Halford & Brough in the Morning - Vancouver Pro Basketball Is Alive And Well

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

In hour three, guest hosts Jamie Dodd & Josh Elliott-Wolfe chat with VanCity Bandits co-owner Bryan Slusarchuk (1:56) about his team's successful season, as they fell just two points shy of a CEBL championship, the boys tell us what they learned (15:12), plus we hear from the humanoids (27:08). 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.

Welcome back to Halford and Brough with Sportsnet 650. Jamie Dodd, Josh Elliott-Wolf filling in for Halford and Brough. This week, Halford and Brough is brought to you by the Dilawri family of Honda dealers. Experience the Dilawri difference today. Visit your nearest Dilawri Honda dealer today. This hour of Halford & Brough is brought to you by Campbell & Pound real estate appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit campbell-pound.com today.

And we are coming to you live from the kintec studio kintec canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five-star google reviews sore feet what are you waiting for kintec that's what you're waiting for and of course 650 650 is the lumber text line still a chance to get your what we learned submissions in hashtag wwl what you learned over the last 24 hours of sports. Hit us up. We will go into the inbox to read those at 8.30. But before we do that, very pleased right now to be joined on the show.

He is the co-owner of the Vancouver Bandits. Brian Slezerchuk joins the show. Brian, thanks very much for doing this today. How are you? Doing well. I'm talking to you from Montreal and thanks for having me on yeah it's our pleasure and of course you know a bittersweet circumstances your team in the CEBL championship game in Montreal yesterday great game really impressive comeback performance

from the team but they do fall just short and lose by a couple of points to Niagara so you know with that in mind how do you kind of look back at the game and and to Niagara. So, you know, with that in mind, how do you kind of look back at the game and the season for your team? You know, it was an amazing regular season. We finished first in the league. We finished the top of as you mentioned, 97 to 95. It was a one basket game. The guys played hard. They battled hard. We came back from a big deficit and made it close. There were a lot of Vancouver fans that traveled out to Montreal for the championship. So that was great to see. And I think we've got a lot of positive to build on. You know, we had the league MVP this year, the league's All-Canadian, the league coach of the year.

We just had some outstanding individual performances, but even more important, we really built a great family atmosphere this year. The players had each other's back all year. They battled hard on court, did a lot together in the community off court. So a lot to be proud of. What have you thought about the growth of not only the Bandits, but the league as a whole this year and in recent years?

It's been amazing. The growth of professional basketball in Canada via the CBL has really been something to see. And I think that people coming out to games for the first time are really surprised by the level of pro basketball in Canada, in the CBL. You know, our player, Taze Moore, who ended up being the MVP this year, here's a guy who played for the Portland Trailblazers in the NBA.

He finished the final season in the NBA with a 12.8 rebound performance for the Trailblazers, and three weeks later, he was suited up for Vancouver playing for the Trailblazers. And three weeks later, he was suited up for Vancouver playing for the Bandits. And there are multiple guys out there with NBA experience, international stars like our international star Mitch Creek, who's just a top level Australian player. There are lots of players from Div 1, USA, and Canadian universities. The talent's phenomenal. And what we've seen is the growth of the league has become exponential year over year.

This year, for example, the Calgary Surge had more than 12,000 people at a game. The Winnipeg Seabears regularly draw close to 10,000 people for games. And we very regularly sell out our home games. And in fact, our season tickets have just gone on sale for next year. And the growth over last year already of those ticket sales is just phenomenal. The league is a 10-team league. We play right across the country. It's a summer season that begins in May, wraps up here later in August.

And it's just great, fun, fast, family, affordable entertainment. And you can go for the luxury experience and get a box, get a suite, bring your company out, get courtsides. Or you can go for more inexpensive options. And between the inexpensive tickets, the free parking, the food specials that we put on every night. It can be a very affordable, fun family outing. And that's getting harder and harder for people to find nowadays, obviously. Yeah, and I look at the CEBL, and I think our listeners know starting a new sports league can be very, very difficult, right? There are a lot of new professional sports leagues that start up,

that have big designs, and they're not ultimately successful and for your league you know starting play in 2019 then you have to deal with covert interruptions in the years after that but it seems like you've come out of that and you're really stronger than ever pointing in a positive direction what would you attribute the the success and the stability of your league to you, I think that from a leadership perspective, the commissioner of the league, Mike Morelli, the co-founder of the league, Richard Petko, have really driven hard through tough times like the COVID interruption

and, you know, continue to invest capital, time, energy into the league. So from a leadership perspective, I think our league was head and shoulders above some other groups out there. But I think what really is driving this is the growth of basketball. Basketball, I believe it's the most accessible, most inclusive sport. You know, when I was a kid, I could name every NHL player out there and how many points they had last night. And I followed it really adamantly. Nowadays, if you walk into a high school and you talk to 14, 15, 13-year-old kids, they can tell you the name of every NBA player

