Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Whitecaps Are Going To The Champions Cup Finals!

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they talk the Whitecaps going to the Champions Cup finals for the first time in club history (6:00), they discuss the latest baseball stories with MLB Network's Adnan Virk (27:54), plus they talk yesterday's NHL playoff action and how that affects the coaching carousel (39:58).   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.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- Scores! The Beeshoff win to it! Bang, bang, see you later! And boom goes the dynamite. Head right, circle walks and shot, and he scores! Fresh off serving the penalty! The Bellows shoot, deflected it from Beeshoff! Scores! What a play! Looking for a big goal and they got it!

Good morning, Vancouver 601 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday everybody. It is Halford at his breath today, Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning.

Intern Kieran, good morning to you. Good morning. And Ladi, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford at breath of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for debt help with over 3,000 five star reviews. Visit them online at sans-trustee.com.

We are in hour one of the program. Hour one 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. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. Got a lot to get into on a Thursday show. It's a big night

in the National Hockey League. It was a big night last night in the National Hockey League and for your Vancouver Whitecaps. Our guest list today begins at 630. Adnan Virk from MLB Network is going to join us. Big win for the Jays yesterday. Alejandro Kirk with the walk off and a seven to six win over the Red Sox. Didn't look good for a while. It looked ugly. Six, nothing.

Yeah, they came back. What a comeback on Alejandro Kirk bobble arm night. His head didn't bobble. The script just writes itself, you guys. Pretty impressive. Early season baseball. Gonna talk to it? High leverage games going on right now.

We're gonna talk to Adnan Virk. But all things MLB at 6.30. 7.30 Nick Kiprios from Real Kipper and Boron on Fan 5.9 is gonna join the program. Two main topics of conversation for Kipper today. One, obviously the Rick Tauke situation here in Vancouver. Two, the Battle of Ontario. Game six goes tonight.

The Sens look to stay alive for one more game. The Leafs look to not choke any further in this series. So we'll talk to Kipper about that at 7.30. Eight o'clock it's the Drancer, Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks Talk. We will talk to him about, of course, the coaching situation in Vancouver, the now vacant coaching situation in Vancouver.

List of candidates to replace Rick Taka. What really went down? If we can try and find out more, we'll talk to Drantz or at eight o'clock about all that. Real quick working in reverse on that guest list. Eight o'clock it's Drantz, seven thirty it's Kiprios, six thirty Adnan Virk. That's what's happening on the program today. Laddie, tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I'm moving. We know how busy your life can be. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how

messy 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. Brian White and Pedro Vite scored two minutes apart and the Vancouver Whitecaps yet again stunned into Miami, this time in Miami. The score, three one. The victory sealed a five one victory on aggregate

to advance past the CONCACAF Champions Cup Semi-Final where they might, and I stress the word might, even get to host Jason the CONCACAF Cup final on June 1st. What do you want to know? Well, how would they host it? There needs to be a draw tonight between Cruz Azul and Tigres, both Mexican League teams who are playing one another. Cruz Azul, that's cool. I think I'm cheering for them.

That's a cool name. If there's a draw in the actual match tonight, not the aggregate, but the actual match tonight, after 120 minutes, Vancouver will host the CONCACAF Champions Cup final at BC Place. Why does soccer always have to be so confusing? They love to make it confusing. How is that possible?

Let's not get bogged down in the details. Let's celebrate. Okay, fine. A historic night for the Vancouver Whitecaps. Okay, where did this all come from? Because this isn't just a Cinderella run through this tournament. The Whitecaps in MLS are on fire too.

Scoring goals with reckless abandon. Just scoring whatever they feel like it. How are they doing it? How would you describe this Whitecaps team that, oh yeah, is without its best player, Ryan Gould, are they just young and fast? They are exceptionally young and exceptionally fast, especially out wide.

I think the big thing is, and I know mentality gets thrown around a lot, but in terms of mentality, it's almost as if Sorensen has told them, do not even consider sitting back. Do not even consider absorbing pressure. Just keep going forward. Is that similar to Jesse Marsh? There is this-

Because he's got a real pressure, like he'll pressure and he'll press. I'm glad you brought up Jesse Marsh. He's going to play a role in this later. And he wants a young, energetic team as well. Yeah. They don't maybe necessarily play as frenetic and high paced and high pressed as Jesse Marsh's teams do, but when they're in possession, they

have, it's weird because they have a patience about them where they're more than willing to knock the ball around to find their spots, but it's almost as if the restrictor plate has been taken off every single guy. Like if you have an opportunity to get the ball at your feet and turn or get the ball at your feet and go at someone or make a incisive run in behind, go do it because it's almost that old adage, like our best defense is our offense, their ability to attack. And in this particular game last night,

as we circle back to last night. And he's not saying it's an option, it's like, this is how we play, right? This is what we are. Yeah, okay. Last night in Miami, it could not have started worse for the Whitecaps. Miami came out and scored eight minutes into that match.

We talked about this scenario. This exact scenario. And it wasn't a great goal. It was sloppy defending. It was not good goaltending by Yohei Takayoka. And on the various text threads that I had going on, a lot of people were saying, this doesn't look great. This looks like what Miami kind of wanted to do

was survive the first leg, go home, play in the friendly confines, get the big four back in the lineup and then dominate the match the Vancouver Whitecaps showed No signs of being rattled or phased Or even like they were bothered by the fact that they gave up a goal in the eighth minute because they came right back And started attacking mm-hmm Emmanuel Sabi hit the post in about the 15th minute and then the first half was fairly even I'll give it that

second half more key substitutions, uh, from the gaffer, Jesper Sorensen, and then Brian White scores early. And you could just see the match turn right there. Cause that away goal was huge. Did the, did Miami get real old all of a sudden? See, the weird part was Miami. There was a certain stunned factor from the players and the fans attending, you could tell that the whitecaps had scored because the first half was fairly even, I would say.

