Halford & Brough in the Morning - Well Canucks? We're Waiting...

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they discuss why there still hasn't been a Canucks GM announcement yet, the boys talk about Quinn Hughes getting eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs (3:00), plus they chat Vancouver Whitecaps, and if the club still has a chance to avoid relocation (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.

You're listening to Halford and Brough. Another 2-2 pitch. And it's hit to deep. Good morning, Baker. 6-1 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford and it is Broth, and it is Sportsnet 650. And we are coming you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Mount Pleasant in Vancouver.

Jason, good morning. Good morning. Addo, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Are you drowning in tax debt?

If you are, Sands and Associates can often reduce your debt by up to 80% when they're upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands-Trustee.com. We are an hour one of the program. Hour 1 is brought to by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle you get paid.

Visit the Middle of 70 Pall Street in Vancouver. We are coming to live from the Kintech Studio. Steps strong with orthotics and footwear from Kintech, if you want to text into the show, the Dunbar Lumber text line is 650, 650. Maybe you want to ask the question, what's going on with the Canucks? Are they, hey, hey, you guys still going to make an announcement this week?

What's going on? Chop, Chop! Trusted by contractors and DIY champions across Metro Vancouver for generations. Find them at three convenient locations or visit Dunbar Lumber online today. Okay, we got a lot to get into on the program. It begins with our guest list. It's the Duke Morning Drive, brought to you by the Duke Auto Group. It begins at 7 o'clock.

Adnan Verk is going to join the program. Laddie, with the bold move of going baseball to lead off the intro. But with good reason. Well, I wanted to end with the Colorado clip. I know. That's a pretty. But hey, getting Dalton Varshal's grand slam walk-off home run. Is this what's going to turn the season around, Laddie?

Is this going to be it? I'm going to say yes, because I have no other reason to believe. That's all I got. Adnan's going to join us at 7 o'clock this morning for some MLB talk. We're going around. News and notes from Major League Baseball. That's at 7.7.30. Mark Specter is going to join the program.

One of your favorites, Oilers Beatwriter from Sportsnet. So we booked spec yesterday morning. Not sure what the future had in store for Chris Knoblock. We do now, though, the Oilers head coach has been fired this morning. Per multiple outlets, one of those outlets is not the Edmonton Oilers. so we're waiting on word there for exactly what's happening. But Chris Knoblock is out as head coach of the Oilers. Speck is going to join us at 7.30 to talk about that.

And it also denied Nalbock permission to talk to the Vegas Golden Knights. Oh, Craig. 8 o'clock Thomas Drance is going to join the program. Canucks Talk, Athletic Vancouver. Is today the day? Will the Canucks finally make an announcement? Are they going to win the day with a press conference? It's a tough day to go, given that the Oilers just made huge news earlier today.

Maybe we'll wait another day. I don't know, but we'll talk to Drans about all that at 8 o'clock. Obviously, we got a lot to talk about. We got a lot to get into. We got a lot of guests. So without further ado, Laddy, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No.

No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was. We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? You missed that? Hey, check this out.

I sold this segment. Oh, did you? No. after three days of blatantly pandering to the public. What happens been sold? I'm not going to say who. I'm going to let our new client bask in the glow of knowing before we announce it formally. You should go into sales.

I know. I was joking with the dogs prior to the show when I told him that we had sold this segment because I talked about it on the air. Yeah. I said sales department's getting a real, uh-oh, happy learned how to putt vibe for me. Wait a minute. You found your new calling. Now he's selling stuff? Yeah.

So. The sales guys are like, boy, I wish I had a radio show to just call out clients with the radio. It's pretty impressive. Yeah. Right? Anyway. I'm going to tap the brakes on trying to sell for another week. But I have told the sales guys that I'm looking to land a official coffee of the Halford and Brough Morning Show.

That's a good idea. Right? It could be a coffee brand. It could be a coffee shop, whatever. just think about it. Dunbar Lever text lines 650, 650, 650. If you make coffee, please give us free coffee. A guy that just really like coffee, wants to sponsor the segment.

Please give us free caffeine. Any Java enthusiasts out there wants to get on board. Anyway, okay, what happened? Of course, we are going to start with all due respect to everything is happening locally with what just went down at Edmonton. At 558 local time. I don't know if you can bury something at 5.58

in the morning, like you can't at 5 o'clock on a Friday. But according to TSN and then, followed up with confirmation from Sportsnet, Chris Knoblock has been fired as the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers. Now, this is a very, very interesting move for all of the backstory. And that, of course, was that earlier this week, as a matter of fact, it was prior to having him on our show. Frank Saravalli reported that the Edmonton Oilers

contacted Bruce Cassidy to potentially become the next head coach of their team. There was just a couple problems with that. They still had a head coach employed, Chris Knoblock. And two, they never actually got permission granted from the Vegas Golden Knights to interview Cassidy. And once the cat got out of the bag, as they say, it was pretty much it for Chris Knoblock. Maybe the Oilers were hoping to secretly talk to Bruce Cassidy. And if they couldn't hire him, they'd be like, all right, well, we still got Chris Nablock. Block employed. And by the way,

Chris Knoblock, didn't he just sign a contract extension? Like not too long ago. Does it kick in next season? He is about to enter. While fired, the first of a three-year deal, pays him a total $7.5 million. Guess who's not working for three years?