and not only what that guy scored last night, but they can tell you what shoe brand he wears, what music he's listening to. The basketball culture is more than just the game on the court. It's become a culture about not only sport, but about fashion, about music, about entertainment. And there was a void without pro basketball coast to coast. If you lived outside of the greater Toronto area where the Raptors were playing, you really had no access

to pro basketball. And now the CBL in 10 different markets across the country is giving people access to high-level professional basketball with NBA-experienced players, Div. 1, USA college stars, Canadian players that have played at high levels internationally. So I think there's just been a void that the cbl is filling and and the attendance growth tv viewership the gaming revenues everything you know is really showing accelerating interest in this league bringing it back to the bandits and and this season you mentioned him earlier kyle julius uh named cebl of the Year. What have you thought of the job he has done with the Bandits this season?

You know, it's been amazing. And one of the things that I think Kyle has done that's just so special is obviously on the court he's built a winning team. We had the best record in the CBL this year. But the thing that he's also done with these players off court is really built that family atmosphere. And our players were out this year skydiving together. They were sturgeon fishing together, hiking together.

Lots of great dinners out. And these guys for the past few months have really gelled into a family. And I think that we had some great leaders on the team that fostered that but Kyle was no doubt a big part of that outside of basketball at the pro level Kyle's done an amazing job in the community and the one thing the bandits are all about is community and in the off last year, Kyle was at hundreds of schools interacting, helping coaches, interacting with players who are striving to get to the next level

or just striving to learn a bit about the game. So, you know, offseason, he did so much in the community. The whole Bandits organization really puts a big emphasis on community. Kyle's checking all the boxes, both on-court and obviously off-court, as to helping us build the Bandits into the franchise we want it to be for the community. Brian, successful season for your team. I think successful season for the league as a whole. What are the next steps? What does the future hold for the CEBL?

You know, over the past year, we've invested to make sure we're bringing the best players out. Guys that just finished the NBA, like Tajay Moore, guys like Mitch Creek. We've invested in the facility, in the game day experience. We're actually adding close to 500 new courtside seats for next season, and we're opening up an additional 1,000 seats in the bowl. So I think in terms of the in-game experience, the entertainment, it just keeps getting better. It keeps getting more fun fun it's already an amazing

experience as far as the team you know we're dedicated to bring championship home so we're investing in making these players experiences in Vancouver good experiences so when they come to Vancouver they're not only being paid to play basketball and we've got to operate within a salary cap, etc. But what can we do to make that player experience better so that we can attract people to Vancouver? Well, we need to show off British Columbia. So it's important for us to get these guys up to Whistler,

to get them out on the water fishing, to get them hiking, to get them experiencing BC. And we think that is a way we can invest in attracting better and better caliber players. But what's next? Look, the guys are so fixated and focused on winning a championship. So I think what's next is a championship year coming up. All right, let's do it. Brian, I really appreciate the time. Congratulations on your team's season. I know it didn't end the way you wanted to,

but still really successful, really impressive. And thanks very much for spending some time with us. Great. Thanks for your time. There were a few tears here in Montreal amongst all of us, but we're really looking forward to next year already. every time I've got my eyes on the product. That's certainly been the case. I've been impressed. Great championship game yesterday. And as he mentioned, season tickets on sale right now at thebandits.ca. So you can get your 2025 season tickets if you're interested in joining us. And yeah, congratulations again to the Bandits coming up just short of the CEBL championship. Excuse me.

It's Alfred and Brough here on Sportsnet 650. We've got a few minutes before we take a break. As a reminder, we'll do your What We Learns at 8.30. And guys, I've got a secret to tell you. We don't prep any content for 8.30, okay? We do. We need this so bad. We write it off.

We say, we'll just read some read some what we learned and that's what we'll do we only prep five segments not the sixth segment of the show so we need you to do your part and help us out and send in some what we learned or else we're gonna have to think of something on the fly we're gonna have to prep some we're gonna have to do our jobs i'm gonna talk about my personal life for half an hour you want to hear about that you want to hear about what i did last week the last thing i want to do exactly hear about my co-workers personal life for half an hour. You want to hear about that? You want to hear about what I did last week? No, that's the last thing I want to do. Exactly. You want to hear about my co-worker's personal life?

No, thank you. So text in 650-650, hashtag WWL, what you've learned in the last 24 hours in sports. I'll start. I'll get us off and running here with what we learned, and it's related to the interview we just did. What I learned is that the Elam ending in basketball is fantastic. Now, if you're not familiar with what this is in the Canadian Elite Basketball League,

they use most often known as the Elam ending. They call it target time in the Canadian Elite Basketball League. So instead of playing right down to the wire and letting the clock go down to zero and finishing the game like that, once you get below four minutes in the fourth quarter, you take whatever the score is. Last night, I think it was 85 something. Yeah. You add 11 points to whoever's leading. So that would be 96 in that case.

