Halford & Brough in the Morning - What's Going On With Nikita Zadorov?

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

In hour one, Mike & guest host Jamie Dodd look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they discuss the Nikita Zadorov situation and if he'll re-sign (11:00), plus they chat a lackluster game one of the NBA Finals with the Boston Globe's Adam Himmelsbach (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.

Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-d Oh, what a slam from Jalen Brown. No, not Brown, Brown, Brown. But he gets it in the air to right. Shantan Deer back. It's going to go. Straight three ball. You've got to be shaving me. Ladies and gentlemen, the weekend. Good morning, Vancouver 601 on a Friday.

Happy Friday, everybody. Sweet, sweet Friday. It is Halford. It is not Brough. It is Jamie Dodd. It is the Halford and Brough show, though we are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jamie, good morning. Good morning. Andy, A-Dawg, good morning to you. Good morning. Greg, Laddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello.

Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Laddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Alfred and Bruff in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff. They can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought

to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler. Pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling. They recycle, metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling. They recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider

powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sore feet. What are you waiting for? Kintec, that is what you are waiting for. We got a lot to get to on a busy Friday show on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Our guest list, it will begin at 630. Adam Himmelsbach

is going to join us. Who's he, you might ask? Boston Celtics beat reporter for the Boston Globe. We will talk to him in the wake of Boston's 107-89 whipping of the Dallas Mavericks in game one. It was a beatdown. Sorry to all those that I pushed towards watching that game last night.

It did not even come close to living up to the hype. I blame it on the 10 days off between the conference finals and the NBA finals. Anyway, Adam Himmelsbach from the Boston Globe is going to join us at 630. So in what happened, we'll do a really brief recap of last night's game. We'll leave the majority of the NBA talk till 6.30 when we speak to Adam. It's 7 o'clock. It's AJ from AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. 7.05, David Dwork.

Dwork is going to join the program. He is a Florida Panthers beat writer from the Hockey News. We'll talk to him ahead of one media day today in Florida. The Oilers and the Panthers are going to meet with the media. The big media frenzy ahead of tomorrow. Game one Stanley Cup final from Florida between the Panthers and the Oilers. 7.30, Ben Nicholson-Smith is going to join us. We'll talk a little Jays with Ben after a salvaged series against the Baltimore Orioles.

We'll talk to Ben about that at 7.30. 8 o'clock, Rick Dollywall. What is going on with Nikita Zdorov? You got him out there twisting in the wind. You got his agent firing shots at IMAC. IMAC just trying to do his job. It's all very spicy out there in free agent land, so we'll talk to Dollywall about that

at 8 o'clock. Here's the big one. Call it the big one. Call it the big two, two giveaways today on the program. We're giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's pizza on East Broadway for the best. Ask us anything. Oh yeah, that's right.

It's Friday on the Halford and Brough show. It's ask us anything. The premise is quite simple. You ask Jamie and I anything, anything. And if you want to ask his alter ego, Jimmy Dodd, who wears sunglasses and gambles, you can do

that too. Hashtag it AUA. Dunbar-Lummer text line is 650-650. Now here's the key. Put a pizza emoji into that text and make it a good Ask Us Anything. You'll be entered into the contest to win a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. Yes, Greg? The dogs are also taking Ask Us Anythings, too.

Any cereal-related questions? Andy's your guy. Cereal? Korean baseball. Korean baseball. I'm your guy. Goaltending and then movie trilogies and series, right? You got it.

Sci-fi. Video games? Video games, for sure. We cover all the aspects here. Right. So Ask Us Anything Friday, $100 gift card to AJ's. That's up for grabs also last day that we're giving away tickets to see snoop snoopaloo snoop dog snoop lion uh june

25th rogers arena last day we're giving away tickets pair of tickets best what we learned if you want to win those send in to the dunbar lumber text line of what we learned tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports. Hashtag it, WWL. Put a ticket emoji into the text. You'll be entered into the contest to see Snoop in 18 days' time at Rogers Arena. Okay, take a deep breath. Working in reverse on the guest list.