Both teams traded chances. It was a close match. That's not great for Miami either, right? Right. Fairly even. You'd think Miami would dominate. And they were ahead one-nil on the scoreboard. Sure.

Okay. When white scored, and here's where we go back to the mentality of this team, they didn't stop attacking. It was almost like when white scored, it's almost like they could smell or taste the blood in the water and they just kept going. Two minutes after white scores, VT scores, and now you're thinking, well, it's done and dusted.

Now you can really sit back and just absorb the pressure. Kept going forward, kept going forward, bear halter scores. Five-one on aggregate. Here's the craziest stat of them all. The Whitecaps are the first club team ever, underline it, ever, to win each of their first two matches against Lionel Messi. So in the 20 plus years that Lionel Messi's

been playing professionally, you know, through the times at Barca and PSG and Inter Miami and everywhere else, no club team has ever beat him twice in the first two matches going up against him. And it's a white caps of all the teams doing it. The Vancouver white caps. This is like a who's your daddy, Pedro Martinez thing. Kinda, who's your daddy?

The Vancouver white caps. Believe it or not. Believe it or not. And I mean, Messi was out there for all 90 in the first leg of BC place and he was out there the whole, the majority of the match yesterday. I can't remember if he got subbed off at the end cause at the end it just got, it was done. Like the, the supporters in Miami were stunned.

Everyone was stunned except for the Vancouver Whitecaps who believed the entire time. I do want to throw. Can I just say one thing that I wished? You can say as many things as you like. Because I know you watched the game. Yeah. I didn't and I wonder how many people didn't

get to watch this game because they don't have one soccer. Probably. This is the issue with the Whitecaps, right? It's not just MLS when they're on Apple TV. It's this tournament as well. I mean, in this day and age, I feel like I'm a kid again, like, oh, the game wasn't on TV, but like, tell me about it.

So this competition, the rights are up, this is the worst part about soccer in general. We didn't have this conversation now. We've talked about it before. Every competition sells its own broadcast rights. So if you want to be an ardent football fan or soccer supporter, sometimes you're subscribing to upwards of four or five different subscribers.

Sportsnet has the FA Cup. Correct. That's us. Sportsnet, home of the FA Cup. And the Dutch Eredivisie. Just throwing that in there as well. But again, if you want to watch- I love Ajax.

I love PSV Eindhoven. If you want to watch- PSV Eindhoven. Yeah. If you want to watch. PSV Eindhoven. Yeah, if you want to watch Champions League, you need the zone. If you want to watch the Premier League in Serie A, you need Fubo. Also, one soccer is included in Fubo.

And the list goes on and on and on. If you want to watch all the MLS games, you need Apple TV. But there's a lot of people in Vancouver, they're like, I want to watch the white caps. Right, so if you want to watch your white caps regularly, you have to subscribe to Apple TV. Sometimes the games are on regular cable, but not all of them.

This particular competition, the rights got purchased and were distributed to one soccer. This is not an MLS competition. This is a hunk of calf competition. I really hope someone picks up the final. I absolutely hope someone picks up the final. You've got to think the white white caps are well aware of this. Should I make some calls to my broadcast insiders?

Yeah, yeah. The Rolodex that I have of all the noted broadcasters that I have? You are our white caps insider. I like to think of myself as such. What a great moment by the way for the- That is awesome for them though. It is terrific, but I don't want to be negative. I want the white caps to be negative. I'm just like, I want the whitecaps to have success. And, um, you know, I've kind of pointed out a few ways that, you know, they've

struggled and, you know, it's true. Like they're trying to build a new stadium. The stadium isn't right for them, but the broadcast thing is an issue as well. It is an issue because they've just, they've just, um, had their biggest moment in franchise history. Yes. And the game at BC Plays, I mean, a lot of people saw it because there was 53,000 people there,

but when this type of stuff happens, you want to, and I mean, to use a soccer term, you want to press, press, press, press, press. You want to taste that blood in the water and just be able to take advantage of it. And then you're kind of like, well, the game's not on TV. So a lot of people are like, yeah, I was watching the Stanley Cup playoffs yesterday, right?

Cause that was on TV for me and it interests me. So Oz texting, you know, I don't mind going down this road. It's an important conversation. If the team's going to grow, these things need to be addressed. Oz writes, this is a TSN slash Sportsnet issue. Neither wanted to buy the rights to show this tournament. I will say this in defense of people

not picking up this tournament. The grand total of people that expected this to happen was zero, zero. If you would have got people from the Whitecaps in a quiet room with no cameras going and no microphones recording and got them in a candid moment, they would have said 0% chance that this is gonna happen.

Not just because of the quality of the team or whatever, but because this competition wasn't necessarily viewed as a priority at the start. Cause if you go back and look at the history, Canadian teams, yeah, Montreal and Toronto have also gone to the final, but they've done it once over the span of a decade. Historically and traditionally,

this is for some of the higher end MLS teams and the league MX teams that get to the final. It is a competition that is nice to be in, but is exceptionally difficult to win because you've got such a compressed schedule already. Like, so the Whitecaps qualified through this through the Canadian championship, right? Which is going on right now, by the way. The Whitecaps schedule gets real crazy over the next month. Like they've got a game schedule for may 31st. That's going to need to be redone. They're going to have Canadian championship games as well, like sandwiched into all of this.