Well, yeah, we'll see. I mean, he's a young coach, though, fairly young, relative to some of the other ones. He probably wants to get back into the game as soon as possible. So we've got Toronto fired Craig Barraube, so there's a vacancy there. Edmonton

fired Chris Knoblock, so there's a vacancy there. We're kind of treating L.A. is... That's vacant. vacant with D.J. Smith there. He's the interim. I think D.J. Smith might be a candidate for that job, but shouldn't be, but he probably is. But that's

three vacancies. And I would like to just now we can seg into the Canucks part of this because the Canucks have not made a decision yet on Adam Foot and the reason they haven't made a decision on that is they don't have you know decision makers and that's really important to have decision makers

because without the decision makers it often occurs that decisions don't get made because you don't have the makers Should we be writing this down? It's very well said. You don't have the makers. Let's be on the test. And there are some things that might, some decisions that might need to be made.

Okay? Because Mani Mahhotra is a very well thought of coach. He is currently the coach of the Abbotsford Canucks. And he has already been tied to the job in Toronto. And there's no reason to think that, I don't know, Maybe you couldn't be a dark horse candidate for the job in Edmonton. I mean, I think they want Bruce Cassidy, and I think Bruce Cassidy is going to get that job. I think that's the job that Bruce Cassidy wants.

You know, what would you, what would you prefer? Would you rather get the Toronto job or the Edmonton job? It's the Edmonton job, right? The Evanton job, like, you know. Without question. Yeah, I mean, that's, yeah, I mean, Toronto's, Toronto missed the playoffs. They were a mess. You know, Edmonton didn't have a great season, but it made the playoffs.

the playoffs and they were a mess. But yes, I digress. So let's say that Edmonton gets Bruce Cassidy eventually. And then Toronto's saying they're going, okay, who are we going to hire? Because I never really thought

that Bruce Cassidy was made sense for Toronto anyway. I mean, he's a good coach, so maybe it makes sense. But I get the feeling that John Chica wants to bring in a coach that

in some way, he can influence because I think he wants the Leafs to play a certain style. I think he has a lot of thoughts on the way he wants them to play. So I'm not saying that that Manny's, you know, can be influenced, but I think

that maybe he's looking to bring in a coach, a young coach, that he can develop a partnership with. Yep. Does that make sense? It sounds like it. I mean, he even said yesterday, this is John Chica speaking, because he did his media availability. He said this wasn't really necessarily about Craig Brubay in the job that he did.

I think it was more about a stylistic fit and if he's, here's the thing, it's one of those age old adages where, well, if you're going to get rid of the guy eventually, you're thinking about getting rid of him, have you already kind of gotten rid of him? Right? If Burubei wasn't long for the job in

Toronto, was there any point in carrying it out? If Chig didn't see him as the long term guy like you're saying, a guy he could build a relationship with over a long period of time, was there any point to dragging this out? And the answer was No, let's fire him now. Honestly, a lot of that, what I heard in Toronto was, is ownership going to allow a firing

because he's making quite a bit of money there? And also, do they have time to do this? And let's bring it back to the Canucks again. Time is a factor. And we're not going to freak out here, but time is a factor. And Jim Rutherford said last week that we expect to have an announcement this week. and we're like, okay, yep. And, you know, there's been a couple nights where, you know,

media has been texting each other and be like, I think there could be an announcement coming soon, right? And it hasn't come yet. And maybe it's going to come today, but it seems to me that there's still quite a bit of, I don't know, like confusion certainly among the media. I don't know if there's confusion going on at Rogers Arena, but confusion among the media about like what exactly is.

is going to get announced. There is. And I think inherent in that announcement is the pressing question, given that we know the parties involved, how's it going to align? How is it going to work? Because it is a bit of a unique set of circumstances. One, it always is when you hire the Siddins for anything because there's two of them. I mean, it used to be the case when they used to hire you and I at places.

Do we have to take them both? I'm like, yeah, no, you got to take us both. We both. It's a package deal. So you've kind of got either co-president, co-advisors, but they're going to have extremely high ranks within the organization. And some have suggested the highest rank shared by two guys. Now, I think it's a bit naive to think that the scenes do everything in lockstep.

I understand that they're identical twins, but I'm sure they have different ideas on a lot of different things. Some things. Some things. But the point being is that it's not in a lot of organizations, when you look at their flow chart, things often go up in a pyramid shape form where there's one person at the top.