8 o'clock, Rick Dollywall. 7.30, Ben Nicholson-Smith. 7 o'clock, David Dwork. Sorry, 7.05 for Dwork. 7 o'clock, David Dwork. Sorry, 7.05 for Dwork. 7 o'clock, AJ from AJ's Pizza. 6.30, Adam Himmelsbach for a little NBA talk. That's what's happening on the program today. Laddie,

let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened? What happened is brought to you by the

BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. Very quickly, we'll start with the National Basketball Association in the search for the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

Jalen Brown, 22 points. Chris Dapp's Porzingis. Where did that come from? Huge impact off the bench with 20 points of his own. The Boston Celtics hammered the Daleks Mavericks 107-89 on Thursday night to take game one of the finals. If you were wondering about Luka Doncic, he finished with 30 points. If you were wondering about Kyrie Doncic, he finished with 30 points. If you were wondering about Kyrie Irving, he struggled throughout.

He was booed throughout, and he finished with 12 points. The Celtics are now three wins away from the NBA title. Thoughts on the game, Jim? Pretty much everybody other than Luka Doncic really struggled for the Dallas Mavericks. And it was interesting. I mean, Porzingis, massive impact, especially in the first half. There was a moment there where it felt like, okay, going to get interesting i think the mavs got it down to eight in the third quarter and then jaylen brown kind of took over and it kind of just illustrated

you know jason tatum didn't have that great a night he had 16 points 6 to 16 from the field but the celtics are so deep right it was perzingis in the first half giving them what they needed and then jaylen brown in the second. They have so many options when they need those big plays, and they end up having a comfortable win in game one. As I mentioned off the top, I do apologize to any of you that might have said, hey, this Halford guy is talking about the NBA. I'm going to try basketball. You know, he's always talking about the Hoopies,

and this sounds like an exciting series, this whole Kyrie narrative. I'm buying into it. It was a dog of a game I'll say this I should have should have realized that a 10-day layoff may have caused some rust may have had guys a little janky a little out of sorts it was a sloppy basketball game I actually didn't think the Celtics played that incredibly well either uh it just looked like the Mavericks were disjointed and once they got off to a massive 25-point deficit in the first half,

unlike previous series against the Clippers and the OKC Thunder, where they had spotted the opposition that big of a lead and came back, it felt like it was a task too tall for Dallas in the NBA Finals against a very good Boston team, and it proved to be, ultimately.

And it was interesting to hear some of the Mavericks players after the game admit, yeah, the crowd noise in Boston got to us and that'd be a little concerning I think if you were a Mavs fan but maybe hey they've had the experience in game one so game two they'll be used to it and they'll be able to execute a little bit better now as we pivot to the NHL and the Vancouver Canucks a brief sojourn to the Stanley Cup final I am a bit worried that Saturday's game one in Florida is going to have vibes like that. It's a long time to be off because when you're in the playoffs,

you're basically, and I've seen, when Brett and I used to work at NBC, we'd go on the road for the Cup final, and one thing I would always do is just watch the players go through the repetitiveness and the monotony of wake up, try and eat some food, nap, wake up, game, go home, try and sleep. And then you do that for two and then you travel.

Right. So you get in a routine and a rhythm of how your body's working and you're tired. You're beat up. You're at the end of a long road. So all of a sudden to throw a week long plus break into that. I'm not surprised that the teams were a little bit off last night. I'd be very curious to see how it impacts the Oilers and Panthers on Saturday night. And we're just so late on the calendar.

I was saying just before the show, I saw the Washington Capitals tweeted it was six years ago today that they won their Stanley Cup. The finals wrapped up today in the Washington-Vegas series. We haven't even started yet. We haven't even had game one yet in this year's. My hot take is everyone else is complaining about the length of the NHL schedule and trying to shorten it. I like to work against the grain here.