Whichever team gets to 96 first wins the game. So there's no more clock. It's just get to 96 points. And it's fantastic for a lot of different reasons, right? It leads to less of the, you know, basket foul, free throw, stop and go super slow nature that so often ends basketball games. And the other thing it does is almost every game ends on a walk off ends on the equivalent of a buzzer beater because it's just you make a basket and it's over. There's not, two seconds left or anything you don't have to play out the string it's just the game ends with an

exclamation point last night was really exciting the bandits hit a three to tie it up at 95 95 and the niagara got the ball they went down they were able to hit a layup walk off win for them there is a downside which is that the game can end on a free throw which is a bummer that sucks right if you step up to the line and you hit a free throw and you get to the target, that's a bummer. But more often than not, I think it produces really – It's a bucket. And that's kind of like what Brian was talking about there

and how accessible basketball is. Like so much of what makes basketball culture is pick up games and playing outside, playing with your friends or whatever. And that's how all those games end, like first to 11, first to 21, counts ones and twos. Okay, let's's do that check it up and you have a bucket to win hey you make you win if you don't you have to get a stop how many times you say we got to get a stop here that's cool and so many games in the nba now are fighting the clock not even the other team and that's the thing right because you get up to a certain point and you can just grind clock right well we're not even really going to play a real game whereas in this

one you obviously have a big advantage as the leading team you're so much closer to the target but you want to score but you have to keep playing you have to keep playing normal real basketball which is the exciting thing and then as you said it ends with a bucket rather than just a you know a foul and a hail mary that goes uh that goes wayward it ends with real basketball and the first time i was exposed to this ending was when they did it in the All-Star game. I think it was two or three years ago, the NBA All-Star game. And that was wildly fun. In Cleveland, I think it was.

Yeah. And it was just – it's good that the CEBL is adopting this because it differentiates itself. And, yeah, I saw that last night, too. And every time I've seen an Elam ending, it's been more exciting. Again, it's not perfect, necessarily. There are downsides you can point at. And look, buzzer beaters are really exciting. But I do think once you get over the novelty of it, as you said, especially as a way to

differentiate yourself as a startup league, it makes a lot of sense. It can make a really, really cool product. Okay, let's give us a moo cow on that, what we learned from me. Josh, do you have a what we learned? What we learned from me, closing ceremonies yesterday. I know we got to text someone being like, Tom Cruise

makes me so mad. And I understand. But the closing ceremonies for me got me unexpectedly hyped for LA 2028. Just because I was watching it. Like, they do the handoff and everything. And Tom Cruise does his stuff, whatever. But it just feels like it's going to be a very, very big event.

And maybe it's just because it's in our time zone. It's in the States. We're kind of used to everything that they do. And it feels a little more local, even though it's not in Canada. But I'm really, really excited. And it's Summer McIntosh. We've talked about her. She's going to be 21 in 2028 in her prime, potentially locking up even more gold medals and more progression from Canada. I think there's going to be a point of pride from Canadian athletes to going to LA. Again, it's not in Canada, but it's as close as you can get for these Canadian athletes. And in terms of the Olympics and just the spectacle of it all,

I feel like the Hollywood nature of it is going to be very fun the hollywood thing is going to be awesome right and i think they did a good job of emphasizing that i will admit i'm not the biggest tom cruise guy i find just the vibes are a little off i know a lot of people are like oh i love tom cruise you know all these cool stunts he's so passionate about entertaining that's great i'm not saying i don't enjoy his movies but some there's just he's just a weird dude yeah there's just enough weirdness there i'm like i don't know i can't fully get on board of this but looking ahead to la i think you're exactly right and i also think paris really raised the bar for them and there's been a lot of talk about how this was the first

olympics that really felt like a truly big deal in quite a while, maybe even going back to like 2012, 2016 at least. So I think they've kind of reestablished what it means to be a world city hosting the Summer Olympics and how you go about using that to showcase your city, using it to make it feel like a big deal. LA are going to be experts at doing that, and they are going to figure out every trick in the book they can to make it a big deal i also think it sets out sets up really well for them with some of the sports that are going to be back or debuting right flag football so you're going to have nfl stars in all likelihood there given the time it is on the calendar baseball and baseball is really fascinating

to me because obviously it's going to be in august it's going to be during the middle of the baseball season it feels like a very very tough sell to get major league baseball players there but one of the co-chairs of the la olympic committee is an agent named casey wasserman who represents a lot of like high profile baseball players he's going to be extremely motivated you know once you get like the high power agents involved they know how to get things done. They know how to make these deals. They know how to get everyone on board and get these really complicated things done. I've also seen that Rob Manford, the commissioner,