Now, two people at the top, whatever, but if you're answering to them and they are going to have that senior role in terms of hockey operations, then you've got to start asking, how does it look underneath you? Maybe they're fighting over whose name goes first on the door. Like, no, no, it's Teneric.

I don't know, I think Daniel's first in the alphabet. Shared office space? Is this Wii work? I don't think they need to go. there. So Bill texts in and he says, hey guys, don't you think Malhotra will coach here? Yes, I do. That's kind of what I was getting at, though. But they need to move, they need to move fast if they want to make that decision because Malhotra might be sitting there and going, look, you know, like if I'm getting interest from the Toronto job, I want assurances that I'm getting the Vancouver job. And I want it pretty quick because I don't want Toronto to hire a new head. head coach and then the Canucks to be like, ooh, actually we're just going to keep at him. Right? I think that there's some similarities there between what Ryan Johnson was going through.

Remember? Everyone was saying, well, you can't block his path to going elsewhere if you're not going to promote him from within. And there are a lot of reports that Nashville was extremely interested in interviewing him and potentially hiring him as their general manager. The same sort of situation is it played for Mani right? If you're not going to give me the job in Vancouver, let me go free. I would imagine that, and I don't think this coaching cycle is done.

I don't think we've heard the last of the stories yet. I would not be surprised if there's another opening that pops up. Mani's a prime candidate for this. If we're going to assume that, like you said, Cassidy goes to Edmonton and takes the now vacant job in case you missed that, Chris Knoblock was fired just about an hour ago. If that's how this thing plays out, Mandy's going to be a guy that's going to get interest in a lot of other places. including Toronto.

I think he's going to end up the coach here. Okay. Here's a question for you. Yeah. Is it possible that the Leafs could outbid the Canucks for Mani Mahalhotra? Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it? Because there is a lot of scuttle butt right now that some of these hires, including the Ryan Johnson as general manager, maybe, I don't know, part of the reason why Evan Gold isn't

here might come down to financial reasons. Mm-hmm. You know? is it easier to keep people that are already working for you, promote from within, under a contract that's already been signed, as opposed to going out? Now, the flip side of that is,

are there deep-pocketed teams across the national hockey? Like you pointed out, can make a pretty significant and substantial offer. Some of the values that coaches are getting still, like the coaching salaries really peaked with Babcock about a decade ago. Yeah. And then you kind of saw market.

That was set by Toronto. And you saw market correct. But, I mean, I looked at the deal that Cassidy had in Vegas, and that was a ton of money. Knoblox getting paid over $2 million a year in Emmington, which is a nice chunk of change. It's a three-year $7.5 million deal. I mean, those are some pretty lucrative contracts. Andy Strickland out of St. Louis tweeted this out this out this morning. He said, more and more speculation than Nashville Predators could be hiring an individual working with a club that is currently playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs as their next GM.

That would not be Ryan Johnson. He says, Darren York from Carolina appears to be a candidate. There's talk the Preds are they paying their next GM on the lower end of the scale, which may have turned away other candidates. Well, Darren York working in Carolina is all too familiar with being an underpaid general manager or assistant general manager. Yeah. You'd be like, wow, this is actually a lot of money for me. This is double what I was making in Carolina.

How much is money going to be a factor for the Canucks? And can we even say anymore? And maybe this answer is, this is a stale old answer now. Can we even say that the Canucks are one of the top dogs in the NHL when it comes to spending money? You know, like, I know they always spend to the cap sometimes to their own detriment. But like, you know, we're just hearing this. more and more, right? And I'm not just talking about the practice facility because I think the practice facility is

a little more complicated. But yeah, it is a part of it. It is a part of it. Especially when you see what Ryan Smith just did in Utah. Yeah. And again, apples to bowling balls. There's a lot of differences between real estate and building in Vancouver than there is in Salt Lake or Sandy or they are in Utah.

But the point remains, that's a new splashy owner that's come in. And when those things happen, there are, there's a ripple effect throughout the league. because the idea that it's possible is out there and players and agents talk, right? I mean, the athletic had that agent poll from about six weeks ago. They talked about these things, amenities, spending, perceptions, reputations of all of these organizations.

And oftentimes, and I think the one line that really stuck up for me with Vancouver was that, you know, they don't take care of some of the stuff that takes the excuses away from players. You know what I mean? So an example, be like a practice facility. Like if you,

if you remove that from the equation as being a potential headache or problem, that's a plus in the pro-con category for HODE should use that more. Should. He should like, like, forget the tendonitis thing. He just be like, man, my game has fallen apart. Practice, you know,

I just don't know where to practice. There's no facility. Spending too much time in the car, driving to and from. Got a bad back now. If only I had a facility local to me and the rink that I play in, that would allow me to better my game. Did you guys hear Max Sasson on Donny and Dolly?

Yes, that was very funny. Yesterday? There was approximately one and a half years where the room wasn't great. Then it magically got really good. It's very strange how that works. And in a related story, Quinn Hughes has been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs. So I only was able to watch the first period of that game. And then I had to go for dinner with some buddies.

