Halford & Brough in the Morning - This Might Be The Greatest Cup Final Ever

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

In hour two, Mike & Jason chat with Associated Press NHL writer Stephen Whyno (2:01) about the case to be made that this might go down as the greatest Stanley Cup Final of all-time, plus the boys do some early What We Learnds (27:00). 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.

Music Go the Panthers! 702 on a Monday, happy Monday everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates, BC's first entrusted choice for debt help with over 3,000 five-star reviews. Visit them online at sans-trustee.com. We are now in hour two of the program. Steven Wino, NHL writer for the Associated Press,

is gonna join us in just a moment here, live from Florida kickoff hour two. Hour two of this program is brought to you by Jason Hominuk at Jason.mortgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him online at Jason.mortgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio, Kintec footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. Before we get to Steven on the Power West industry's hotline here,

a friendly reminder, we're going to be doing what we learns in the next segment. That's right. 7 30 this morning because our eight o'clock hour is loaded with guests. Also the gold cup trophy is coming live in studio on the Haliford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650 at around 845, 850 this morning. So get your what we learns in now. What did you learn over the last 72 hours in sports? If you wanna be the first person on this show

to mention the NBA finals, the French Open, the Canadian Open, Canada versus Ukraine on Saturday, you can do it, cause we haven't got to those yet. Dunbar Lumber text line is 650650, hashtag it WWL, and tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports, we're gonna do them next. It's your chance to be on the radio. Before we do any of that though,

we're gonna go to the Power West Industries hotline now. Steven Wino from the Associated Press joins us here on the Halford and Breff show on Sportsnet 650. Morning Steven, how are you? I'm great, how are you guys doing? We're good, thanks for taking the time to do this. We appreciate it. So you are back at the scene of where last year's

Stanley Cup final ended in victory for the Florida Panthers, but in defeat for the Edmonton Oilers. And I know you wrote about this and you talked to a couple of the different Oilers players and the coach, Chris Knobloch. They've already been back to Florida, so it's not the first time they've been back, but this was the scene where their comeback ultimately fell short. What were the players and coaches saying about this series shifting to sunrise

and the ghosts of last year's Stanley Cup final? Yeah, it does help these guys that they were here before in February and sort of got the chance to see the banner being a locker room again. I mean, we've all seen the on and on an Amazon show, sort of, Connor McDavid's reaction after game two, and then him crying after game seven, and sort of what that locker room means. But it really did feel like sort of a fresh start for these guys, and almost like a sort of tackle your demons, slay the dragon sort of feeling. I remember this from, not to make everything about the Capitals, but in 2018 when they won,

they went through the Penguins. The Oilers are something poetic about if they're going to do this, they go through Matthew Kachak, who tortured them for so many years at Calgary, and have to go through the Florida Panthers and play in the same arena and sort of accept what happened last year and try to change sort of the response, the answer, the result this time. And there's just something that makes sense about this And and and the oilers seem ready in a very tight series to play What should be what they expect to be their best game of the series in game?

Speaking of going through the Panthers. What did everyone have to say about Connor Mcdavid's assist in game two? Oh It was just incredible guys. Like Aaron Neckblood had the greatest answer and he's talking about how it's tough to defend him because he's got all these options. And then there's a walk on water toe drag. So yeah, I'm the Jesus. Yeah, he's insane.

And NickCostingCrimanchale.com, our friend is a terrific writer who wrote about this. Yeah, Conor McDavid about this, acknowledging that this guy doesn't like talking about himself Leon dry saddle sitting at the podium next to him sitting on the lecture next to him and It's like literally like is waiting to talk and he just says you can't learn that I'll answer for him Like there's no way there's no way to teach that there's no way There's just an otherworldly ability to Connor McDavid that we saw in that play and and there are I'm sure there have been great plays

You did that against the Islanders where he skated with five guys, but on the stage of the Stanley Cup final to do that, it may be one of the greatest plays in the sport I've ever seen live. We're speaking to Steven Wino, Associated Press, NHL writer here on the Halford and brush show on sports net six 50. You know, something you alluded to there is something Jason and I were talking about in the previous segment that through two games, the level of hockey has been at such a high level.

I know you've been covering a lot of Stanley Cup finals over the last few years, and you've probably noticed this as well, that sometimes when these two teams get to this point, they're worn down by the attrition through the first three rounds. Injuries usually take their toll. Sometimes the hockey isn't all that great, to be frank, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on what you saw in the first two games at Edmonton,

and how impressed you were with the level of play between the Oilers and the Panthers. It's the best final I can remember in a long time, because, and I was trying to kind of ask folks about this yesterday, is the fact that, yes, these teams are, obviously with the notable absence of Zach Hyman at the Edmonton Oilers, and knowing that Sam Reinhart's on 100%, Matthew Kachak's on 100%, these teams are obviously with the notable absence of Zach Hyman, Steven Snow Eilers and knowing that the Sam Reinhardt's on 100%,

Matthew Kachek's on 100%. These teams are generally healthier than most teams are at this time of the year at the final and sort of almost had easy pass here, but they had short series to get here or a couple, at least one short series to get here. I know the Leafs pushed the Panthers to seven and all that, but these teams are a little healthier and there's no Cinderella here. There's no eight seed made a run, whatever. Even that's what the Florida Panthers were two years ago in Vegas. These are two powerhouses who've been here before and so the quality of play, it reflects that. It reflects that these are teams that they are

experienced and have been here and are supremely talented and Paul Murray said like this is just a series that you've had all these goals scored, 16 goals, and yet the goaltending has been good. The checking and the defense has been good. And so you have all this happening at the same time, which leads to this high event hockey, even as teams are trying to do their best to defend, because the skill is just impossible to deny.