I think we should make it longer. If we could push the playoffs and the Stanley Cup final into late July, early August, I think we might be onto something. You could capitalize on the entire calendar. You, sir, are an agent of chaos. What they should do is one game a week. One game every

Saturday, and you just have so much time to hype it up in between. Maybe you could travel around to different neutral sites around the country. Let the boys rest. Let the fellas have some off days for some golf. Think about it. We're already going late. We're going into the summer anyway. May as well make it the full nine and go into August. Okay.

Vancouver Canucks talk. So just when we thought that we were going to get through a week where the only real talking points were behind the bench. Ah, the trio of Ian McIntyre, Nikita Zdorov, and Nikita Zdorov's agent, Dan Milstein, decided to spice things up. Jamie, I'm going to turn over to you because you are a very talented radio host. That's so true. Walk our listeners through exactly what happened yesterday because I didn't even really grasp it. Well, let's not forget also Rick Dollywall involved in this. And kind of the first reports yesterday came from Rick Dollywall, who we'll talk to later on in the show, on Donnie and Dolly.

And the word he used describing negotiations between Zdorov and the Canucks, the chances of Zdorov returning to the Canucks and signing a new contract. He used the word bleak, basically said there hadn't been a lot going on, not a lot of talks, maybe suggesting maybe even there was some frustration from Dan Milstein that there weren't more talks between the two. Shortly after that, however, IMAC, our colleague here at Sportsnet, tweeted out that there had been significant traction. Those are his words, quote, significant traction in talks between the Canucks and both Nikita Zdorov and another unrestricted free agent, Elias Lindholm. Then Zdorov's agent, Dan Milstein, who is not shy about mixing things up on Twitter, enjoys, I think, the Canucks Twitter experience, called IMAX report fake news, simply quote tweeting it and saying fake news, the idea that there had been significant traction. So damn, Dan Milstein, you kind of OK, what does it all mean? What does this all mean?

Is somebody getting bad information? What's going on here? Are who's leaking? What, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought both both Saty shah and drance yesterday pointed out on the station that uh this management team does have a history of getting deals done right after some elbows get thrown publicly right so it's not as if like uh-oh there's there's different things coming out and maybe both sides are trying to get their story out it's not as if that's the

kiss of death to something getting done it happened i think most notably when brock besser signed his last deal so if you're committed to Zdorov sticking around, not necessarily time to panic. Now, on the other hand, I was thinking about this a lot yesterday, and we've heard consistently from Elliott Friedman, among others, and we'll hear from Friedman in a little bit here, for some fresh 32 Thoughts audio, that the Canucks basically know what it's going to take to keep Zdorov.

It sounds like he has a very specific price in mind. The Canucks are aware of that. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of negotiating to be done. So, you know, I'm sure the Canucks would really like to grind Zdorov down to a more favorable number. But I think from Milstein's perspective, he's just looking at it as a it's a binary yes or no thing. Like, here's my price.

Yeah. Meet it or don't. And if you're not meeting it, there's no traction. I gave you the discount. We can't discount the discount. The hometown discount cannot be further discounted. And that might account for the discrepancy in the reports from Dollywall and IMAC yesterday, right?

If the Canucks have moved up from their number, moved closer to Zdorov's number, they may see it as significant traction. Milstein might see it as not close to good enough. Yeah, and that's a perfect assessment of what probably went on. If you have followed enough free agent periods, the song and dance during negotiations is often the same, right? Sometimes there's a wrinkle on the lyrics.