is going to be his last year as commissioner for MLB, and he's said, you know what? I'm open to it. He might view it as a little bit of a legacy item for him, as a way to go off into the sunset with this really cool moment for Major League Baseball. And I think the key is is because it's in la they don't have to sign on okay permanently we're going to be sending major league baseball players to the olympics they just have to do it as a one-off

and baseball might not even be a permanent thing in the no because they like in la you're like hey we can have games in all over california right um because you can do them at Dodger Stadium. You got Angel Stadium. You can go to San Diego, San Francisco, whatever. Maybe not Oakland, but you can go to – there's enough places in California to make that happen, whereas Paris or – You don't have a lot of baseball stadiums.

Australia, it's going to be difficult. So that's – I would be really interested to see how that works because every time they've done the World Baseball Classic, it's been a lot of fun. But I think the key thing that would make this even better is, one, it's the Olympics. So there's that extra prestige, and we see what a difference that makes for the athletes,

how much the Olympic experience means for them. It's also similar to hockey. We were talking about it earlier, right, where you don't just have one stacked team. You've got a bunch of really really really loaded teams going at it and then also you're not doing it at the beginning of the season so guy like pitchers are all the way ramped up right they're not necessarily as limited there might still be rules in place to make sure they don't get overused in the middle of the season but you might have something even closer to okay full

strength teams with fewer restrictions going at it than you get in the world baseball classic so you just think of the star power that could be assembled uh in la it's really impressive i've already heard you ben steiner was on our show last week and he said they're probably going to build the pool to make it like the fastest pool that's ever existed so they're gonna get they're gonna do everything they can everything they can to get world records falling and all that. You know, cricket's going to be there lacrosse. So Canada is going to do well in that.

There's just a lot going for it. And I agree. I am already preemptively four years in advance, super, super hyped for the LA Olympics in 2028. Give us a moocow there. A dog basketball, Ben.

No, I have one. All right. Basketball, Ben. Thank No. I have one. All right, basketball, Ben. Thank you. Matt Kuchar once again does something on the PGA Tour that makes everyone shake their heads. He marked his ball on the 18th hole of Sunday's final round, and he was the only player in the field not to finish his round,

and he was tied for 12th. This wasn't even for the win. This did not matter. Made officials, volunteers come back on Monday just so he could play half of a golf hole and make a point. Was there a reason? It was too dark for him.

But everybody else finished. You know what? Even people in his group. Don't say that's a good thing. That's so extra. He's made $60 million in purely just winnings in his group. I'm like, dude. Don't say that's a good thing. That's so extra. He's made $60 million in purely just winnings in his career. And the difference between a spot or two was, I think, like 50 grand. It's kind of a good bet.

I'll admit it. It's kind of funny. I feel so bad, though. It's kind of funny. I'm like, man. If he went into it being like, hey, you know what? People are going to get paid an extra day. I'm the hero here. But I think he was probably like, hey, you know what? People are going to get paid an extra day. Like, I'm the hero here.

But I think he was probably like, no, it's just too dark. I don't want to finish this hole right now. I like to think that there's like one person specifically who is like, I know you have big plans on Monday and I'm going to screw you over. You're coming back to finish this. I'm doing this to spite you. You crossed me. In particular.

No one crosses the cooch. That is a level of petty you rarely see in any sport, in golf, in any sport. So that's a good one from Basketball Ben. Give us a moo cow there. We'll take a break in just a second. And remember, you can get still, still time to get your What We Learn submissions in 650-650 to the Dunbar Lumber text line what you've learned over the last 24 hours in sports.

The Roar is back at BC Place for the BC Lions 70th season. Get your tickets now at bclions.com. Final segment of the show coming up here. It is Halford & Brough Sportsnet 650. Now for my favorite part of the show. What'd I say? Talk to the audience. Oh, God, this is always dead.

It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. On the show Welcome back to Halford and Brough for your Sportsnet 650. It is the final segment of the show. It's Jamie Dodd and Josh Elliott-Wolfe filling in for Halford and Brough today and all this week, in fact, here on the show. It's Jamie Dodd and Josh Elliott-Wolfe filling in for Halford & Brough today and all this week, in fact, here on the show. Halford & Brough is brought to you

by the Dilawri family of Honda dealers. Experience the Dilawri difference today. Visit your nearest Dilawri Honda dealer today. This hour of Halford & Brough is brought to you by Campbell & Pound, real estate appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit Campbell-Pound.com today.

And, of course, 650-650 is the Dunbar Lumber text line. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial Park. More room, more product, more awesome details at DunbarLumber.com. All right, we have done our What We Learned for today. Let's print out the listener submissions. There we go. Last week for Ben.