Something about Brad Marshon. I want to talk about this guy and there's a lot of ways we could go on this, but we were just talking about in the last segment, this guy's gone from, holy, he might get into the Hall of Fame too. Yeah, he's for sure getting into the Hall of Fame, but now I think with the company he's keeping, especially in playoff scoring,

if you look at the, look at the career numbers, he's up with a bunch of first ballot Hall of Famers is Brad Marshawn a first ballot Hall of Famer? He might be in it. And not that he should be defined by this, but if he helps the Florida Panthers win a back to back Stanley Cup championship, it sort of cements that legacy. And if he's part of Canada winning a gold medal at the Milan Olympics, I think that'll have a big part to do with this. He wasn't in Sochi 11 years ago.

He was on the Four Nations team. And I think you put all this together, and this is his fourth Stanley Cup final, obviously the one you guys remember from 14 years ago where he and Boston Bruins beat the Canucks but also two more trips with Boston and this and he's still producing it at 37 years old and this is people don't do this this isn't normal and Corey Perry is also doing it 40 not quite to the same level as Brad Marsham but this is a guy who he helped Boston stay good for a long period of time when it was time for the Bruins to sort of go

into a youth movement. He was ready to move on and there couldn't be a better fit than the Florida Panthers. And he was joking that he looked at the lineup and said, I guess I'm going back to my roots as a fourth liner. He's a third liner, but that third line is pretty darn good with E2 Listerine and Anton Liddell and Brad Marsh on there that these young Finnish pups are keeping the old

dog feeling young and he's playing like. We kind of compared him to when the Penguins got Phil Kessel. And you couldn't find two different people than Phil Kessel and Brad Marshawn, but it was that third line role where you got him to that role and the other team is like, okay, how are we going to shut these guys down?

Because you've got the Barkov line, the Bennett line, and then the Anton Lundell line. I think Lundell might be one of the most underrated players in the NHL. Yeah, he, you know what? He probably was two years ago in the final, even maybe last year. And it may be underappreciated at this point still by people who don't watch the answers

very often, but you watch him play and there's a lot of Patrice Bergeron in him, which is maybe why Brad Marshawn is fit so well on that line is that Lindell just does so many little subtle things. And not that he's a little guy, he's a pretty big guy actually, but as a player, just smart with a stick, really like good positionally, great hockey IQ. Yeah, he's gotten to the point where we kept talking about Alexander Barkov guys are being sort of underrated. He's properly rated at this point.

I mean, he's won the Selke a few times. Everybody knows what Alexander Barkov is. Anton Liddell is starting to move into the category of, he doesn't have sort of the offensive pop on a big scale that Alexander Barkov is Anton Liddell starting to move into the category of he doesn't have sort of the offensive pop on a big scale that I was in a bar. I can do, but as a defensive player, he's, he's a star. Uh, we were running through a bunch of your work that you've been doing, uh, throughout the course of this series. And I know one of the off day stories that you wrote about was that the Florida

Panthers leading score right now, not Matthew Kachak, not Barkov, not Reinhardt, not Brad Marshawn, Nate Schmidt, the venerable veteran defenseman who, of course, played here for a time in Vancouver and a few other stops in the National Hockey League. I don't know if your time on the Capitals beat coincided with his time there, but I'm just curious to get your thoughts on what Nate Schmidt, of all people, has been able to do, especially in this cup final now at the ripe old age of 33. Yeah, he and I did overlap in Washington and got to see sort of, well, Paul Marisha was talking about the other day, of Nate Schmidt as a young kid and how dynamic he was as an undrafted creation out of Minnesota and what the Capitals got out of him for a couple playoff runs until

the Golden Knights took him in the expansion draft and then went to the final loss to the Capitals. And he sort of, you're right. He's had, had this whirlwind journey around the NHL got bought out by the Jets last summer and he just, there's just something about the Panthers being able to get the most out of, out of random defense. But Nikol Mikola was a journeyman bounced around the league, Nate Schmidt, Dmitry Kulikov, all these guys just fit in perfectly with this system. You had a talented guy like Seth Jones to the mix too. But Nate Schmidt is sort of, and Maurice said this the other day, is found his fun

again. He's after getting bought out and after sort of a tough kind of run around the league, he's just, he's in a role that makes sense for him. And being in sort of a second or third pairing, whatever you want to call it, for the Panthers fits because he doesn't have to play 25 minutes a night. He doesn't have to be counted on to be a star. They don't even need to count on him for offense. So the fact that he has four points in the series as quarter leading scorer, it's almost a bonus and it sort of speaks to how good the Panthers have been as a team that when you get offense from the back end, it means everything is working properly.

And I'm not saying that Natsume doesn't deserve a lot of credit for that. He does deserve a ton of credit for being in the right place at the right time. But this is a guy who can be a high event player where he turn the puck over, create some offense, sort of that balance. He has cut down on a lot of those, the turnovers, the mistakes, and been able to produce offensively, which is a gigantic gravy on top of everything else for the Panthers. What are you looking for in game three besides more great hockey?