Sometimes there's a baseline, but it's always the same song and inevitably the same, right? Sometimes there's a wrinkle on the lyrics, sometimes there's a baseline, but it's always the same song and inevitably the same dance. There's the elbows thrown, as you so eloquently put it, in the media, especially when you have as active an agent as Dan Milstein and a market that has covered this thoroughly

like it is in Vancouver. You got people prying for stories. Speaking of people prying into the story on the latest 32 Thoughts podcast, Elliott Friedman took his stab at what's going on with Zdorov and the Canucks. Here now, Elliott Friedman. The latest on the Vancouver Canucks,

including Elias Lindholm, Nikita Zdorov. What do you hear? What do you know? Well, if Nikita Zdorov keeps golfing with Vancouver media people, there's going to be a story a day. He's on the golf course the other day with Murph. And now there's all of these scoops about what he's asking for,

how close they've been. Are they making progress? Are they not making progress? This is what I can tell you I think Nikita's Adora has a number and the Vancouver Canucks and and I don't know when it was I don't know if it was before the playoffs or I don't want to get into all of the infighting in Vancouver right now. I just believe Zdorov has a number, and it might actually be a little less than he could get in the open market to stay in Vancouver.

I don't think Vancouver is far away from it, but I don't think they've hit it. Now, I think they know what it's going to take to sign Myers, and they can just park it like a Sierra Elevation. When you don't need to use it, you just park it over there, and you say, I'll get you when I'm ready. That's what I think they're doing with Myers. When it comes to Zdorov, I don't think they're far, but they haven't gotten there. And because I think Zdorov is inclined to give them a bit of a break, they have to get there. I don't want to handicap it.

I don't want to say it's this percentage or that percentage. I think Vancouver is trying to make the best deal they can. They're not there. And we'll see where we go here. I don't think this is impossible, but I think they have to get there. Because I think Zdorov knows if he gets to the open market, he's going to be happy with what's out there. So it's going to be up to the Canucks to get to the number he wants. Okay.

Okay. Linholm. So I remember a couple of weeks ago on the pod, I think it was actually during the playoffs. We said that we talked about how the recruiting efforts from the Canucks players were pretty intense. You got to stay. You got to stay.

You got to find a way to stay. I still think that that's going on. This is my guess okay I think the Canucks are willing to go in the 7x7 range I'm just not sure it's going to get it done that's a good way that's a bomb

to drop it down that's a lot of money and a lot of term possibly shows how enamored they are with the big Russian defenseman. And if that is the case, I'll be curious to see what kind of money is left to spend on everybody else because there was another contract. That was the Lindholm 7x7.

Sorry, okay, good. Yeah, that was the tease where we wanted to talk about next. Sorry, I got confused there in the moment. The Lindholm situation was also brought up in connection with zadoroff yesterday because as ian mcintyre threw out there on twitter which was rebuked in part by dan millstein not lindholm's agent though so maybe not take the twitter yesterday uh your thoughts on what you heard about lindholm yeah so i mean seven by seven, that is a big, big number, right?

And, you know, they got in after that clip. They got into a little bit of a back and forth about whether you can afford to pay your third line center that much money in that much term. And Elliott Freeman apparently is calling everything loser thinking these days. So he decided to call that loser thinking. But, like, I think there's a lot to that. I mean, you already are paying JT Miller $8 million well into his 30s. You're paying Elias Pettersson $11.6 million for the remainder of his prime and into his 30s. Elias Lindholm is $29 million. And I know he was really, really good for you in the playoffs.

But you also look at his career trajectory over the last couple of years. It doesn't paint that pretty of a picture. I don't know. I don't look at it and think, oh, that's a player. I want to be investing big money as he ages into his 30s in. And okay, I guess maybe you could make the case. All right. Like, can you move Patterson to the wing and you move Lindholm up to the top six and then you're you know you're at least solidifying your top six a little bit I guess but I just look at Lindholm and I understand the face-offs and the physicality and all of that but what have we been talking about so much with the Canucks it's the need for more scoring punch in the top six and I think you're already paying Miller a lot you're already paying Pedersen a lot. The next big ticket contract you give out to a forward, I think it's got to be somebody

with some game-breaking offensive upside. I don't know if you can afford to pay that much and commit that much into the future for a guy who so much of his utility is penalty killing, is defensive, is face-offs, who you're not sure is going to have that legit kind of top six offensive upside going forward. No, it's a good point to bring out because Ben Kuzma earlier in the week for the province astutely pointed out that if they wanted to go one, two, three down the middle next year with Miller, Pettersson, and then Pugh-Suter sort of reemerging as a, you know, a fine 3C in the NHL, as opposed to when you would have Miller, Pettersson, Lindholm, where you're