Well, you missed quite the development for him. And I was, I was, I was having dinner with a bunch of guys that follow hockey. And, uh, we're all like, that game's not over. You know, like you kind of knew. And I think especially when, when Colorado got their first goal, it was like, this is going to be real interesting because Colorado's at home. They're a better team than Minnesota. And they got a lot of firepower there.

Um, but the way it went down with the two late goals by Colorado. which included that unbelievable shot from from Nathan McKinnon. Which of course there was a great tweet where they compared that right next to the Canada where he misses. He hits the one where he has literally zero space to work with, but he can't hit the open net. I know. I still think about that shot by Nate at the Olympics a lot. And I bet he does too. He's he always plays like he's a man on a mission, but like he really is a man on a mission this year.

So the abs tie it up and then they win it in overtime. we all knew that Kulak would be the guy that would win it. And Colorado advances in Minnesota after blowing a 3-0 lead and probably thinking, man, we're going to bring this back to Minnesota for game 6 and we'll probably win that because we're at home and then we can force a game 7 and then you never know what happens in game 7. Wait, wait, we lost? Quinn Hughes was asked about the loss after the game.

And I think part of it was being rattled and shook and everything. but he mentioned three or four times that he's like, well, if we were going to lose to anyone, it was, we wanted to lose to the abs. These guys are the president's trophy holders. They're the best team in the league. And he had mentioned that a couple times that the abs were the best team in the league.

Now, I don't think that was meant to be to the detriment of his own team, the Minnesota wild. I think he just acknowledged it, which is fine. Great that he said it. The counterpoint to everything is like, you can't be happy

with how that series went and how your season ended. You can't be happy. that you managed to last a grand toll of five games in the second round against the Colorado Avalanche. Are they a good team? Unquestionably. But here's the thing. They didn't get excellent goaltending in this series. As a matter of fact, it was kind of spotty best. And they went back and forth between the lumberyard, Wedgwood and Blackwood. They made a switch again after the first period yesterday. So you got a team that looked like it could have been taken advantage of and you were able to put a grand total of one win on the board. Wouldn't you say there's still the best

team in the playoffs, though? The apps? They're the best team of the NHL. I mean, Carolina looks good. They're the best team in the NHL, but here's the thing. But as far as playoff performances, I'm talking about. But when we talk about Quinn Hughes, I think everyone's talking about, are you going to stay in Minnesota for the long haul? Are you going to extend there? Or is

Billy Garan going to have to look to move you? If I'm him right now, even though I love the year that we had and we were a hundred plus point team and we won a playoff round, I don't know how much further you're going to go with that group in that division, make this very clear, in that division,

with Dallas still being something of a powerhouse in Colorado being the best team in the NHL. The Wild have a nice team, but the Wild are a flawed roster. They're way too shallow down the middle. And I'm not sure that they're going to be able to find the pieces to put them over the top, which goes back to the original question. Does Hughes want to stay there long term? Or is he thinking about maybe moving somewhere else in the region? I mean, we talked about this a bit yesterday.

The Wild have, you know, a good. great blue line, especially if Quinn Hughes is there. And they also missed Brodine in the playoffs, let's be honest. That was a tough. That was a tough injury. Brodina and Ericksonac was tough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. And they got some terrific wingers in Matt Boldy and Caprizz off, although Boldy, I don't think, had...

Boldy had a very forgettable playoff. He had a forgettable series, certainly against the abs. But, you know, it's, when you look at when you look at Colorado down the middle. You know, just think about their top two centers. Forget about, you know, cadre who they bring in or Nick Wah, who can play center. And it was a pretty good one, has won a cup before. You've got Nathan McKinnon, who is top three player in the world,

and drives play. Like, if you want to talk about it for the drives play, Nathan McKinnon. Yep. And then you bring in Brock Nelson, who is now a Selke finalist. I mean, that's incredible. That's incredible depth down the middle. And then in Minnesota, you got what? Joel Erickson, when he's healthy. And who is it, like Ryan Hartman? Yep.

I mean, there's no comparison. No. There's no comparison. And, you know, centers, you don't see many teams win the Stanley Cup with the center profile that Minnesota has. There's always exceptions to the rule. And when you have an unbelievable blue line and the wingers that the Wilde do.

It wouldn't be insane if they won the cup. But if that's, if I'm Quinn Hughes, I'm like, are we good enough down the middle to win a Stanley Cup? And if we aren't, what are you going to do about it,

Bill Garan? Because you're a dealmaker and you make deals. Okay, Brendan texts in, a few people have texted this in. And Brendan says, I believe Malhotra's contract with Abbotsford takes him through next season.

Yes, I think you are correct. if the Canucks intend to promote him, I don't think they would allow for a contract termination to be outbid by the lease. That is possible. But they would have to hire him. And maybe, maybe what's going on right now is the Canucks want to get all their ducks in a row before they have a press conference. So possibly the press conference could have the Cedines, Ryan Johnson, and Manny Mahotra. I think that's feasible.