It becomes very, very compact and very, very taxing. But they've met they've met these challenges already. Like if you go through the road that they've gone through, they've been to Costa Rica. They've been to Mexico twice. Now they've been to Costa Rica, they've been to Mexico twice. Now they've been to Miami. They've also conducted their regular MLS schedule. They've had massive injuries on the team. Ryan Gald is still not playing.

He was down there yesterday, by the way. They flew all the players, including Galdi down there. He was jumping up on the sidelines. I saw that. That was awesome. So it's going to be a very- Was there like a little tear coming down? Probably, honestly. Imagine how upsetting it must be to be a very- Was there like a little tear coming down? Probably, honestly.

Can you imagine how upsetting it must be to not be able to participate in all this? It was him and Laborda that were both on the sidelines injured and you could see- He's the Scottish Messi. Yeah, I know. Beating the regular Messi, the Argentinian Messi. It was a great night for the Caps. I do want to throw to some audio to try and further encapsulate what it all means. This is post-match, Christian Jack, One Soccer,

talking about the significance of this win and this night for the Vancouver White Caps, the city of Vancouver, and the future of the sport in this city and this province. Here's Christian Jack from One Soccer. This was a monumental night for the city of Vancouver, for their ownership group, and of course, for the club both on and off the field.

When we played Messi, they said we have to be a team, and boy oh boy, were they the team. It was the collective that beat the superstar. It was a night where every player who wore the shirt stepped up and delivered. On a monumental night for Canadian soccer, I was messaging the head coach of the men's national team, Jesse Marsh, who told me what a terrific performance it

was. That sums it up again in a few years time. We'll look back at this night and describe what a fantastic team performance it was. So we'll end with that. Congratulations to Vancouver and the white caps. One more game to go, one trophy still to lift. Can I just say how nice it is to see the excitement of the White Caps fans texting into the Dunbar Lumber text line, but more than that, your excitement. Sometimes I wonder if you're dead inside. A little bit.

Watching the Canucks and talking about the Canucks every day. And then, you know, like we get these, we get these moments. Like with me, remember when Rory won the Masters? You were very excited. How excited I was on the Monday morning and people were texting and it was like, you know, like, like, listen, it's not like I have Rory McIlroy

posters up on the wall, but it was just exciting. It was just exciting. Like I enjoyed it. It brought that excitement out of me. I enjoyed the whole thing, right? And what I'm seeing from Halford here is like genuine excitement. Like, what do you want to know?

Like, oh, and then they were like, you sound kind of like a little kid telling a story about, about it. Like, and, and that's, and that's, that's good because, because we need excitement. And, and, you know, this, this, this has been, let's face it, like a slog at times for the Canucks. Now there's plenty of things to talk about, but

oftentimes it's done with like a real critical thing and we have to remind about, but oftentimes it's done with like a real critical thing. And we have to remind ourselves, okay, remember, you know, we're the Hellfront Brucks show, let's keep our sense of humor and that sort of thing. Because I know it's six in the morning or seven in the morning, no one wants to hear just like anger and just like, I hate this team, you know,

that sort of thing. But how else could we have covered it? We couldn't, we couldn't cover this past season of Canucks H hockey with excitement. It was mostly like, Oh my God, what's happening here? So it's really, really nice to see you excited, Whitecaps fans genuinely excited talking about like this team is making history.

This is, this is crazy. And like, and, and the, which is why I bring up, I just wish more people could share in this experience by watching it on TV. We got people texting in saying like, I'm with you bruv, I didn't have the channel. So I watched the playoffs last night and someone else texted in,

it was like, I followed this game on social media. Okay, so just another, on that note about the excitement level, a lot of this for me in particular is excitement mixed with still, I'm still in shock and I'm still surprised that all of this is happening. All of this is happening. Because- Yeah, where did this come from? I mean, it's crazy. To answer your question without answering it, I'm still not entirely sure. So if you go back to,

when we were coming into this white cap season, and I'll say this, maybe critically of our show, with very little attention paid and very little fanfare on our behalf, expectations were pretty low. You know, full disclosure, I did talk to the people that I know within the organization and asked the question, how are we going to talk about this team without everything falling under the context and umbrella the question, how are we going to talk about this team

without everything falling under the context and umbrella of the sale of the team? That was a conversation, right? If they're gonna finish in ninth place in the Western Conference in MLS, how are we gonna talk about that in an excited tone without always deferring to, well, what about the looming sale of the team?

And then this happens. They are the best team in MLS, and they're going to a continental championship for the first time in franchise history. After an off season in which they sacked their very popular manager, they didn't really add anyone of massive significance in the transfer market.

They lost Stuart Armstrong, who just walked away at a join Sheffield Wednesday, and hired a manager that nobody knew, and put the team up for sale. And then they put the team up for sale. All of that was the lead into this. That would usually suggest, we're going into the season with a bit of trepidation

or it wasn't the greatest off season, and there's gonna be the distraction of the team moving. And then they put on the heels of that, they have put together the best season they've ever had. Like there's no debate about it. The season could end now and it would be the best season that the Whitecaps have ever had. They've given more moments in the first three months than they have maybe throughout the

first 14 years of the team. It's crazy. You know, what's kind of funny is to try and think of the Whitecaps as a pending unrestricted free agent in a contract here because if you're an investor and you're thinking about buying the Whitecaps and the Whitecaps have said there's a number of interested parties, look at BC Place for the for the messy game sold out. And I know a lot of that was messy. Yeah. Right. That was him. But I think but I think you could be only encouraged at the potential for Vancouver. And I always say that I always say

that we are potentially a great North American soccer city. I'm talking top five soccer city. We have a history here. We have the type of demographics that suggest we could be a great soccer city, but we need the right kind of structure to it. It takes more than just the team, right? You need the right stadium, you need the right kind of structure to it. It takes more than just the team, right? You need the right stadium. You need the right, well, honestly, media, broadcasting. Everything has to line up in order to make this something that is worthwhile to investors to come in.