talking about maybe, you know, I don't know how many other teams are going to rival that quality of centers in the National Hockey League. They have a cheaper, fine option available in Suter. And I'm kind of with you. It's like, I don't know. I know they like Lindholm. I think it was very obvious that Rutherford's past connection with the player

and the way that they went out and got him early. Paying him 7x7 low would be insane. Like, there's no way they can do that. I understand it conceptually. And he's not going to allow it. I understand. It would be bad. No, I like Lindholm.

He's putting his foot down. I like Lindholm. He's great in the playoffs. I'd love to see him come back. I'm just saying a 7x7 would be nuts. I would understand it conceptually from we're paying in the first half and understanding that the back half is not going to age well, but we're in our window right now.

Yeah. I mean, there are going to be teams that are going to be clamoring for his services this offseason, right? I think Boston's going to be right at the front of the line. He'll get paid. He'll get paid. So the idea would be, can we get a guy that's going to make his money elsewhere

and is going to be a highly sought-after commodity if we tack on a year or two extra of term can we keep him in the mix right his stuff's here he's familiar with what we want to do he got better as the season went along the break really revitalized him and i would say of guys that showed who can and can't play in the playoffs zadorov absolutely or sorry zadorov lindholm absolutely ticked the the box in the playoffs, Zdorov absolutely, or sorry, Zdorov, Lindholm absolutely ticked the box in the former. He was a very, very good playoff performer. All that being said, seven times seven is a lot. It's a lot of money.

It's a lot of term for a guy that's that close to 30. And I can understand why some people would be concerned. I do wonder, the other part of what Friedman reported there on Lindholm is that there's been a really intense recruiting effort from the players. The players really saying, hey, man, you've got to stay. You were a big part of the team. You were so great in the playoffs. Can they convince him to take less? Well, you understand that, and I do wonder if, thinking

back to the post-bubble exodus, if management feels like they have to really go right to their limit where they're comfortable, to be seen to do so with Lindholm, because of the players. Right. They don't want to they don't want to see is like, oh, we just let this guy walk.

We were never going to sign him when the players liked him so much and wanted him to stick around. So I'm not saying it's all smoke and mirrors or anything like that. But I wonder if there's an element of kind of publicly doing their due diligence and doing their best to sign Lindholm to kind of send a message to the players who want him to stick around. So real quick before we go to break, because we're up against it for time here, I did want to mention one other story from yesterday. We'll get to the Rick Ball thing maybe later. Maybe I'll do it in what we learned.

For those that missed it, Rick Ball, longtime voice of the Calgary Flames is now on his way to become the voice of the Chicago Blackhawks. We can discuss that a little bit later, but that puts a bow on the NHL stuff for now. I do want to mention the Canadian soccer friendly yesterday. Canada went to the Netherlands and got thumped 4-0 by the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands. And it was a up and down, largely negative, I would say, performance. Especially in the second half for the Canadian squad under the new gaffer, Jesse Marsh. This coming after a good first half, in which they pressed high, they showed some interesting things tactically,

they created a few pretty good chances, they defended well when they were put under pressure, and they went into the half tied nil-nil. And then it all really fell apart in the second half. Jesse Marsh talked after the game and said, four nil is not a very appealing scoreline when you see it hanging up there at the end of 90 minutes.

He thought it wasn't entirely indicative of the match. Here's my big takeaway, Jamie Dodd, and this is going to be the biggest thing that Jesse Marsh is going to have to figure out, and this is the biggest thing that media are going to glom onto, it's how are they going to utilize and deploy Alphonso Davies. It was the premier, put it this way, in a match where they conceded four and did not score,

and there were a lot of other talking points that didn't really pertain to Davies, everyone was talking about Alphonso Davies after the match. Because right now, for club at Bayern, and then possibly in the future in Real Madrid, he's a left back. By trade, through and through, he plays on the outside as a defender. He's one of the best in the world at doing it. That's why he's such a sought-after commodity.