That could explain the delay in things. But they want to make all the announcements at once and have this press conference that's going to launch us into a high character off season. You know, twins, RJ, Mani, the culture's back, baby. Not with the players, necessarily, but, you know, with the management of the coaching staff. We got the upstairs culture going on. We'll trickle down.

Okay, we got to go to break. When we come back, we've still got a half hour to go in the first open hour of the Hallford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. If you want to weigh in, Dunbar Lumber, text message in Basket is 650. 650. We can dive into there. We've still got a lot to get into from around the world

of sports national hockey league, everything else. But if you want to weigh in, on what the Canucks might do. And when we finally might get an answer to the question, what is the leadership group and coaching staff going to look like? We can do that on the other side. We've got a lot more to get into you. So don't go anywhere.

You're listening to the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. Canucks talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drans. We'll dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks. Listen 12 to 2 p.m. on SportsNet 650 or wherever you get your podcast. 632 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. Oh, God. It's a thrash Thursday.

Alfred, brough, Sportsnet, 650. Heck yeah. It's too loud for you, bro. This is where they bring up. Yeah, it is. Hold on. 6.30 in the morning. But they're bringing it down a little bit here.

If I know anything about thrash, I bet they bring it back up in a second here. Yeah, it gets picked back up. It's about 15 seconds. They do this for guys like Brough, lolling them into a false sense of security. Then they crank it back up. It'll be fine, the thrash head said.

Don't worry. It won't get loud again. All right. Just read your read. No. You listen to Thrash when you golf, rough? It's the perfect music for it. What kind of music do you listen to when you golf?

All sorts of music except thrash. Okay. Okay. You are listening to the Halford and Brough show for some reason. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Got debt? If you do, reach out to Sands and Associates during regular business hours and they'll get back to you within 20 minutes. Visit them online at Sands dash trustee.com.

Still an hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star, metal recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal recycling, they recycle you get paid. Visit them today at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. Okay. I know

everyone is just waiting for some semblance of Canucks News. When's the press conference? When's the announcement going to be? Folks, you are not alone. Hell, we're waiting. Jason and I are waiting right there with you. and there is a bit of a dearth of actual news.

And we can only ask the questions that we think are going to be asked at the press conference so many times before that little song and dance gets tired as well. There was a report yesterday from Farhand Luljee saying that Jim Rutherford had begun the process of cleaning out his desk at Rogers Arena. So there's that. Symbolic, perhaps. So many antacids had to go into a cardboard box. all those tums. Is tums still the antacid of choice?

Open this fridge. All he's got his mustard in there. Wow, I've got mustard. So there's just not a lot there. So we're going to bounce around to some other stories. We are anticipating that something might happen as soon as today. Yeah. But if it doesn't, well, hopefully it happens tomorrow.

And if you want to text in any questions, text in to the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650, 650. But Halford, let's talk a little whitecaps. Look at the text coming in about the Vancouver whitecaps. Dan and Richmond. Greg and Ladd-Wson. I believe he was in Ladd-Wasen. Oh, Greg and Pitt Meadows, sorry.

How many Gregs do we have? There's a lot of Greggs out there. Too many. So Vancouver Whitecaps yesterday on the pitch. Big win in Dallas. Sebastian Burhalter with two goals. Probably two. That guy's unbelievable, man.

Probably two goals that the Dallas keeper might want back. But still, is Vegas going to have to sell him? Oh, God. You're the worst. You are the absolute worst. Early season MLS MVP candidate, Sebastian Burrhalter. By the way, I don't know if you saw this or not, but the white caps released their salaries the other day.

It is unbelievable the value that they are extracting from Burrhalter. He's one of the lowest paid guys on the team. What does he make? Just over 400K a year. Right. Yeah. To put that in perspective, there are three guys on the white caps. Mueller, obviously, Gald and Sabali, who are all making north of a million a year.

And then there's a lot of guys in between them and Sebastian Burrhalter. But two goals from him, white caps, despite conceivated. a penalty early, come back and win three, two. A lot of people reached out to me yesterday watching that match in Dallas. And they're like, how could you possibly move a team from Vancouver where they're drawing north of 25,000 regularly to anywhere in the U.S. because there was nobody in Dallas yesterday. And I said, well, let's be fair.

They have a soccer specific stadium in Frisco that they play at that's currently undergoing a near $200 million renovation. Part of that renovation is. they've actually like chopped off the middle section of the stadium to renovate it. Right. So no one can sit there during the matches. And unfortunately, that section of the stadium is the one that appears most prominently on television.

So it looks like nobody's at their games. They get about 11,000. But anyway, off the pitch for the white caps yesterday. Big news with the Save the Caps meeting that went down at a local hotel yesterday. So which meeting was that? There have been a few meetings, right? This was the one with a number of key stakeholders involved. it included one of their co-owners.