He is phoning it in. Holy. What are you guys going to do? Fire me? You're going to get mad at me? I'm about to swear on air. I'll play this whatever volume I want. I don't care.

What are you going to do, fire me? And now let's hit the fire plan drop as well. Oh, my God. We're having a fire plan. A-Dog was looking on like a nervous parrot there as Ben went to hit it. He was like, is it going to do it? Ben was so unimpressed. The fire plan button. The fire plan button.

The fire plan button. Of course. You got to have the fire plan button on the ready at all times here on the Halford and Brough show. Okay, I did it. We did the administrative nonsense before what we learned. We can now, as promised, go into the inbox and read some from the listeners. I'll start with this one from Chris and Burke Mountain. I might read a couple related to this as well.

He says, What I learned after watching Olympic breakdancing and the men's and women's gymnastic competition, I've turned from a cynic to a full-fledged convert

to the amazing athleticism shown by the B-boys and gals. And he says, Hashtag bring back breaking in 28. I feel like Chris is in the minority, very much the minority here. I think there were a lot of people who were really excited for breaking and then left underwhelmed. Chris must have just been.

This is why you set expectations low for yourself, because then you're always going to be pleasantly surprised. I think Chris has done this right. He was skeptical. He was cynical. But then he was able to just enjoy it for what it was rather than having that crushing feeling of your expectations not being met. So here's my issue with breaking. All right. Not to crap. Tear them apart.

They've had a free pass for too long, Josh. Take them down a notch. My issue was I have seen videos online of people breakdancing in the streets. And to me, that was much more impressive than what I saw in the Olympics, aside from maybe Phil Wizard, Canadian, and Gold. Everybody else, I was like, man, I swear I've seen people do breakdancing better than this. Dude, YouTube breakdancing, and within five seconds, you'll be watching somebody doing a better job than the Olympics. Just insane stuff. I don't know what the selection process is or was for breaking,

but I do wonder if... How many breakdancers in the US and Canada are there that could have been incredible relative to maybe some of the other countries? That's what I'm thinking. I don't know if they have the breaking depth in some of these other countries that we do here in north america we are absolutely built different but they're still sending people to represent right so it ends up kind of watering down the product a little bit i'm just i truly am not a breaking

expert so i'm just kind of speaking off the top of my head here but i wonder if that's uh what happened somebody else texted him by the way ray gun the aussie break dancer is a horrid break dancer but an unreal marketing ploy she will headline brisbane 2032 that's from day man i don't know about that first of all i mean she's already what like 36 37 well so she's i don't know what the prime of a break dance but i feel like surely it's not i don't think it's 45. I'm pretty sure it's not 45. So I don't know if she's going to be in breaking form come 2032 in Brisbane.

I also, I don't think Australia is thrilled with her. Like, Australia takes the Summer Olympics really seriously. They punch well above their weight in terms of population. We all know about their success in the pool, the rivalry of the Americans. Australia does really, really well at the Summer Olympics. I don't think they're looking at Ray Gunn as this of population we all know about their success in the pool the rivalry of the americans australia does really really well at the summer olympics i don't think they're looking at ray gun as this

kind of oh cute funny haha look at her i think they're like and maybe look if we have australian listeners text in let me know the little bit that i've seen is that people in australia are not thrilled they're like i don't think she's setting herself up to be a big star in brisbane in 2032 i think maybe it's a play like an individual play for her. Write a book about her experience. Start a YouTube channel or something like that. But I think the rest of Australia

considering how seriously they take the Summer Olympics, I don't know but they're thrilled with Raegun and her antics. She will not be carrying the torch in 2032. Do you imagine? What we learned, Tyler. Pulling off the same moves. It would be amazing. I will say.

She's doing the sneaking thing. I saw Ray Gunn, a video on Twitter, I think just this morning, of her in the streets of Paris or something doing breaking. She was better. It was better than what she did. Did she intentionally throw the performance to go viral? That's what we... Somebody's got to do it.

It's like, this is way better than what you did in the actual... Or are there weird... Ben, play the X-Files music. Are there weird restrictions that prevent them from doing their best routines? I don't know. Tyler in Ontario, what we learned. I learned that breaking, just to keep it on the breaking track here. Yes, of course.

I learned that breaking in the Olympics, even though it takes a lot of skill, just looks silly as an Olympic sport. Also, I had a side question. How is it decided who does the Halford role with the ad reads and taking the lead with the show? I'll tell you, Tyler. We came in today. I said, Jamie, who's going to do the reads?