I'm looking to see what team has that next punch. And then, kind of, Henrique said this is sort of a back and forth tilt of heavyweights. When we saw what we expected from the Panthers in game two, they were going to respond. It was a tough loss in game one. They really had, arguably, a tougher loss in game two, getting to double overtime after tying in with 18 seconds left in regulation on Corey Perry's goal. That I just don't know which team has that next punch in this series because it can shift really quickly.

As tight as this has been so far, whoever wins game three, the decided advantage, I know the Panthers are a slight favorite to win the series right now. Whoever wins this game tonight is going to have sort of a massive advantage. Panthers have home ice now after splitting in Edmonton, but everything can change very quickly on a bounce or two, a shot at the post, a big save. I mean, I'm expecting Sergei

Barbovsky to be great because he has been great other than maybe one bad goal in the series and the Panthers play really well on home ice. And then so I would expect them to beat a team to sort of dictate the tempo and see how the oilers respond to that. Real quick before we let you go, lineups and adjustments for tonight. What's the status of Ryan Nugent Hopkins heading into game three? Let's start there. Game time decision. Oilers aren't saying, but we were, we were sort of wondering if he's sick and there's a sort of a bug going around the oilers,

which could be troubling for Ebenezer if that's the case. A few switches on defense for the oilers new defense pairs something that that's their story used to a coffee on staff but you can't get a big question and if somebody is unable to play it which I do expect them to play even though Chris not block a thing game time decision it be it that it would be would have to take some major changes to those those withers line missing Zach Hyman and Ryan new to have to be a huge loss. Steven, you're the best buddy. Thanks for taking the time to do this today. We really

appreciate it. Enjoy the game tonight. It should be a good one. Thanks very much. Have a good day guys. Yeah. Thanks for coming on that. Steven Wino live from Florida, Associated Press, NHL writer here on the Haliford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. A friendly reminder, start getting or continue I should say getting your, what we learned in kudos to everyone that sent them in Dunbar Lumbertex line is six 50, six 50. We're hashtagging it WWL. And you're telling us what you learned over the last 72 hours in sports. I did want to touch very briefly on the Canadian men's national soccer team.

I'm not sure how many people were watching the game over the weekend, not because it wasn't important, but because it was a friendly. There was a lot of other international games going on, and there was a lot of other sports period going on. But Canada put forth a terrific performance through 89 minutes against Ukraine. They went up four nil. They ended up with a four to victory, a couple of players in the aftermath. So they were disappointed in allowing the two goals late.

But I don't know how much you saw of the match, but there was one thing that has to have every Canadian soccer fan excited, and that was the return of Tejan Buchanan, who missed out on a Copa America. Remember, he broke his leg in training prior to it. It's been a long, really tough road back from him. He actually left Italy and then caught on with a team in Spain, La Liga, so he's playing there again, but he looked unbelievable against Ukraine on Saturday.

It was to the point where the game plan shifted to let's just get the ball out to Tejan Wied and let's just see what he's going to do. And he was taking guys on one-on-one, beating defenders with ease. He had so much speed to an already fast team. And there's speed in terms of straight line ability, tracking, you know, sprinting after things. But when you've got the quickness in those sort of first two steps to get past someone, that's where you can really be a different kind of dynamic

player, because like I was just about to say, you can give the ball to him in space, and then your game plan is, let's see what happens here, right? We talk about it all the time with hockey players. Game breakers and drivers are the guys that can make something happen with just either the puck or the ball in their possession.

And it's like. Beats guys one on one. Yeah, there's no coaching to it. The coach is like, hey, go do your thing, right? McDavid doing what he did in game two, no one's coaching that. Now Block's like, now what I want you to do here is a toe drag followed by a no look pass, or you could do the inverse, whatever

you want to do. Not to cut off your Tejan Buchanan discussion, but when McDavid is on the power play, one thing I love watching is how he just kind of like he's on that left side and he just skates around and circles sometimes just to like he'll take the puck, he'll go in on the defense and be like okay it's not there and then they'll regroup he'll pass it off but then you see him circle back towards the blue line, and then he's able to get the puck skating downhill, as they say. And not everyone can do that,

but people should try. There's some great skaters in the NHL, and what he does to create speed on that power play is really incredible. The skating ability is remarkable because a lot of guys when they go downhill, they have to almost receive a pass. It's like they need to get the legs going and then receive a pass and then it's almost like with momentum. But that's what he's doing. But that's what I'm talking about.

He does it on his own. No, no, no. But circles. But yeah, but so he's kind of like adding to an already fast guy. Yeah. He's never taken the puck with his, you know, just stationary or very rarely. He's moving a lot. Because, and then he's able to attack these defensemen and the defense are like,

oh God, like what am I going to do? He might, how many options does he have? He could beat you one-on-one, he can shoot or he can pass it most likely to dry sidle for a one-timer. The options it provides you. And I frankly, not that Quinn Hughes needs to add a lot to his game, but I, and I imagine he's the only guy on the Canucks that can do that. And I hope the Canucks are developing some sort of play where Hughes has a pass.