And this is what the whitecaps are asking of investors. They're saying either you're gonna buy the team for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and keep them at BC Place, and maybe this leverage of a new stadium makes BC Place a little more open in lease negotiations and they say, I don't know, you can have a piece of the food and beverage or whatever.

I don't even know what they'd be open to. We'll give you the tequila sodas. Yeah, we'll give you the tequila sodas and Halford drinks a lot of them. So actually that's like more significant. I'm doing my part. Than you think. Well, a champions cup and an MLS cup would go a

long way to keep you down here, right? Hold on a sec. You're either asking them to do that or you're asking these investors to come by the team and build a new stadium. And the Whitecaps might be able to deliver, okay, we've got the site, but this current ownership group

is not the ones building the stadium. Right. You know, they might get it to a certain point where the new ownership group takes over and says, okay, fine, we'll take it from here. But then you're asking this new ownership group to go through all that, go through the process. And we all know how sticky stadium situations get.

I mean, I just think of the one off the top of my head is the Washington commanders who finally agreed to, um, build a new stadium on the site of the old RFK stadium, not RFK junior stadium. That's the RFK Stadium. Those are different things. But they've had like three or four different stadium plans that looked like they were ready to roll, whether it was gonna be in Virginia or back in DC

or Virginia again or Maryland, DC, you know, like it's all over the map and it finally, frankly, it took a new ownership group to get the stadium built. So what I wonder about the ownership as well is, is it going to be someone from outside Vancouver or is it going to be a local? And the reason the local would have the advantage is maybe they have the relationships with the city to come in.

And they have the understanding of, I mean, Vancouver, like any big city in North America has, there's unique things about the city. Like you have to know. So, you know, we've heard, there's been a little confusion in the reporting. Like I've, I've heard, you know, there's local owners that are interested, but I don't, I don't know if it's that, I think it's been reported almost like there are investors that are looking to keep the

team local. That's the reporting that Paul Tonorio from the Athletic had. And we had him on the show last week. But that doesn't surprise me because the way you'd approach this, if you were approaching MLS and the Whitecaps about a sale, is you'd be like, yeah, I want to keep them in Vancouver. And then you go through the process. Yeah. Right, and that's what everyone's worried about.

It's like, it's another Vancouver Grizzlies situation where an owner comes in and says, oh yeah, I definitely want to keep them in Vancouver. And then they kind of go through the motions and be like, yeah, we couldn't get a stadium thing done, so this team isn't viable here, bye bye. The public messaging from both Axel Schuster and the one co-owner that does speak publicly,

Jeff Mallett, is that the number one sole and primary, and only intention is to sell to someone that's going to keep the team in Vancouver. Which is BS, because the number one goal of the ownership group is to get as much money as possible from the sale. So if you're- They're not going to leave 200 million,

a hundred million dollars on the table out of goodwill to Vancouver. Yeah. And I'm not naive enough to think that the franchise valuation is altered that significantly by the on-field performance. Like franchise valuations, there's a lot more that goes into it than winning and losing. Yeah. Champions when keeps them more likely keeps them local, does it not? It all... Like if they win this tournament and say they win the MLS Cup. I mean, more likely, keeps them more likely keeps them local it doesn't not if they win this

They win them. I mean more likely how much more like I don't know I don't know 30% more like I don't But if you're a champion twice no less in one season surely that must help their yeah Like I got a little bit locally to have an owner be the raiders have moved like 600 times and they've won titles Yeah, like I don't think it hurts get me wrong I think I think it helps, you're getting me wrong. I think it helps in terms of, this is a viable plan that they've got on pitch in terms of operations,

starting from Axel as the sporting director and what he's been able to do. Also what they've been able to do on a shoestring budget because they don't spend a ton on like active MLS salaries and then their support staff as well. Overall, it was a good day, it was a great day, it was a fantastic day for the Vancouver Whitecaps and hopefully there's many more of those ahead

because there's still a lot of things that they can win this year. There's a CONCACAF Champions Cup Final, there's a Canadian Club Championship, and then of course there's MLS Cup. And right now you'd have to say, based on their form, the Vancouver Whitecaps are legitimate candidates to win all of them which is a crazy thing to say the treble Jason the treble this year dare to dream okay we're

way up against them for time. A bunch of listeners are wondering though can Jesper Sorensen coach the Canucks? Potentially. Like does he know anything about hockey? Can we try that? He seems like a great tactician. Yeah he seems like a great tactician certainly knows how to get his substitutions right I bet he'd be good at line changes.

Would have to see anyway we're way, way up against it for time. We gotta move on. He's calling the referee for a line change. Yeah. Doing this. He's like, we'll just hold up the signs. He's like, I do know. Yep.