There's an idea and an understanding that for his national team, he has to play in a more central role, in a more advanced role, because you need to take advantage of all the talents and skills and natural physical ability that Alphonso Davies has. The issue with that is that, again, by trade, he plays this one position, and he plays it very well. And he played it yesterday for Canada, and it didn't go especially well. Wouldn't say it was one of his stronger matches by any stretch,

but there were a lot of people clamoring for Marsh to throw him up front, play him at striker, play him in the middle of the park, let him do the things that his God-given gifts allow him to do. And fair or not, Marsh is going to have to either address it or figure it out because it was one of the predominant talking points and again, this morning, you know, there's a million things to take away from a 4-0 loss to a team

a Netherlands team that is highly ranked in the FIFA rankings but put out essentially their B team yesterday and still managed to find great joy against Canada, so there's a lot to be taken away but the Davies thing is going to be at the top of that list. Okay, we got a lot more to get to on the Halford & Brough show

on Sportsnet 650 featuring Jamie Dodd. Adam Himmelsbach from the Boston Globe is going to join us on the other side. We're going to talk about game one of the NBA Finals last night. Big win for the Celtics. They are now three wins away from capturing a Larry O'Brien trophy. Then at 7 o'clock, we're going to talk

to AJ from AJ's Pizza, David Dwork from Florida ahead of Media Day at the Stanley Cup Final, and Ben Nicholson-Smith for a little Blue Jays talk as well. There's lots more to get to. Don't go anywhere. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet at 6.50. It's Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and

Satyar Shah, your destination for everything Canucks. Exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the postgame show. Listen 4-6pm info, and even the post-game show. Listen 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app. 6.32 on a Fiesta Friday here on the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. I realize we have a lot of things going on on this show.

It's Fiesta Friday. We're giving away tickets to see Snoop on June 25th. We're giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. Jamie Dodd is in for the vacationing Jason Brough. Am I missing anything? Is there anything that I missed? No, you got everything, I think. It's called administrative nonsense. That's what we coined the term as. And we do a lot of it here. You guys are the kings.

We are the best. We are the best at administrative nonsense. Adam Himmelsbach is going to join us in a moment here from the Boston Globe to talk about the Celtics big win last night, game one of the NBA finals. Before we get to Adam, I need to do a few things. One, I need to tell you about Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's

premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. I also need to tell you that Hour 1 of this program is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling. They's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal.

Northstar Metal Recycling. They recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. To the phone lines we go. Adam Himmelsbach from the Boston Globe joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Adam. How are you?

Great, guys. How's it going? We're good. Thanks for taking the time to do this. We appreciate it. Set the scene for our listeners who weren't able to go to the Garden last night. Game one, NBA Finals, lengthy layoff, lots of boos for Kyrie, and then, of course, a big 107-89 win for Boston to continue what has been a very dominant playoff for the Celtics. Yeah, it's kind of as you expect.

Early in these playoffs, the Garden didn't really feel like playoff garden. They're playing really kind of lower profile and just severely undermanned teams that besides Miami don't really have big rivalries. And the Mavericks and Celtics certainly don't have a rivalry, but as you mentioned, they have Kyrie. So that spices things up in the city whenever he arrives. It felt like this year, for the first time, it kind of calmed down during the regular season,

but it definitely ramped right back up. He booed every time he touches the ball, booed during introductions, that type of thing. But ultimately, the Celtics have done a good job just tuning everything out, whether it's diary noise, expectations. They're just so focused on the job at hand all year long and have done a great job of just staying locked in,

and that was just another example of it last night. Like I mentioned, the long layoff, it didn't matter. Kristaps Porzingis comes back. Oh, is he going to be rusty? No, he was probably the best player on the floor. Everything really is running smoothly for this team all year. You wrote that the boos could, quote, best be described as half-hearted jeers

rather than the vitriolic ones we've heard in the past. Was that because of the game effects? The Celtics got out to such a big lead early, or is it that maybe the vitriol for Kyrie has actually died down a little bit? Yeah, I think it's a combination that it's died down a little bit in general.