You know, like we saw Hughes attack a lot, just kind of by himself. Yep. And he would often shoot, right? And I get it, right? But if the Canucks can develop a play with Hughes where you've got that one timer, like McDavid to dry settle, and maybe it's

Pedersen, maybe they work on that. And like everyone knows it's coming. Yeah. Everyone, like Bobrowski was able to, I mean, Bobrowski is so smart too. But if you're in the NHL, you know, and you're a goalie in the NHL, you know that McDavid is often going to look for that dry saddlele pass for the one timer.

Dry sidles practically on the goal line. But there's no reason why Quinn Hughes couldn't develop that chemistry with player, some player on the Canucks and maybe it's Pedersen down in that spot for the one timer because it's just so dangerous when you have multiple things that you can do. I know not everyone's gonna be able to do it at McDavid's level, but Quinn Hughes can skate like that.

He can do that. Hughes is in the conversation because of his skating ability, right? I think you're almost suggesting that moving your feet is a big. I didn't wanna say it. I honestly didn't wanna say it. But- We'll move past it.

But like McKinnon does that, too. Yeah. When McKinnon gets the puck on that flank, he is just attacking the middle of the ice and it works for him. So if there is an evolution in Hughes's game, I do wonder if that might be it, because look, we all know what the Canucks were predicated on last year. It was funneling pucks to the point, hopefully while Quinn is there. And then unfortunately, it almost felt too often that there was a settling

for the point shot. Now, that could be either it was the most high percentage play to not have a turnover or that's where the other guys were in position for whatever. I'm not reinventing the wheel here with this analysis. Everyone knew what was going on. You funnel pucks to the point, then point shots would try and get through. I do wonder if the next evolution

is gonna be funneling pucks to the point, and then kind of what we're talking about, it's like, now go do cool stuff, with the risk involved. Because it is different from a forward and a blue line. Totally, totally. If you're the only defenseman out there. It's a big difference. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot more in here.

I mean, you would almost have to have a guy in retreat, like conscious of, okay, Quinn's going to go do things with the puck. I have to be a little bit more conscious defensively. People will lose their mind if this happens, but what about having Hronik out there too? Cause he can shoot the puck. I mean, that's an option, right?

That's kind of what you want to do. But I do wonder if the next step in this whole thing, getting back to Hughes is going to be, we've got this singular force. Let's see if he can be more creative just in terms of getting him pucks in space and allowing him to do things with one or two steps that other guys can't keep up with. I mean, that's kind of what McDavid's, the

X factor is, is that, I mean, Ekblad talked about it. He's like, you think you've got him dead to rights either in good position or whatever, but he can move so quickly laterally. Do you think, and this is something that doesn't happen very often, cause we're like bordering on criticizing Quinn Hughes.

Do you think sometimes he shot too much? Yeah. And I wonder if that was a part of listening to the coaching staff, which would be a lot of people's criticisms of Talk It. I don't think it was. I think it was him trying to do everything by himself, which half the time I was like, I don't blame you buddy. Go do everything by yourself because not many of your teammates are helping out much.

I'll take a little bit of blame on this one. Not that he's listening to the show, but I distinctly remember that there was a conversation with Quinn Hughes about being more self-assured and shooting the puck more, and he pointed to Roman Yossi in Nashville. And I can't remember if it was the first year of the talk and experiment,

and I'm calling it an experiment now, the coaching era, where they said, and they looked at shot volume, and they said, look at what Yossi does in Nashville as a driver, but they pointed to the shot totals. And I wonder if there was a mentality kind of pushed into Hughes where it's like. You wanted to score more. Yeah, and that's great.

And I'm kind of with you. I do wonder if last year it fell into a rut where the, the default setting was always shoot, shoot. Well, I think the default setting was if anyone's going to score for this team, it might have to be me. At least that's how it looked on the power play a lot of the time. Yeah.

Um, yeah, I mean, they've got an amazing weapon in, in coin Hughes. And I think frankly, they could get more out of them, but he needs to develop that chemistry. Like seriously, like who's, who's a forward that he has chemistry with on the power play? Throw it out there. No. Throw it out there.

You don't tell me, right? In a dream world, it's Pederson gets his shooting confidence back and then it's, it's a sort of like team move version of McDavid to dry saddle where you've got Hughes. Still a pretty good version, right? Not at the way that Pedersen's going. Yeah. Right?

No, but if you can get that. Yeah, like, I mean, we're talking about maybe the most dynamic playmaker the last 20 years in McDavid dishing to a premier trigger man in dry saddle. It's a perfect fit. Yeah. And then you're talking about, can you replicate that? You're like, you're not gonna get anything

close to that version. Again, unless Pedersen would need to rediscover the confidence in his shot, which is one, and also get rid of this reluctance to do it. Because I mean, part of having confidence in your shot is I'm gonna have to take a bunch of them and some of them might miss the target and some of them might not go in,

but I ain't getting anywhere without the rest. And you gotta get it away quick? Yeah, I mean, it's all part of it. And none of that was there last year. No. Okay, we are massively up against it for time. When we come back, programming note, what we learned is coming up at 7.30, not 8.30.

Kudos to all the listeners that have got them in already. Dunbar number text line is 650 650. Tell us what you learned over the last 72 hours in sports hashtag it WWL and text it in before we go to break. I need to once again tell you about the BC lions, our local CFL squadron schools out in summers here. Kick it off with the BC lions summer camp games, Saturday, June 21st at 4 PM for details and tickets. Visit them online at bclions.com.