Number 43, you're back out there again. Okay, we're up against it for time. I've mentioned this several times. On the other side of the break, we're gonna talk a little baseball with Adnan Burke. We're gonna come back. We will get into the Stanley Cup playoffs from last night and look ahead to tonight as well. Nick Kiprios is gonna join us at 730 we

got an open segment at 7 8 o'clock the Drancer is gonna join us to talk about Rick Taukett so it's a big show there's lots of different avenues for sports talk to get into we'll try and go down them all you're listening to the Halford and 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 PM on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. It's time to chat with Adnan It's Adnan Ferkey's on the show We're gonna talk some baseball

And take a trip to the silver screen That's right, it's time for Adnan Yes, Adnan Ferkey joins us now We'll head out to the ballgame and talk about all the filthy scene. 6.33 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650.

Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for debt help with over 3,000 five-star reviews. Visit them online at sans-trustee.com. We are in hour one of the program. Adnan Burke from MLB Network. And NHL Unscripted, the podcast. It's going to join us in just a moment here.

Kick off hour one. Highlight hour one. Hour one 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, Adnan Virk joins us now in the Haliford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

More than Adnan, how are you? I'm doing great, Mike, Jay. Thank you for the shout out for HL Unscripted. Me and Jason Demers, our podcast, just lurching along here. I do hear some promos on HL Never Braiders, that's nice, all All you hockey fans check it out. But I'm in a quandary. I'm wondering and if you two, who would be more interested in the fact that I saw Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross on Broadway, the third iteration of which I've seen it. We have Shriver played Ricky

Rowland when I saw it 20 years ago. I thought 10 years ago, Bobby kind of Bali and Al Pacino Pacino playing the Charlie the machine Levine rule. And I just wanted to separate here in Culkin, Oscar winner for a real pain, Emmy winner for succession playing Ricky Roma, the great Bob Odenkirk, amazing to show the machine Levine and Bill Burr, who is not known as an actor, a comedian, but he's very good as boss.

Well, my quandary is I feel like, Mike, you might be more of a Broadway guy, but I feel like Brock is more of a Glenn Gary Glen Ross guy. Am I right? Did you hear us talking about this? We were talking about this right before we got you on. This is hilarious. This is pretty hilarious.

Okay, explain it, Halford. Explain it, Halford. I said, well, cause I was looking at the rundown of your most recent podcast, and it says, Adnan offers his review of Glenn, Gary, Glen Ross on Broadway. And I turned to Brough and I'm like, I'm gonna ask him about that,

because that was one of my favorite movies back in the day. And actually when I was in university, I was in one of those, what do we call them? Fluff classes. It was a philosophy class, the philosophy of film. Right, okay. Where you would take an adaptation of either a- I was like, fluff class?

Yeah, different kind of fluff class. It was an adaptation of a script, either a play or a book. Okay. And then it got adapted into a movie and then your job was to analyze the different, I don't know, it was mostly just watching movies in class. It was great. I was high for a lot of it.

Anyway, the point of it was, Glengarry Glen Ross was one of the ones that we did. And it was great. There's so many unforgettable lines, right? Like second place gets a steak knife, third place is you're fired fire like all that stuff right? It was great, so I was like I and I'd heard about the most recent Broadway adaptation because there was I guess there was some backlash against it because the state original to the original script was hasn't aged

Great, but I was curious to get your review nonetheless Well, I love Mamet. I think he's's an unbelievable writer and it's interesting because he's known for a few hallmarks and one is that staccato dialect, one is the repetition, the leads. The leads are weak, you're weak, etc. And then of course the profanity. And you're right, there's certainly some elements which I turned to my buddy John and we kind of winced a little bit. You could say that back in 1984 but you can't say it now. But I love the fact that he stuck to the original play. That's what Mammoth worked with and that's what he wrote and he won a Pulitzer Prize for it. So it's obviously one love the fact that he stuck to the original play that's what Mamet worked with that's what he wrote and he won a Pulitzer Prize for it so

it's obviously one of the great American plays ever and what's always fun guys is seeing how different actors interpret it like I still have a fond memory of Liam Travert doing it because he did it with a Chicago accent because Mamet's a Chicago guy, Glenn Garry's actually a Chicago play but we all know the movie and of course Picino is such a New Yorker you picture Picino in the role so it's just honestly it's an electrifying play because the dialogue, as you said, is so well written. 35 minute first act, you get a 10 minute iteration,

and then it's only an hour second act. It's a very quick play. The craziest part of it, and I told this story in the script, was as soon as it ended, they took their bows and the owner of the character goes, okay, this is more important. We're raising money for Broadway characters, the foundation, blah, blah, blah.

But we're gonna auction off seven business cards. This is a one of a one. He said the business cards of each character, so Ricky Roma business card, James Link business card, et cetera, it's signed in the back. Can I start the bidding? We do a live auction. I want you guys to guess what the price was at this event. I'm going to repeat.

Seven business cards of each of the actors in the play, like an actual business card, doesn't say Kieran Collinsen, it says Ricky Roma, signed by that actor. What do you think it went for? Did it get into five digits? Is that too much? I don't know. I guess.

Yeah, yeah. I was, Mike, I was shocked. He like, the owner says, do you have an auctioneer? It's a 500 bucks, 600 bucks, $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $5,000. It got to 6,000. Yeah. And he goes, we gotta get one more of these. And tell you what, a little cherry on top. You guys have to come hang out with us.

Come have a drink. Phil Burr is cracking up. He goes, come back, come back to H2 Plus, have a drink. We're gonna hang out, crack jokes, whatever you want. Cause you're paying $6,800 for business cards. That's always before. Whenever people ask a question like that, I over guess to kind of take the wind out of their sails.

