyone's missing here kind of is that what a behemoth the NCAA is because once they opened up the transfer portal for basketball and football everyone realized that there was fluidity and all of a sudden you looked at the hockey landscape and it was so different than yeah and they were like well how do we make this available for hockey players and the moment that they figured it out it just became this thing where it's like it's a recruiting war now like if you look the nil rules are different for canadian that's how i was gonna get to it you can't go down there and make if you're looking for money ncaa is not the route for a canadian you want to go take that away if you even remove the money part of it it's the fluidity of players

like the example that ryan brought up with the university of wisconsin if you're 17 or 18 you commit somewhere, thinking that that head coach is going to be my guy for the next four years of my life. He was in my living room talking to my parents, saying how he's going to help me grow into a fully functioning adult. And then the next year he skips town to take a job in the NHL. Suddenly you're left. You're like, well, now I'm at the school for three years,

playing for a guy that didn't recruit me. It's not professional hockey right like if you shouldn't if put it this way if an nhl team changes coaches the player can walk in the next day and be like i don't like that guy trade me somewhere you have that ability right a lot of kids didn't and that's why i understand that the transfer portal it's it is it's with flaws do you like college football right now or do you like it before all this? You know what? I watched, because remember I tore my Achilles

and then sat on the couch all of March. So I watched an incessant amount of college basketball last year. And if you pay attention on that very micro level, you see a bunch of guys that are getting great opportunities in their last year of college to go play for a big program well look at look at football curtis rourke yeah like it does provide opportunities so where you're not siloed off it is an archaic way of thinking like you made a decision at 17 to be you're staying at montana state you chose bowling green that is your life

now i mean it makes sense that you could go and try something else somewhere else. It's hard to wrap your head around because I understood college athletics for the longest time. You go somewhere, you play there for four years. There were strict rules. You had senior night. Your mom came out. You gave her a rose. Everybody cried because you were done at school.

They had chewed you up. Now it's time to spit you out. And then liked it that way damn it that's the way that we did it now it's different i just want to say one final point about the hockey thing as well uh be wary of anyone that makes any sweeping statements or predictions about what's going to happen because we don't know this is a completely new landscape anyone who has definitive statements about what's going to happen to the ushl to the bchl to A, we don't know how those teams are going or those leagues are going to react and shift and change based on this rule change. But that being said, you know, I know as soon as this came out, the USHL put out a statement. I don't know if the BCHL did one too.

And I think that goes to show that they are worried. Yeah. Is that they are worried. Yeah. Is that fair? Yeah. The statement was all about just having confidence in their coaches that exist in their league. And yeah, because that's what it's going to come down to is, like I said, a recruiting all out war for these players. The funny thing is going to be when there's going to be a kid or multiple kids who just bounce around like crazy. Oh, for sure.

You remember Fardaz and... But it won't be good for them. The bouncing around. It'll be like, I Oh, for sure. You remember Fardaz Amak? But it won't be good for them, the bouncing around. It'll be like, I'm not appreciated here. But it may be bad for them because sometimes you need to be told things, some hard truths. But if you don't want to hear those and you're like, eh, I'm just going to go, I'm going to just transfer them.

I don't want to, like, again, I don't want to predict positively or negatively on a bouncing around. But, around, but remember Fardaz Amak, the basketball player? He played for five different colleges in the U.S. He played for Mercer, Utah Valley, Texas Tech, California. He just tried it all. Did he get a degree? Yeah, and now he's playing ball, right? He's still playing.

Here's the thing. If you know that maybe your ceiling is going to be like, I'm a high level, but not a professional, but I can play at a high level in the CHL and NCAA, be like Van Wilder, man. Like, stretch it out for as long as you can. Like, play and play for as many years as you can and have a good time doing it.

That's what guys do in Europe, right? They play like third division in Germany somewhere and still making money. Spend six years in college. Just play at every school, right? I it. That's what guys do in Europe, right? They play like third division in Germany somewhere and still making money. Spend six years in college. Just play at every school, right? Again, it's good exercise. Yeah. Play out of school on the West Coast,

play out of school on the East Coast. It gives you some structure in your life. That's right. Spend your year, I'm 25 years old and I'm going to play one more year at Arizona State. Like that would be fun. I think that would be fun. Okay.

Kick the can down the road as far as you can when it comes to getting a 9-5 job. Kids, if I could go back now for one more year of college. I can't believe I finished university in four years. That was the dumbest thing I ever did. I took seven. See, you're smart. Coming up on the Alfred and Breff Show on Sportsnet,

6.50, 7 o'clock hour, Adnan Virk's going to join us for a little MLB talk and some NHL talk as well. Juan Soto, where's he going to end up? Will he be a Toronto Blue Jay? We'll ask Adnan about that. Then we're going to dive back heavy into the Canucks talk. We're going to preview tonight's game against the Islanders with Andrew Gross from Newsday.

He's the Isles beat writer. We'll dive into the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650-650. Take some of your questions and texts and what we learned. Lots of Canucks talk coming up on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet at 650.