And Jamie said, I'll do the reads. So I will say we hosted together for a few shows a few weeks ago yeah on like sportsnet today or whatever and for that one i was like josh you're gonna be a chair young josh trying to transition to full-time host you need the reps and you were like i don't really care and i was like no you're doing it because i didn't want to do it yeah that's what it comes down to it's easier it's easier not to be a chair it's easier not to do the reads for the first time i think ever cam barris sent out a schedule that had marked on it like this host is the a chair this host is oh really yes you can't get out of it a little humbling to be honest he was like i've heard enough of josh's so i was like well i don't think i can pawn it

off on josh this time i think i have to do it unfortunately if you want to like usurp control of the show feel free it's easier for me if he's sending out an email or i know where i stand with cambera now the funny thing is um on this show in particular it's a big divide because you've worked with both of them now right you've done a week with half a week so did they just slot like because when i do it it's like halford's like you're gonna do everything that brough normally does and when i do if brough he's like you're gonna do everything that halford normally does exactly what happened all right and nor like i think it's very interesting to peel back the curtain a little bit like brough does more of the prep in terms of like here's what we're like big big discussion topics right and then how far to

control is all the the finer details i would say is a fair way of putting it so i feel like we're just going i have no problem with that if i can do the reads you can do the brough role of coming up with the hot takes and the way the notes are rip alias pedersen the notes is the perfect example of it the notes each night mike and jason send out their show notes of what they want to talk about, the guests, what's going to go on. Brough usually sends the first copy, the rough draft. Yeah. And it's long and has all the ideas of what's going to be discussed.

And then about two hours later, and I don't know how much this man sleeps, but Mike sends it out about 1130 at night. Mike is working awful late. It is crazy. I've been asleep for like two hours. I'm like, I come into the office at 5am. Like he sent this email five hours ago and it's flushed out totally.

Like everything's perfectly spelled. I'm like, this is the exact combination here. That's why they're a good team. Yeah. See, we're, we're ruining their rep.

We're like telling everyone how much prep they put in the show or like, they try to play it off. Yeah. It just came in. Yeah. Uh, six 50, six 50 is the dumb bar lumber text line basketball phil texted in a baseball text from basketball phil what we learned the

mariners played on sunday night baseball for the first time in 20 years they won the game 12-1 all while julio rodriguez returned to the lineup and went over five with five strikeouts why wouldn't they send him on a rehab assignment before bringing him back? Most Mariners thing ever. Well, look, you won the game 12-1. So you can look past the Julio Rodriguez thing. I didn't realize it had been 20 years since they'd got a primetime slot. That's the thing that sucked out to me.

That's wild. How do you even do that by accident? You think at a certain point they would be playing like the yankees or something on a sunday and they'd just be like yeah that's sunday night baseball this week well you got to imagine that you know there's always the west coast bias thing right like the east coast teams and the big market teams are always going to be more heavily featured in sunday night baseball but that's why i'm like you'd play a team out east at a certain at some point on a Sunday, right?

I don't know. I don't know. It's surprising, but they also haven't really been good in those 20 years, except for at random points. So they haven't had sustained run. I would have thought it would have happened after they made the playoffs for the first time a few years ago, though.

And look, Julio Rodriguez over five. Maybe they brought him back instead of sending him on a rehab stint i think the reason they didn't send him to a rehab stint is they're desperate for wins right they're they're in a dog fight for the division lead so they were probably thinking we need to do everything we can to get this guy back in the lineup and i think you just look at it and say hey he had a really tough uh return but we still won 12-1 so whatever at least it didn't cost us in the game. What we learned, Mike the Urologist from Brockville.

There you go. Yeah, Mike the Urologist. Huge Olympics for BC with one-third of their record, nine gold medals coming from BC athletes and Katzberg, Rogers, and Phil Wizard. Another third came from Summer McIntosh, and the other third, the rest of the darn country. It's pretty good.

Good for BC. We dominate the hammer throw. We're absolutely. And look, BC is the best. West Coast, best coast. Come on, obviously. Give us a prime time game. That's right.

Punch above our weight in terms of producing Olympic athletes for for our country. 650 650 again is the Dunbar Lumber text that we've just got so many Ray Gunn related text that I'm trying to I'm trying to filter through them a little bit here. But this one came in from Woodrow, the eligible bachelor. What we learned, Nathan Rourke would give the slumping BC Lions a boost on their quarterback depth. And then he puts in brackets, what a freaking boost. He's anticipating the drop from. What a freaking boost. There we go.