You're listening to the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. best app. It's what we learn time It's what we learn time On the show First, some trusted choice for that help. With over 3,000 five-star reviews, visit them online at sans-trustee.com. We are in hour two of the program. Some guy waking up right now. Oh, god, I'm so late. This is very confusing. I can't do the regular routine. We're just going to talk until the music goes,

and then we're going to hear the drop, and I'm going to be happy. So for those of you listening right now, and you're like, oh my God, as Andy suggested, relax. It is 730 in the morning. Everything is fine. We've just got some different programming here on a Monday. Over the weekend, I thought, you know what, let's try some new stuff on the Haliford and

Brough show. Let's break out of the mold a little bit. So in the eight o'clock hour, we've got J.C. Abbott joining us from Three Down Nation to talk BC Lions, big Saturday for the Lions with the Snoop concert and the 31 to 14 win in their home and season opener against the Elks. Then at 8.30 to St. Ricketts when the Whitecaps is gonna join us.

We're gonna talk Whitecaps, Canada soccer, and then after we talk to Saint, the gold cup is gonna be brought into our studio. And Adog's gonna eat cereal out of it. I don't even know if it's that kind of cup, to be honest. I think if you call it a cup, it better not just be a trophy. Right.

It has to be, there's gotta be cup. Imagine if we're just ripping the gold cup while it's here, what will it think? This inanimate object is somehow crying. I think- It's blushing. I think you're going to be disappointed. I don't think it's an actual cup. Now they've changed it multiple times. I did countless minutes of research and the gold cup trophy has changed formats and styles, maybe fonts, I don't know, but it's there hasn't it's a cup man It might be you know what we're looking at right now I'm looking at pictures of it. It's a big-ass cup. Okay. It might be yeah, but it also might have changed

We like question can you take it to 7-eleven on the free Slurpee day and just fill it to the brim very good question I have been abusing that promotion Especially this weekend gold cup? So because of all of this, we're doing What We Learns right now at 7.30. So What We Learns as always are brought to you by AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. Homemade dough, premium local ingredients,

and authentic cooking methods. AJ's is for die-hard pizza people. Dine in or order at ajs.pizza. Jason has the loan, What We learned from our side of the table, so I will turn the microphone over to him now. Jason, what did you learn over the weekend? I learned that old men are still playing pretty well at sports. We talked about Corey Perry having that big goal in game two for the others to send it

to overtime and then who wins it in overtime but Brad Marchand and then Cristiano Ronaldo scored again in the nation leagues final or the nations league final and it was against Spain. Watched it yesterday. 2-2 after 120 minutes. And Ronaldo scored the second goal. That's correct. And then.

Essentially sent it to the shootout, although there was a long time after he scored. Right. So it goes to the penalty shootout. Ronaldo didn't shoot in that. He was subbed off. Yeah. But Portugal won.

Ronaldo is going to have to be on the World Cup team, right? He's going to have to be. He scored. He scored. Twice in Nations League. He scored once against Germany and once against Spain.

He is still the emotional heartbeat of the team. Very much so. It's a unique situation because so many of the players now being in their early twenties, that's their hero. that's their icon, that's their footballing god. He's 40 years old. They remember a time when they were growing up

and cheering for their national team, and he was the guy. Now he's not the guy in the sense of the driving force that he was in his prime, but you can't really argue with the results of two goals in a semi-final and final in Nations League, playing against two of the top teams in Europe. There was another old guy that had an

incredible athletic performance over the weekend and that was me in a fun run. Oh, yesterday. Yeah, yeah. Nice. Children's Hospital Foundation, some of us give back to the communities, others don't, but yeah, I met a listener too, Adam.

On the run. Yeah, yeah, no, in the warm up area. I was going to say. I was stretching and getting limbered up. What did Adam have to say? He just said, are you Jason Brough? And you could tell he was like, I'm surprised you're at a fun run.

Are you here by mistake? Are you picking somebody up or dropping somebody off? I've done a few of those runs. 5K or 10K? 5K. Nice. It's a 5K. But there were some hills and it was hot.

Yeah, that would have been rough. And the relentless positivity at those runs. It is relentless. You know, it goes against everything that I stand for. I have done. Like, you can do it. Yeah, I have done. And I've seen some people, I'm like, there's no way he can.

Contrary to what you said, I have done fun runs I'm like there's no way he can Contrary to what you said I have done fun runs well fun runs singular He did one fun run it was not fun That you're talking about is very interesting though because I work kind of morning. It's super early There's like is everyone ready to run like we are really, not really. One guy in the back, no. Yeah, we have a certain. Pretty hung over, actually. Are you a fun walk? Please refrain from smoking at the start of the fun run.

There's a certain vibe with our show where we're like, God, I wish I wasn't here with everything. That's the attitude that I kind of took to the fun run, thinking that other people would be on board like, well, I'm doing it, but I'm not having fun. Turns out most of the people participating are embracing the fun ethos. There's a positivity about it,

which is, it's actually kind of refreshing. Yeah, I'm like, how many of you are on Twitter? None of us! Right. Ah, well that explains a lot. How many of you doom-scrolled the warmup for this? I think that as I get older, I'm trying to be more earnest and genuine about certain

I don't know if it just comes with age and then it's like, you know being sarcastic and all the time just is like an It's like an old tire. The way I actually lived a pretty lonely life, right? He was sad Mostly sad and overweight. I'm like we should try a different way. You got a great life. What are you talking about? There we are so kudos to Cristiano Ronaldo and Jason Bruff, two of the best 40 plus athletes of our generation. Moocallum. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa after all tickets for all three games were just released. Oh, okay. So you can actually get tickets for the three

Abbey Canucks games. Oh, they weren't sold out. Not sold out. No. I mean, I'm sure they will be very quickly. So if you do want to go to any of the Abbey Canucks, call the Cup Fight. So bad on me for passing that along. No, that was going around though. It was a glitch, so you weren't incorrect. People couldn't get tickets. They've just been released. I checked Ticketmaster to be sure. Taylor Swift was like, I can't get tickets to this thing. It's incredible.