Jack Mallet, who was there. Also from the Whitecaps, Axel Schuster. We mentioned that MLS executive, the VP of Club Growth, Charles Altcheck, was there. Okay. So he was probably there to provide them ideas on revenue? Yes, that's correct. Okay.

Also, a surprise guest, Gregor Robertson was there. Now, I believe Gregor Robertson was there in part because he was in Vancouver last week as part of that announcement about the Canada Soccer Center that was going to go because there's close to 10 million funding coming from the federal government.

There was also leaders from three different indigenous bands that were in attendance. Victor Montaliani, the VP of FIFA, was in attendance as well. So a lot of good stakeholders. Ravi Kalan from the provincial government was there and he classified it as a positive meeting. Wayne Sparrow reached out to Patrick Johnson

in the aftermath of the meeting because he was there as well as one of the three indigenous leaders. And he said it was very positive and that everyone was committed to finding a solution and keeping the white caps in Vancouver. Okay, what did you make of that report that I saw on social media? I can't remember who tweeted it out, but said that other MLS clubs have been told to prepare for Vancouver to be in Vegas next season. Yeah, a bit of a weird one, because that was from a one-time MLS contributor who no longer

works around the league out of Montreal. Okay. So he's been around the league. I kind of asked around like, who is this guy. Some people knew who he was. Some people didn't. It doesn't surprise me. I have been told, I have been told that MLS is already in the beginning

phases of planning out next season, which is a pretty fundamentally important one for them, because they're doing that switch, their quote unquote sprint season, where they're trying to set things up to move to a winter season to align with the rest of the European leagues. I have been told that they, everyone is still working on the premise that, They're going to be playing it in Vancouver. And the white caps are operating as such. It's business as usual. Everything is being planned that they will still be tenants in BC place for that

short and sprint season that will be played in short order after MLS Cup gets handed out in December. Okay. I feel like I'm interviewing you here. No, I got answers. Okay. So what happened with that report that someone was working on a four to five year memorandum of understanding? And boy, am I getting tired of memorandums of understanding. And they were going to play at BC Place,

and that would maybe give them some runway to get a new stadium build. Was that anything to do with the meeting yesterday? Because there was some optimism around there. But what I'm not understanding is at that meeting, who had the authority to sign off on anything like that? That's a great question. Is it anyone from the provincial government? Because they are the ones that theoretically run BC Place.

Yeah. According to Patrick Johnson's sources in the province, and this is from overnight, this is the quote directly from the piece, a source suggested recently that the white caps believe that finding stability a BC place over the next five to ten years would win the club

time to properly develop their own stadium and when they have such a plan in place, investors would return to the table. I am getting... So the white caps could do the legwork on getting a stadium site all, like actually do the work as opposed to, you know, like we've got this site, why don't you come in,

you do the work? I don't know if I want to classify is kicking the can down the road. But I think it's more like staving off elimination because we are in Stanley Cup playoff time. Sure. You just keep fighting to stay alive and get more corporate dollars in the door. Maybe

find a way to get better revenue out of BC place. Maybe get a better tenancy agreement. And then there's also another... Just trying to improve everything. So the picture improves and maybe then you get a... You have time to figure out a new stadium. The Whitecaps have said of the

close to 100 potential buyers that have come through and opted to look at the books. 30 of them have gone the route of we will open up our books and show you what we've got available as well. There's a mutual understanding there. So there are interesting parties. I think 30 of them were qualified buyers. Right. Right. They were like, you guys are, okay, fine.

They got vetted and it's like, yeah, yeah, you could actually do this. You're not just trying to, you know, buy us with a bag of magical beans. So I think what the hope now is, are we able to save the white caps? No, but we might be able to. put off relocating this team to Vegas. Because you got to remember, with this Vegas bid that is established and has been reported by multiple outlets,

it's not a slam dunk. They don't have anywhere to play in Vegas right now. They could probably come up with some sort of alternate solution. Couldn't they play it a legion? They could. But MLS hasn't traditionally loved those situations and setups. Also, you know what else they don't like?

BC Place. This is bigger than BC Place. I think they'd probably have a hard time with the building, but again, I think before they went to Vegas, they'd want real certainty that a new stadium was going to get built. See, the thing is with Vegas, like, it's hard

to build anywhere, but it's not that hard to build in Vegas. Yeah. Allegiant wasn't that hard to build. Now, the baseball, it's been a little bit trickier, for sure. That required public financing and what's been reported so far is that this group, which has deep pockets. The Gustavsons.

Yeah. They're loaded. Yeah. They ski a lot. I don't know. They aren't planning to dip into public financing. They're going to privately finance this by themselves. So it should be easier than finding a stadium that requires, like, the county to, I don't know, sell bonds. One final one on this meeting yesterday. So a lot of people have asked about the involvement of indigenous groups.