From basketball, Ben, by including the boost keyword. We talked about this briefly in the first segment of the show. It's really easy, obviously, to draw the connection, right? OK, is he is his NFL experience over? If it is, is there a home for him back in the CFL with the BC Lions, specifically the team where he broke out and had such an impressive run in the CFL? I think it makes obviously sense at that level. And I'm not saying it can't happen at some point i almost wonder though if it's more going into next season that you see nathan rourke rather as rather than the kind of mid-season addition to the lions this year because as we talked about

again earlier in the show i don't know what the incentives line up for him to kind of give up quote unquote or at least postpone his NFL ambitions, come back midseason, that's a tough position, right? For a team that's not necessarily dominant right now, if you have a poor performance for the remainder of the year or even not an incredible performance, just poor by his standards, what does that do to your NFL chances? So my kind of inclination right now is to say that Nathan Rourke's

probably going to do everything he can to pursue this NFL chances. So my kind of inclination right now is to say that Nathan Rourke's probably going to do everything he can to pursue this NFL opportunity. If it doesn't happen in some capacity, whether it's practice squad, whatever, maybe he checks in with the Lions or maybe it's a conversation going into next year. Yeah, it's it's I don't know. It is tough for a quarterback to come in midseason anywhere in any team in any league and and just pick it up right away, especially again as a quarterback trying to learn a full playbook and all of that. come in mid-season anywhere in any team in any league and and just pick it up right away especially again as a quarterback trying to learn a full playbook and all of that the thing i just think about is when you are like when you've been chasing this nfl dream and like you get cut by

four teams essentially or moved around and and on your fourth team you get cut it can hurt the confidence a lot and i do wonder if there's part of him that's like hey you know what i can go back to the cfl for the rest of my career and just be dominant or just be like a standout player in the canadian football league i gave it a go down here and that's and see what happens in bc at a certain point you just want to play football right and you want to be paid to play football and so i think that that's and see what happens in BC. At a certain point, you just want to play football, right? And you want to be paid to play football. And so I think that that's ultimately one path this could take. But at the same time, it does feel like if you come back to the CFL now, are you kind of permanently closing the door on the NFL? Is this his opportunity to make it? And from that perspective, again, is he going to just absolutely exhaust every potential chance he has south of the border before deciding to come back to the CFL?

But obviously, look, if he comes back and joins the Lions at some point, that's going to be a really, really big deal and be really exciting for the team as well. Sam the Werehorse texts in. What we learned, I learned that basketball Ben needs to change his name to Golfer Ben. The tip of pulling down the club to the ball as you hit has helped my game massively. Thank you to Ben and Jason for having that combo. I got to ask. Okay. Pulling down the club to the ball. Explain.

Jason was asking me on his downs his downswing and we're playing golf together this tuesday on his downswing does he feel like he's pushing it out there or and i said no don't do that feel like you're pulling a court like a ripcord or something down and that's going to generate more power and lead to consistency and the text box got flooded that day with like that's a really good idea like that's a really good idea. Like that's a really good move. And then I asked Jason if he's one of those guys really in the airport or wherever he is. Like,

is he one of those guys that practices this golf swing? Yeah. Is he a Dan Riccio? And he says, absolutely. Reach does it in the room every day. Dresses up to do it. He's like,

I can't do this in normal clothes. He's like in golf headspace all the time. But every time I see someone do it, I'm like, ah, you're one of us. Respect. I've never been that guy, to be honest. To practice the swing in public, I also just don't care about my swing that much, to be honest. Isn't that like the main part of golf? What do you care about?

Well, I just go out there and I just feel it. You're just out there to have fun. Josh, the amount of times you, Dom dom and i've had a conversation about how your drive goes right and you're trying to pick yeah but i don't like put in the work to fix it i just kind of just fix it at least you understand that what do you mean you just fix it i don't know that's putting in the work to fix no i just like showed up for a round and i fixed my drive what are you talking i don't know but not permanently's fixed, man. It comes into the office. I figured it out.

I did. It's done. Josh is like... I'm not a great golfer, but I'm better than Dom. This is like the Brett Favre thing where it's like, he's just having fun out there. He's just a football player. He's a gunslinger. I'm just a golfer.

I don't care about my swing. Just give me a club. I'm an athlete. I show up and I make putts. I hit fairways. What more could you ask for? I'm deeply skeptical, though. I've never heard this degree of confidence from Josh.

I'm just naturally great at fixing my golf swing. I don't put the work in. I don't need to, frankly. I have not been to the range this year. I'm built different. It's literally you right now. Oh, you need to practice your swing? Couldn't be me. It's not something i need to do reach and i are kind of like we golf together often and we're kind of polar opposites because he puts in a lot of work and it's

commendable but i do not put in any work and i tend to beat him most i know who i'm taking in the long run but you're taking reach of course yeah because he's putting in the work yeah hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard imagine how good i would be if i put in a little bit of work yeah that's the other way of looking at this you're bragging about i'm so good without working it's like well what have you just tried practicing have you tried practicing imagine how could you how good you could be my bad you know what you're right guys i'm gonna start putting in the work that's on me this is nothing to brag about either i just show up and i'm good i mean i get it if you're saying like i don't care about how good i am and there i i just golf to have fun and therefore i don't work hard

at it that makes sense to me but you seem to be saying i care about how good i am but also i'm not willing to work at josh you're like the kids in high school who would be like, I didn't study for the test and then get like a 97. Like I didn't even study. I hated those kids. I wouldn't even say a 97. I would just say like that. And everyone knows who they are.