Something to do a lottery for next year. But I'm sure they will sell out fast. So I mean, if you want to go to the Calder Cup Finals in Abbey, get your tickets quick. You also need to punch up your pronunciation on Brandon Astle. Yes. Astle.

The first one wasn't so great. Oh, come on. Oh, I just thought of that. That is a tough name. Astle. You really got to punch the teeth. It's like my horror pronunciation horror movie I'm like you have to really work on the phonetics there cuz one of those movies is a lot different than the other movie Okay, we fire up that out matrix. Do we do that? Again all these are brought to you by AJ's Pete on his Broadway. Go visit him.

Three to five and three to seven. East Broadway humanoid editions of what we learns right now. We got a myriad of them coming in. This is from Rob in Surrey. Hashtag WWO. What we learned, what I learned is that the self-proclaimed city of champions didn't really live up to their self-given name this weekend, starting with a loss to Brad Mars Marchand and the Panthers on Friday

Capped off by a big defeat against the Leos on Saturday We have not spent a lot of time talking about what the Elks did or didn't do on Saturday But it was a Ford is a really exciting player to watch Not a good thrower of the football. I don't know. There was a pick in the second half that he threw know there was a pic in the second half that he threw that was one of those where you're like what what did you see on that play it was I mean like he was really exciting I don't know Donny Taylor was tweeting out like when did Doug Flutie come back because it looked like a couple plays that Flutie used to make where he'd go back and then he'd go back even more and then he'd go back even more and you're like,

you're looking at a 40 yard sack right now, so make something of it, but he made something of it. The CFL field, every time I go to a game, I'm reminded of how big the field is. I believe there was a- It is massive. I believe there was a 107 yard scoring drive. Yeah, yeah. On Saturday, which is, they're like, what happened one hundred and seven yard scoring drive. Yeah, Saturday.

Yeah. They're like, what happened? Where did he start? Well, on the three. Anyway, it was a cool story with Rourke and Ford. We mentioned this when we were previewing the game last week, the first all Canadian quarterback patch up since 1968. So the league went basically 60 years without having two Canadian born pivots. But yeah, Ford in the Edmonton offense didn't do much at all.

I think kudos to the crowd, which we played the audio from Nathan Rorick talking about how loud the crowd was and how it forced them to go to a silent count in the Elks huddle, but also the defense. I think they held Edmonton to 264 yards total offense. You just got to work on those short yardage plays. That was not great. No. JC Abbott's going to join us at eight o'clock.

He wasn't super fond of, what's the third string quarterback, the short yardage quarterback, Bryce? Yeah. Wasn't super fond of his work there. But he also kind of put that out. Well, I didn't like the calls from Buc-Pierce. Buc-Pierce's calls weren't great either. Yeah.

Other than that though, despite the fact they trailed 7-3 at the break, I think it was overall a pretty great night for the Lions, both in terms of the pregame concert and then the game itself. Uh, I like this one from Rich, what we learned. What I've learned is that since you guys use Jiffy, you two sure have a lot of problems continually at your house.

You guys should be deemed unsafe to be by yourself. Classic. House is falling apart, man. I'm telling you. Just classic stuff around the house. That's why you got to use Jiffy. Yeah. Promo code sportsnet.

$25 off your first job. Uh. Some guy DM'd me asking for that promo code, by the way. Did you give it to him? Uh, yes. No, I didn't. Tough luck, bud. Saving that for me.

Uh, Nick on the drive, what we learned, I learned that Phil Mickelson still has it after seeing his insane flop shot on the 17th hole of the live golf Virginia tourney. It has gotten to the point that I no longer even think about live or PGA. It's all golf and it's all PGA tour for me. Cause I do not watch live, but I saw the great

shot. It was a great shot. I just played it actually on the TVs and studio here. Did, uh, how much attention you pay to the Canadian open on Sunday? Uh, a little bit. I tried to watch whenever I here. Did, uh, how much attention did you pay to the Canadian open on Sunday? Uh, a little bit. I tried to watch whenever I had a chance, but,

um, I would say, um, I mean, it was an exciting finish when you got a four hole playoff, but. And Aurora didn't make the cut. Yeah. Um, and there w I mean, early on there were a couple of Canadians in contention, but I don't know if there was ever anyone that really threatened to win it on Sunday. Like I had no idea who Ryan Fox and Sam Burns were.

Yeah, Sam Burns is, he's a pretty, I mean he shot a 62. Oh, Foxy and Burnsy? On Sunday. Didn't know either. What? Yeah, yeah. I knew that, I know, I now know. Ryan Fox is a Kiwi, isn't he?