Again, this is from Patrick Johnson, who's done an excellent job sourcing some of this stuff, talking to the people that he knows around the situation. source confirmed to the province that there have been past expressions of interest from at least a Musqueam group in buying a stake in the team. I've also heard this, the three prominent indigenous groups

that are at the table have all sort of expressed a certain level of interest, but Musqueam was the one and that kind of corroborated by Patrick Johnson here. I also have heard that while they might not be able to necessarily have the funding today,

because it is a big price tag for an MLS team, stretching things out, expanding, delaying a move might allow not necessarily them to get the funding, but to bring other people in and have a consortium type bid to keep the team locally. Finally, I want one more note on this, too. I should mention that the white caps have reached out to the business community and essentially said help. The Vancouver, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade

had a signed open letter from over 400 businesses in which they are committed to bridging the revenue gap through sponsorships, partnerships, and group ticket programs. So people are responding within the local business community. Okay. Let's dip into the Dunbar Lumber text line now. Marcus and Vic texts in. And he said, I feel like I'm the only one underwhelmed by these front office moves.

And he's talking about Ryan Johnson and the Seneens. Is this franchise really in a position where the best we can do is two rookie internal hires. Has the team been so good that the solution is to give promotions? I 100% get and agree with the character angle and these are all great guys, but this whole thing screams cheap and easy from ownership. I'm a bit skeptical. I'm glad you flagged this text. Marcus, you are, you're not the only one. Who's wondering about all this. You know, Mike and I said yesterday that we love. We love. We love. the character angle and we love that it's being addressed and we would be real hypocrites if we didn't give credit to the Canucks for paying attention to this factor right like I mean we were the ones

that were on the air every morning like this culture is screwed up I'm sick of looking these guys like looking so miserable all the time I'm sick of stories coming up about teammates fighting with each other or bullying going on in the dressing room. I'm tired of, you know, people leaving because they don't want to be here anymore or going to other teams and then, you know, talking badly about the Canucks. I think that's, that's embarrassing. So, you know, I'm glad they are addressing that. But we also said yesterday, like, we have questions about their ability to do the job, you know, and it's, and it's all well and good to bring in high character. people and get them involved.

We said the same thing about Shane Don't. We were like, yeah, I'd love for him to be involved with the team, but in what capacity? And what are you qualified to do? You know, and I think if you're hearing stories and reports that money has been a factor in all this, that's concerning. We want the Canucks to be a team that spins, not reckless, but freely outside of the cap. And that's going to be one of the things that differentiates a lot of teams.

Are they going to spend money on a big staff? Are they going to invest in sports science? Are they going to invest in analytics? And that's the key word, invest. You know, you make investments hoping that there is a return in some way down the line. That's why you invest in a practice facility. You don't build a practice facility and be like, okay, where's the Stanley Cup? We got a practice facility.

It's just an investment in your organization. And right now, it does feel like there's a lack of investment in the organization. That's fair. Okay. And, you know, the Canucks have always been willing to spend on players. I said earlier, like sometimes do their. detriment because you get in trouble when you spend poorly in the NHL with the hard cap and the fact that it is very tough to buy out players.

You can't cut players. Sometimes you are stuck with bad contracts that you then have to actually use assets to get rid of. We all know that. But what separates a lot of the teams now is their willingness to invest in coaches, management, you know, again, you know, sports science, analytics. And back in the Mike Gillis years, the connects were one of the leaders in all this. And it was like, and, you know, it's actually, you know, if you weren't following the team back in 2011,

ownership was pretty popular. Yeah. Like they were like, yeah, these guys are, you know, like doing everything that, uh, that they can to win a Stanley Cup. Here's the money. Here are the people. Go to your thing. Yeah. And for the most part, they stayed out of things for the most part.

And, you know, I still remember being down in San Jose for the conference final. And the owner was there. And the owner was celebrated. You know? And then things started to change a little bit when the team went through some struggles and you started hearing about some meddling that was going on. And then the narrative turned a little bit. And it's never really recovered from there.

It looked like it was going to recover a little bit a couple of years ago when Jim Rutherford and Patrick Alvin were making some good moves and the Canucks looked like they were on the mend. But then things, everything fell apart again. And here we are. But I am a little concerned about the spending levels. I don't want the Canucks who are still one of the top revenue teams in the league. I don't want them to be considered one of these teams that are like,

oh, we'd like to do that, but we can't afford it. And that makes it very difficult to win the Stanley Cup. Carolina is maybe the exception. They don't spend very much. And they're kind of famous for not spending much on their executives. And they've got very good executives and a very good coach too. in Rod Brindamore. But they go about things very differently.

They have their own style. And they invest in thinkers in their front office, Eric Tulski being maybe the preeminent thinker when it comes to NHLGMs. So they have a way that works for them. And, you know, if you have a way that works for you and you're not spending money, then you're just, then you're, then you're smart. You're smart not to spend. Yeah, you're smart not to spend money, right?