Yeah, like an 80. Yeah, like I got an 80 and I'm like, I'm pleased. I'm fine with it. Because on the course, I'm probably like low 90s. I kind of break 90s sometimes and that's where I'm fine.

I'm fine with that. I could be better. I could more consistently break 90, and that's where i'm fine i'm fine with that i could be better i could more consistently break 90 i guess does it drive dom insane that you're like easily 10 strokes better than him every round it doesn't drive dom insane it drives reach insane when i beat him by like two but now this year like i broke my wrist and everything too and it took me a while to come back so i think he's he's passed me in terms of average score you were on the shelf with the injury uh justin and east van what we learned on the heels of goal song talk on friday show the moj jingle totally works as a canucks goal song how long before the

canucks call laddie and a dog to produce a brand new goal song so justin and east van uh also on twitter put this out he he like redid the Moj song as the Canucks goal song and he showed an example of playing it in Rogers Arena after they scored. He changed it from It's the Moj to It's a Goal. And I was like it was a pretty good job by Justin and his fan to do it. Where do you stand

Josh on the Canucks goal song? We had a very divided inbox on Friday. Yeah, I don't like it at all. Because some people said I hate it. We need to change it. A bunch of people texting in saying, oh, it's it at all. Because some people said, I hate it. We need to change it. A bunch of people texting in saying, oh, it's one of the best ones in the league. I love it. Where do you stand on the Canucks goal song?

I am open to changing it. It's a little, I don't even want to say used. It's just kind of a little boring to me. It's very boring. Yeah. It's low energy. Yeah. It's just like bleh.

At least get something with a bit of like a bit faster at the very least or something a bit more up-tempo. I don't know. I think the search, you're always trying to find the next Chelsea Dagger is my thing. You guys are completely wrong. Okay, fair enough. The song is fantastic.

Everybody dances in the stadium. You can sing along with it. Everybody knows the words. They'll do that to any song. There's so many songs you could do that to. No, but it's very fine balance.

They do that because it's the goal song. No, but they do it. It's a very fine balance between like hearing the song once every few games and the crowd singing like, you know, the lyrics

that was the music ends to, you know, three to five times a game. Hopefully, you know, you're hearing this song over and over again. It is going to get old for people because it's played so much, but everyone knows the words.

It's kind of iconic. It kind of mixes that throwback vibe with the new generation vibe. It's sweet. I think one texture did make a good point that sort of turned me around a little bit on it is the fact that it is so annoying. It gets in the heads of the opponent, and you kind of do want a goal song. Like Chelsea Dagger, that's just so frigging annoying that the second you hear it, you're like,

oh my God, this song again. Especially if the team's lighting you up and you hear it repeatedly. So from that aspect, the psychological warfare of the goal song for the Canucks, I give it a pass in that regard, because it is very annoying. And if I was the opponent hearing that

frequently getting scored on, it would drive me insane. So from that perspective I get it. Can you imagine A-Dog la la la la like over and over again? Yeah, it's very annoying. I mean if I was the opponent and I heard la la la over and over, I would want to leave the stadium quickly. I do think also there's a couple things happening here. One is that you're right. People approach it from

the perspective of how much do I like this song rather than how does it work as a goal song? Those are different things, right? I don't think Chelsea Dagger is a good song per se, but it's a good goal song because it's frigging annoying. Yeah, exactly.

Like if I was here, Chelsea Dagger on the radio, I'd be like, Oh, this is a banger. I'd probably turn the station. But I mean, as a goal song,

it works great. I think the other thing that's happening here is, and this happens, I think with jerseys as well, uh, with the seats at Rogers arena is there is a, uh, the grass is always greener effect, right? You, you get used to something and you're like I think, with jerseys as well, with the seats at Rogers Arena, is there is a the grass is always greener effect, right? You get used to something and you're like,

okay, I'm kind of tired of it. There's got to be a better, this option would be amazing. This option would be amazing. And then what happens is, you know, you switch to the black skate full time and five years later, you're like, ah, I'm kind of bored of the black skate.

You switch goal songs and you're like, ah, I'm kind of bored of this goal song five years later. You kind of just have to accept, find one that works. Find one that, as Basketball Ben said, it works on a number of different levels. Maybe annoys the other team. Stick with it. I'm not totally opposed to changing it, but I don't think they need to change it either to make it work. I think it's just fine the way it is.

Okay, we will leave it there. Thanks for texting in. Thanks to all our guests. We will be back tomorrow, myself and Josh Shelley-Wolf, as well as A-Dog and Basketball Ben here on Halford & Brough Sportsnet 650.