I'm like, guess how much it went for? I was like, $500,000. Oh no, not that much. Here, I've got a question for you and we're going to go off the rails here a little bit here. Thinking of Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, okay? What movie or play comes to mind when you think of the idea of the core message of the play or the film totally backfiring and society taking it the wrong way? I think about Wall Street in 1987 and Oliver Stone, as said many times, he's like, I thought it was a cautionary tale and I had, you know,

there was like this, everyone was coming out of business schools then just be like, I want to be Gordon Gekko. And you're like, no, that was the cautionary tale. And how many times have you heard people either referencing the speech and Glen Gary, Glen Ross and just be like, that's how you're supposed to be. It's like, no, that's a warning. You shouldn't be like that. Or the greed is good speech in Wall Street.

People are like, that's how I think too, right? It's like free market economics, you know, like, and Oliver Stone is like, no, not, that's not, or how many people watch the Wolf of Wall Street and was like, that looks cool. I want to be that guy. It's like, did you see how it ended? Did any, has anyone watched the entire film? The two that came to me were good fellows in the Wolf of Wall Street. Good fellows cause it's so alluring and seductive the life of a gangster,

especially that first hour and a half. But then the final 30 minutes is unbelievable. Henry L's coked up the helicopters chase. Give me a ratting on this. It's awful. I can't even get a good, uh, you know, good egg parmesan stuck in spaghetti noodles and ketchup. And the other one big one is Waffle Walsh's, you're right, because people go, oh my God, I want to go into finance, I want to be a stock broker like those guys. I'm like, what? Did you see the way they were living? It's awful by the end. Yeah, but it won't happen to me. I'll just do all the coke and I'll be fine. I'll make

all the money. It's like, I want to have the ending. The ending was very short. Maybe if they made the ending a little bit longer, people will be like, oh. Right. Because it's always like those, it's the good times. It's the good times that entice people. It is interesting though. Yeah. Two and a half hours of debauchery, but by the way, Jordan Balfour did go to prison. Okay. Moving on. Okay. How do you think they're feeling in Toronto right now? Not about the Blue Jays, although we can get to that, but do you think they're like,

oh God, is this happening again? Oh, I cannot think, Jay, of a fan base which goes from more entitled arrogance to panic stricken. Like in a snap of a finger, it went from, now this is our year, are you kidding? We're going to win our first LA Cup in 58 years, Barubi's here, stronger defensive system, the Stars will step up and they were puffing their chests after three games, five for nine on the power play,

the Stars have come out. And now you go, oh wow, okay, let me see it forward half and sure, Ottawa gets at least one, but game five, I mean, Ottawa's getting better as this series goes on. And now that leaves Power Play's been bankless. You know, Austin Matthews only has two goals in his last 10 playoff games.

And the Leeds- Quite a giveaway too. And that's right. And Martyr Matthews are one for 13 in closeout games. That is an alarming stat. And now you say, okay, game six. And again, we've all discussed home ice with Ottawa doesn't necessarily feel like home ice

because there's so many Leeds fans, but still you can start to feel the trepidation and Stolart hasn't been as strong the last couple of games. So he's not testing that comes to being a playoff starter. And God, could you imagine just, let's just push this thing to seven. Let's just see Ottawa come through the wind tonight. I imagine if it's a resounding win, imagine if they pushed the leaves around and you go, oh my God.

The hysteria on Yonge Street for a game seven in Toronto on the verge of Gagging a 3-0 lead in the battle of Ontario I'm just praying the sense that went tonight and we get to see what happens in game 7 Speaking of chokes over in the other conference You've got the Los Angeles Kings who raced out to a two net lead and I know you and Jason were talking about this on the podcast Just crumbling in front of our very eyes here now on the brink of elimination tonight every game tonight Obviously because it's game six elimination games tonight the Kings and this one special for the Kings because they've lost to the Edmonton Oilers so many times before but there is a monumental collapse facing the Kings tonight if they're not

able to get a win against the Edmonton Oilers. It's amazing you know and shame on anybody Mike who thinks oh two all this series is over like no every time this series you think it's over and you think the Kings will finally get rid of Edmonton, they step up and credit to McDavid and Dry Seidel and the Vanderkeens been important in this series. But to me, it really, you know, the story is Edmonton resolve versus the Kings choke. It's the Kings choke. I mean, the Golden Interference call game three challenge, terrible. And the way they played in game five,

if you want to say okay, Edmonton helped serve at home, that's fine. LA's had a historic, wonderful season at home. They'll win at crypto and maybe they go seven, but they got this thing in their hand. No, I mean, an anemic offensive effort. One goal against a beleaguered Edmonton goaltending call. This is not great for an Andy Mochad bet.

You can't score on Skinner and Pickard. Also like we got problems here. And I wonder if LA, I mean, game six is gonna be a raucous atmosphere at Rogers and Edmonton. If this goes this way guys, the Kings lose four straight seasons in a row in the playoff to Edmonton.

I gotta think Luke Robitise out of the job, Jim Hiller, other moves. Andre Kopernick's gonna be 38. Drew Dowdy's gonna be 36. We keep the young guys early, Adrian Kemp, Nick Bifield, but like something has gone seriously alive. If you have a 2-0 lead,

you can't finish off against the Edmonton Oilers. Maybe they're in their heads, or they're nemesis, et cetera. But it's gone from, I think most people thinking the Kings would win this series, to now, I'd be very shocked if this series goes 7. Just keep coming back to that Quinton Bifield play. Just get the puck out, man.

Just chip it out. You got greedy in game four. That was a worse mistake than Jim Heller's challenge, I think. And man, anyway. Hey, I want to ask you a baseball question, finally. It's 15 minutes into the interview. We'll finally get to some baseball.