Yep, that's right. And it's his second win in five weeks on the tour, so he's on a bit of a heater. I think ever since Nick Taylor won that thing. It's tough. It's like, come on. Yeah. There was a couple of what we learned that came in about Rory McIlroy, and I have an issue with

the joke that was made. The Leafs thing? Okay. Here's the joke. What we learned, Rory McElroy was knocked out of the first round of the Canadian Open after he was given a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. Now someone made that joke on social media

and has been repurposed. Yeah. He played the second round. Yeah, I know. Like in the second round was what knocked him out because his first round was around even. And the second round, I think he shot like a 78 or something like that,

which is crazy for Rory. Yeah. To shoot that badly and to play that badly. So he was actually knocked out after the second round. They're saying it's fake news. It's just, it's just someone needed to craft the joke a little bit better. Cause the second round we were doing fine.

Yeah, you just go, uh, you know, Rory McIlroy was given a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, uh, ahead of the Canadian Open and he couldn't get out of the second round. Yeah. I, the first round. So appropriate. Yeah.

You know, there's no, yeah, like. You don't need to lie to. Cut is after the second round and the, and the Leafs have gotten there a couple of times. They've been to the second round. It was right there sitting for you, joke makers, joke crafters. Okay, so I don't, I kind of saw this,

but I didn't look into the research on it, but, odds with what we learned, justice for Cheech. John Garrett finally, rightfully, gets the second assist on Gordie Howe's last goal. Yeah. Congrats, Cheech. So. I know he's been lobbying for this for a while.

He's running around the boards, he's 100% right. Okay, so a lot of people have been lobbying for this. Why it happened now remains a mystery because I asked around and there was a push a while ago to get this done. I think it was even a hashtag that was going to be justice for Cheats or whatever. But for some reason, whoever was in charge

of the NHL statistic bureaus at the time wasn't willing to go there. So the movement kind of got dropped. And then out of nowhere, it's back again. Now you astutely pointed out what everyone's pointed out. Was it, it's clear as day that he got the assist That there was no video evidence than you yeah, so the hang up and no one was really sure exactly what the hang up was and Cheech

When he went on after hours a couple years ago was pretty adamant that he had got the assist So I don't know if that started, like rekindled the movement or whatever. And also, I think they may have gone for the, it was his son that got the only assist on his final goal, right? So I think they were trying to go for like the heartstrings moment. Right. Gordie Howe assisted by his son for his final goal and they didn't want to give it to the goalie maybe? That would be awesome if Cheech took the assist away somehow.

It's no longer assisted by his son. Okay, the hashtag was give it to Cheech, which could go a lot of different ways, but. I'm sorry, it was what? Give it to Cheech. And it was back in 2013. And then the- I've been there.

When he was in prison. Right, the movement died. And then it came back. So anyway, shout out to Cheech. A lot of shout outs this morning, but congrats to him. Ben and Langley, what we learned, SGA has moved into the conversation for greatest Canadian

basketball player of all time. Yeah. How could he not? We should probably do some of the hoopies. He's the MVP of the league. He played incredibly well at the Olympics for Canada, and now he's got a very, very good chance of becoming an NBA champion. So I think if he, if he, like, if he, if Oklahoma city wins and maybe they don't,

but for sure, if they win and he's a big part of it, he's the greatest Canadian basketball player of all time. He's got to win two MVPs. You're such a Steve Nash fan. two MVPs. You're such a Steve Nash fan. Like I think Steve Nash has the most incredible story, but SGA will be the best of all time if they win. As soon as he wins the second MVP.

Okay, well Steve Nash never even made it to the finals. He sure didn't. He sure didn't. It's gonna, it's always gonna be the, it's always gonna be that one asterisk on the resume is that he never got out of the Western Conference Finals. It's tough.

And he couldn't do a 360 dunk. No, and it's funny because if you look at his shooting prowess and his percentage rates from three, if Nash, and I know he's talked about this, and again, I'm not reinventing the wheel with this analysis, but if he had played in the modern game, he would be such a more dynamic force than he was. Yeah.

Because he was a facilitator. He was in the seven seconds or less offense in Phoenix where his primary job was distribute, distribute. There was games, I remember he put up 48 against Dallas one time, and like, he was a lights out shooter. He was one of those 40, 50, 90 guys. That's where you go 50%.

I loved watching him shoot. Yeah, well, he was clinical. And it was just repetition that you get there. But also, from the line, he was at 90% for his career. From the field, he was 50, and from three, he was 40. He would have been a fantastic shooter in this era. Anyway, by the way, on that note, OKC did even up the NBA finals yesterday. It was a pretty easy victory for them yesterday.

123 to 107. They jumped out to a big lead in the first half and didn't look back. So SGA has gone 38 points in game one, 34 in game two. Yet I think despite scoring four fewer points, the game to performance was better. He needed a lot of shots to get to 38 points in the opener and it kind of, I don't want to say disrupted their offense because he's their primary scorer, but it felt like he needed to shoot a little bit less

to get more guys involved and he did it in game two and of course they won 123 to 107. I thought you were going to be like, needed to be more of a team player like Steve Nash. Like a certain two time MVP. Mike, with what we learned, Alcara's over Sinner officially brings us into the new era of tennis, looking forward to a lot more historic

matches between the two. This is something that I regret not being able to watch over the weekend. Cause everyone that did watch it was talking about it and marveling about it. Um. Longest final in French Open history, one of the greatest comebacks in Grand Slam history.