Like some of the, some of the bad teams, like teams like the Leafs and, you know, sometimes the Rangers, like they would get accused of just throwing money at problems, but not really knowing how to solve those problems. It would just throw some money at it and, and try to figure it out. Not fixing it. But like, I don't know where the Canucks are right now. And it's certainly not throwing money at problems. and they got a lot of them.

So on that text that came in asking about being underwhelmed by these front office moves, the promotion specifically of the cityans, and this has been mentioned a few times, and I do want to address it, the notion of what element of this is a PR move?

Is any of it a PR move? And it's costic, but, you know, I want to try and go at this from all sides and acknowledged that those that are pointing it out, it's a fair comment or at least a fair question to be asked because of the history of this organization, especially since the last time we had an ex-player of this level of prominence

get promoted to such a role was back in 2014 when Trevor Linden got named the president of hockey ops. And if you remember the exact same, the same thing was suggest. I'll put it that way, that this might have been a PR hire first and foremost. You'll remember that Lyndon was hired the day after Mike Gillis was fired back in 2014. A lot of people were saying the timing alone was to take the sting away from an organization that was floundering at the time. You'll remember in 2013, 2014, that was the sort of infamous John Tororella year. That was the one in which the team missed the playoffs for the first time in five years. it was a down time for the organization.

Well, fast forward to 2026. There are some similarities there. You could definitely make the argument that this is a downtime for this organization. Dead last than 32nd in the NHL. Raising ticket prices, despite having the worst on-ice product in the entire national hockey league last year.

There are some people who are wondering how much of this is the organization looking for just a little bit of goodwill and a little bit of PR. Now, my personal perspective, I do not agree with that assessment, but it's hard not to look at past history and say, well, when Lyndon came aboard in 2014, I know it was 12 years ago, didn't have a ton of experience, and there were some questions as to why he was getting as prominent a role as he was at the time.

And some people are asking, hey, are the Siddines ready for this right now? Are they ready to take on this monumental and consequential role in an organization? I like the idea that they'd just hire a couple guys that nobody can be mad at. I mean... What are you going to? What are you going to yell at these guys? Come on. Look at these guys.

You're listening to the one of the most negative and sarcastic radio shows, maybe in the history of radio. We're skeptical of everything. And I can't even be skeptical of the cities because I love them so damn much. but, but if you're to take a step back and look outside your inherent biases, I do wonder between this organization's history of kind of seeing like what, what's going on out there that's hip and cool and new. What's that's happening?

In the light of what Toronto did with Sundin and then all of a sudden, very shortly after we get this news that the Sadiens are being promoted to the prominent role that they are. And you brought this up. I'm still very curious about when they went to the Sadiens in this whole process. You just have to ask the question. How long have they been talking to them about these roles? You just have to ask that question.

And I know we did it earlier in the week. And I was going back and forth and trying to play the devil's advocate role. But, you know, it's hard not to think that maybe someone at Kine HQ is saying, hey, you know, for as much, you know, heat as the Chica hire got in Toronto. They sure seemed to like that Sundeen hire. maybe it'll work for us. The Siddines bring a lot to the table. They really do.

And I think that goes without saying. And we've sung their praises throughout the week. But the one thing they do not bring is high level front office managerial experience. And there are enough people listening to this show and weighing into the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket that are echoing that same sentiment. Is it a great story? Yes. Is it a great narrative? Yes.

Are they high character guys? Yes. but are they 100% the best candidates to lead a team at the infancy of a rebuild? I can't say for certain yes. And I feel bad. I want to. I want these guys to succeed. I want this to work.

I want this whole thing to come true. But you got to acknowledge that if you look at a lot of the trends around the National Hockey League and you look at a lot of the teams that have been successful, a bit of a different set of circumstances. A lot more experience than a lot of other places. there's at least one computer boy or plural boys in the mix. I mean, you just, and this is just, you look around the league and who's been successful and how they've been successful.

They're decidedly different tact. It doesn't mean other ones can't be successful and that this can't work, but it leaves something to be asked. And you got to ask the questions. That's all. You absolutely have to ask the questions. Okay. Our one of the program in the books, before we go to break, I need to remind you that the

duik Auto Group is the official automotive. a sponsor of Halford-in-Brough. Find out why nobody beats a Duick deal and when nobody has since 1926. Visit Duke GM on Marine Drive. Visit them downtown. Visit them in Richmond and visit them online to the Duick Auto Group.com. Second hour of the program is on the horizon. Adnan Verk's going to join us first for some MLB talk. And then at 730, Mark Spector is going to join us out of Edmonton for the biggest news of the morning. Chris Knoblock is out as the head coach of the Evanton Oilers. It was widely expected. They announced it. Well, they actually haven't announced it yet. It was reported.

by two major outlets at 558 local time this morning. So there's a lot to unpack from Edmonton. We'll do all that in hour two. You're listening to the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet, 650.