Adnan, did the Mariners hire a new hitting coach or something like, where did this all come from? I'm glad you brought it up, Jay, because that's one of the great stories so far this season is the Mariners can bang all of a sudden. Well, for years, it seems that forever, they can't score any runs, they've got this beautiful ballpark,

this incredible starting pitch, and they can never score runs. I actually don't know the answer to your question, but I can tell you this, the offense has been great. Arne Polanco, the reigning AL player l player the week he's been fabulous for them cal raleigh you know we saw last week in home run these all things were not just a little over the ten home runs radio was really looks like a much better but also he's back to me is and

we're going to i think that on fire because i have a little towards the slow start to stop the path so and gp cropper jackson eight four hundred last ten days so you've got five guys right now that there is a lot better with jim He's not having those detours and slow starts. He's had the path. So I had JP Crawford actually hit 400 over his last 10 games. So you've got five guys right now that Maris left that are legit doing well. This is not just one or two guys. The Potters had a great start,

but it was starting pitching and Machado and Tatchee's carrying them. This is like five dudes down the Maris who are legit hitters. And I just love the fact that it starts to overcome this theory that, oh, well, nobody can hit Seattle. You know, it's just the way the ballpark is. No, clearly it can be done.

So it was done at one time with Ken Griffith Jr. and now these guys are doing it. So it's a great story, Palonco specifically, because again, how many people in the know Horay Palonco, he's walking down the street with the guy as I said, the Yale Player of the Week. He's ignited this offense, and yeah, I don't know what has changed for Seattle.

To me, it's still the same brain trust, but they're actually hitting, which is nice, along with that great starting pick. So we covered Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the Seattle Mariners' resurgent offense, all in the same hit. It's electric, it's eclectic.

Adnan, thanks for doing this today, man. You're the best. We love having you on the program. Enjoy the rest of the week, and everything that's going on, maybe next week we can do your review of sinners. Yeah, absolutely, that would be great. Thanks for the kind words, Mike J. Always fun to come on, and we we can do your review of Sinners. Yeah, absolutely. That would be great. Thanks for the kind words, Mike J.

Always fun to come on. And we still can hit on a Shadr or Sanders. We're going to make it next week. See you buddy. I never from MLB Network here on the Halford and Rough show on Sportsnet 650. OK, for those of you out there like the Tommies of the world, Tommy texted in, wanted to know if there was going to be any hockey talk this morning. We said, I don't know.

Never know how the the winds are going to blow on the Haliford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. We will get into it right now, though, because last night was a very, very well, sad night for a couple of teams, as a matter of fact, including the Montreal Canadiens. We bid au revoir to Montreal from the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in seven years. I can't believe this. It's the first time in seven years that the Capitals have won a playoff series. The last playoff series they won

was when they beat Vegas in the Stanley Cup final. Haven't won one since. Caps took care of business against the Montreal Canadiens. So that was largely expected, right? Montreal had not as, I don't want to call this Cinderella because they only made it to the playoffs, but nobody expected them to make the playoffs. And when they did go into the playoffs, they weren't playing all that well. And we got what we wanted out of that

series in a lot of ways. Like we got to see the Bell Center for playoff hockey again. They got a win in Montreal. That was cool. But Washington, I know some people, including myself, was like, ah, are these guys, these guys for real? Maybe, maybe we thought maybe there was upset potential there.

But I think if you watch this series, you could watch it as a better team. They're the better team. So now we wait and see for the off season to see what Montreal does. Do they kind of step on the gas or do they, they they play it a little patient, a little more methodical and acknowledge that sometimes in the NHL, a retool, a rebuild, it's not all linear. Just because you had a great magical season doesn't mean that the next season is going to be great.

That seems familiar. At any rate, so we'll wait and see what happens in Montreal. To be perfectly honest though, of all the results last night, the most interesting one for me was the Tampa Bay Lightning going out in five games to Florida, because I wonder about the future of, well, that team, but more specifically, John Cooper, the head coach. So yesterday on X, and this was before the Florida Panthers

dispatch to the Tampa Bay Lightning in a really weak battle of Florida, if we're being honest, the five gamer, I don't think anyone expected it to be over that early or for it to be so one-sided. Larry Brooks of the New York Post tweeted out the following, a fair amount of chatter about John Cooper, who signed a one-year extension a year ago to take him through the 2025-2026 season.

One year seems odd. A plugged-in individual has told me not to be surprised if he leaves Tampa Bay to take over the operation in Utah, owned by his close friend, Ryan Smith. Now, if you- His close friend, Ryan Smith. Now, if you- His close friend, Ryan Smith, how did he get to know the owner of the Utah Jazz? It was actually at Ryan Smith's request, as a matter of fact. Ryan Smith reached out to John Cooper a while ago, I guess after having seen him speak publicly and watch his media availabilities.

He's so, he's, he's so thoughtful in those media availabilities. He's very, he's kind of like lawyerly and he just comes across as the word I think would be wise. So in an athletic article from a year ago, when Utah was granted the Arizona Coyotes franchise, uh, Smith told the athletic that one of my favorites is John Cooper.

He's like Ted Lasso. The nice lawyer. Smith went on to explain that he was so fond of Cooper that he put him in contact with the head coach of the Utah Jazz, Will Hardy, 36 year old head coach. You know, it was just cutting his teeth at the NBA level. And that was sort of Smith's thing was he wanted to tie together the NBA franchise that he owns with the new NHL team and try and find some commonalities and have

one work with the other. Thoughts so highly of Cooper's leadership that he brought him aboard for that. So there's a definite connection there. I think that tweet from Larry Brooks and the relationship between Utah owner Ryan Smith and John Cooper is going to be significantly amplified in the coming days because it's another early exit from the playoffs

for the Tampa Bay Lightning. This time in five, I'll go back to that. Like there's one thing if you go down game seven and you're over time and there was, you know, a razor's margin, razor thin margin between the two teams. That's not what this felt like. This felt like it was Florida series from the start.