Alcraz was down two sets rallied and then it was I was with you. Like I didn't watch it. I was paying attention on my phone. One of the guys I was hanging out with had an awful lot of bets on the French Open. I was like, that's a lot. It feels like you're betting on the French Open a lot. And so he was- This serve has to go in. Damn it. What exactly are you betting on? Because it's clear you're not just doing

match outcome right now. But yeah, five and a half hours in the French Open final, as I mentioned, longest final at Roland Garros in the men's side history. Tennis must feel very fortunate that they have gone into this era after Federer and Nadal and Djokovic and Djokovic, I know is still around and still a force, but to have Alcara as- 22 years old, man. He's already got what, five grand slams? At 22. It's crazy. I mean, that's the same same I think that's the same total that Rafa had and wanted to but that's his hero and that's his idol He's obviously on the clay right now Like it was I mean, it's great that they've got that's gonna kind of be the rivalry now is sinner Yeah, Alcares, right? They are the two that have established themselves as sort of Alphas on the tour right now

Sasha with a what we learn all the tennis we can give you. If we go any further, we're going to start to make stuff up. Yeah, I apologize. I didn't watch it. What we learned, Summer McIntosh broke the world record in the 400 meter freestyle with a time of three minutes and 54.18 seconds, which apparently is good. She also set a Canadian record in the 800 meter

freestyle with a time of eight minutes and 5.07 seconds. I was reading that and I was like eight hours? That doesn't seem very good at all. I can't believe you can swim that long. Yeah. She, Summer McIntosh is incredible. I can't, I can't wait to the LA Olympics to watch

her and hopefully she, uh she continues her ascent because she could go down to LA and be one of those. I mean, because there's so many medals in swimming in the Olympics, she could come out and just be like, I've got like 15 medals here. That is one of the cool things about swimming. Who's it? Mark Spitz back in the day.

And then of course, what's his face? The American. And now it's, I've told that, Michael Phelps. Yeah. Where you get those great iconic Sports Illustrated covers. Where you get to wear all the medals at once. It's pretty impressive. She almost beat Katie Ledecky's record in the 800.

That's what the big talking point was there. Steve from Burnaby, what we learned, the Abbey Canucks have won more playoff series this year Than their parent club since 2011 Yeah, what's interesting about this Calder Cup run for the Abbots for Canucks is they've already won four series They should be the Stanley Cup champs. Yeah, they won four. We're good Let's give it to interesting stat also from Adam Kersenblatt Who's running the PK in Abbots for it because they are 30 for 30 at home on the penalty kill during this run.

They gave up two goals in Texas in one of the losses and it was like the worst that the penalty kill had done in ages. And they also give up two shorthanded goals in a single game and they hadn't done that all year. Outside of that, they've been damn near perfect. And we'll say this again, there are, unlike some of the teams that they've gone through, specifically Colorado and Texas, that are more veteran laden, the young guys are still doing the business. And good on Archie Baines for,

he'd gone a long time without scoring in the Colt Cup playoffs. He really only started to rack up the goals late in this Texas series. Like good on him. I gotta imagine it was weighing on his confidence not finding the back of the net when Carlson is finding with regularity. Carlson has nine goals in the past. I got to imagine it was weighing on his confidence not finding the back of the net when all the,

like Carlson is finding with regularity. Carlson has nine goals in the past. Sassen scored some big goals. I mean, on the defensive side of things, Mancini's been a revelation in terms of racking up points. Kudriyadzev. Kudriyadzev's been good too. Has been very good as well.

Yeah. Yeah, so Tucson, Coachella Valley, Colorado, and Texas. Next up, Charlotte. That's a murderers row of hockey cities. It feels like a year ago that we were talking about the hated Tucson road runners. Tuxen. Was that a best of three?

Tuxen? I think it was. The AHL playoffs are hilarious, but I'm glad that they're going, because one, as you mentioned earlier, great for Abbotsford. I know that the fans have shown up in a major way and a lot of people have texted in to the Dunbar Lumber, text message in basket who were at the game yesterday and said the atmosphere was electric.

And secondly, it's great for everybody involved from the coaching staff to the young players, the veterans to without question, Kara, Blay, all of them, like they've done a great job, but this is really about such a unique experience for young players, getting to taste this level of playoff excitement, the energy, having that type of crowd behind you, like not all American Hockey League teams have that frenetic and energized the crowd, right?

It's American- Most don't. Right, they don't, you know, so to have it, I mean, it's still winning in the postseason in a Canadian market. And I think when you get that energy and that vibe, it can go a long way to understand like what it takes to win, how difficult the playoffs can be, what the energy level needs to be like,

as opposed to what you think it might be like. Like going through it is a big thing. So good on everyone from Abbotsford. Okay. JC Abbott is going to join us next, Three Down Nation. We'll talk about the BC Lions. Big win.

JC was on the video board. I heard. And it was kind of a funny story. My shoulder was on the video board because I was sitting next to JC. I think, and I didn't even know it was him. And then I read. Nice shoulder.

And I, yeah, they were like, wow, look at that guy's posture. Sunburned shoulder, is he clapping really small? It was. He was wearing a tank top. Yeah, sun's out, gun's out, right? Hey Snoop. So we'll talk to him. JC Abbott coming up next on the Halford and Bruff show on SportsCent 650.