How about Vasilevsky with an eight, 72 save percent? So that's a five game. That's a problem. Um, obviously the physical battle, which I'll just say it, it felt like Florida asserted its dominance more physically over Tampa Bay. Yeah.

I know it costs like air neck blight and suspension time and others in minutes in the penalty box, but they also, they sort of stomped Tampa Bay in this series. I mean, on the scoreboard, physically I think they did it as well. I wouldn't pin that one on Vasilevski, even with that safe percentage. He had a really nice bounce back season.

He was like a top three goalie this year. Yeah, but how was he in the- He went into Florida first round. That's a tough- It is tough. No, I mean, they've been to the Stanley Cup finals two times in a row, but the last time- So Vasco Lusky's numbers were not good.

Yeah. There weren't many goals that he would hang on him, which is kind of a further indictment of how much better Florida was in this series. Florida's built to do this. Mm-hmm. I mean, adding Marshawn, adding Seth Jones, those are big pieces, especially if you want to go on a playoff run. And they also had the added benefit of like, Echblad had a 20 game vacation before coming back and being fresh. And then of course, getting suspended again. Matthew Kachuk having a lengthy time off. You know, Brad Marshawn got to take eight games off

before he made his debut and he got acclimated. So because they got themselves out to that comfortable lead, they were able to do the things that are doing. They look very difficult as a, as a unit right now, but you're right. I think of that series, the story is more about the future of Tampa babies. You've got to think at the very least, Julian Breeswell

looks at this and says, we've got a good roster. We've got good players. The Gensel thing worked out. We made that flip where we got rid of Stamkos and brought in Gensel. Um, we're not young by any stretch of the imagination, but we're still a high end team. They're not super old either. Does the change need to come behind the bench?

Because I mean, just something different. Look at Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh had the second longest tenured head coach in the NHL and he moved on and Mike Sullivan. Pittsburgh was a different situation though. I'm just talking about. Yeah, I know what you're saying. You did get that sense. Yeah.

Like a decade in charge, 12 years in charge, it's a long time. And you hear that there's someone else that is reportedly interested in bringing John Cooper aboard. Brian says on the Cooper to Utah rumors, text in to the Dunbar Lumber text line. Is that not the definition of tampering? I don't know, I don't know.

I mean, you're allowed to say nice things about another coach. We gotta remember this was before. Yeah, this was a while ago, right? Yeah, yeah. This isn't recent that Ryan Smith said that. He did it last week. But, you know, if Larry Brooks is tweeting about it,

I do wonder what the Lightning Organization reaction to that is. I mean, they might be like, well, it's okay, we're going to fire them anyway, but you know, it's probably not, anytime I think these rumors start, it's frustrating for the organization. If we're going to have any Canucks talk in this first hour, I think the Canucks were very,

very frustrated. I know the Canucks were very, very frustrated at all the talk about the Philadelphia job when torts got fired. Yep. You know, that's when the whole, we're going to use the option here, came about and they eventually thought better of it and said, well, you know, if he doesn't want to be here, we're not going to force him to be here, which was the right move. But I am very curious to see who takes that Philadelphia job. And if it is Tocket, because I know that Tocket had plenty of reasons to leave. Like there's a laundry list of reasons to leave, but I do wonder if what pushed

him over was the availability of that Philly job. Right. And I think that's- Because you need another place you want to go. Like it's like, oh man, the grass is greener there. For me personally. No, no, a hundred percent. And that's instructive kind of to what we've been talking about throughout the week.

Like when the first round is over, you always got to remember there's one or two teams that are bitterly disappointed about bowing out in the first round. Like everyone thinks sometimes that the coaching carousel starts and ends around the end of the regular season, because that's where the teams that miss the playoffs are like, well, it does start.

It does start there. It doesn't matter though. But it has an end there. Everyone kind of forgets, like just making the playoffs isn't enough for some owners, especially if you go in and you go out early, or the manner in which you go out. Like for example, tonight in Los Angeles, if the

Kings blow this, I would suggest that Jim Hiller's job might be in jeopardy. Base management's job might be in jeopardy. And, but if you had told me after the Kings went up to nothing in the series, that that was going to happen, you'd be like, what are you talking about? Like the Kings have got this done and dusted.

They own the Oilers now look at them, they're blowing, they chased Stuart Skinner from the series that that was going to happen. He'd be like, what are you talking about? Like the Kings have got this done and dusted. They own the Oilers. Now look at them. They're, they chase Stewart Skinner from the series. They got this thing under control. That's how quickly things can change. So imagine how quickly things can change on the coaching front. Like we could be coming in it's Thursday today. By next Monday, we could come in with a vacancy in Tampa Bay, LA, and then throw

another one on the pile of someone ends up losing in the first round, Colorado with Jared Bednar. Yeah. What happens there, right? Take your pick. We've got an open segment coming up so we can continue this conversation. Yeah. Text into the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650,

650, open segment on the other side. So we still haven't talked about Winnipeg's big win over the St. Louis Blues and we can get more into the games tonight, including Toronto, Ottawa game I'm really looking forward to because, uh, the potential of things getting really tight for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team, frankly, we haven't talked about all

that much this season, not on this show at least. You are listening to the Halford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650.