And also, people realize this is the finals. Fans are more concerned at this point about trying to finally win that championship that's been so elusive. And that's where the team's focus is, and that's what the you know the team's focus is and that's what the fans um care most about at this point yeah and i mean kairi certainly struggled last

night 6 to 19 from the field 12 points it as much it seems like the crowd noise the crowd effect really threw uh the entire dallas team with the possible exception of Luka Doncic, off their games. Yeah, and honestly, it was loud there, but I'm sure it obviously wasn't at the Minnesota series, but it was probably pretty similar to that. I don't think necessarily they're shook by the crowd itself, but I could see a situation where the spotlight got to them a little bit. These are a lot of young guys and a lot of guys that basically beyond Kyrie don't have finals experience,

whereas the Celtics team, most of this entire core was on the finals squad that made it to the finals against the Warriors two years ago. Talk about spotlight. Imagine your first time going against the Steph Curry Warriors dynasty. Then then of course drew holiday comes over the team and he has a championship already so i think you maybe you saw a little bit of that yesterday you mentioned porzingis's performance in his return of course missed 10 games comes in comes off the bench last night 20 points in just 21 minutes and it was really like exactly what you kind of picture

porzingis doing in your mind's eye, right? The shooting, the scoring, the rim protection, all of it. What's the plan now for him going forward? Is he going to keep coming off the bench or the minutes going to be ramped up? Because it seems like, I mean, if they're getting anything close to that type of performance on a nightly basis

from Porzingis, it's going to be very, very difficult for the Mavs to beat them. Yeah, assuming he came through last night okay, which all indications were that he did, I would expect his minutes to be ramped up. They haven't said anything or probably even decided yet if they're going to bring him off

the bench again. It's one of those things where it's like that worked really well, actually. Coaches like to stick with what's working and even superstition involved. And their starting lineup with Al Horford at center has been excellent during the playoffs. But at the same time, you saw what Chris Stout can do.

Like, he was the best player on the floor for most of the time he was on the floor last night. So generally, if that's the case, you want that guy out there as much as possible, assuming he's able. And, you know, he said he felt good. I thought he would be more winded. Obviously, he didn't play that much. But even the pace of the game, because, you know, the calf injury, it's not like when

you fracture a wrist and you can still be on the treadmill all day long. He wasn't really able to do much running, but he really looked great. How important was it for Jalen Brown to have the type of impact? He had the two-way impact, especially. And it was really when, was really when the game got tight or slightly tight, at least there for a second, and then Brown kind of took over at the end of that third quarter and put the game out of reach for the Mavs.

Yeah, obviously he did a little scoring, but those two blocks were massive. One against Kyrie and one against Derek Jones on a dunk and Jalen's taking a lot of pride in his defense this year he said to us like over and over at press conferences throughout the regular season that he's hoping to be an all-defensive team player for the first time and with Marcus Smart no longer be on the team he wanted to really lock in and seize that role he obviously didn't make the all-defensive team, but he opened some eyes in this play. And I think with him, it's an effort-level thing.

And his effort all year at the end of the court has been really good. We're speaking to Adam Hibblesbach from the Boston Globe, talking about Boston's 107-89 win over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals last night. Adam, Game 2 won't go until Sunday. What adjustments are you expecting in Game 2, especially on the Mavericks' side of things, as they look to get a split in Boston?

Yeah, they've got to find ways to get everyone involved. You know, Luka had one assist last night, which is a career playoff low, a season low for this year. Kyrie, I think, had two assists. This isn't, you know, obviously they're going to go where that offense goes, but they're going to have to have guys hit open shots. They're going to have to get those lobs going that were so dangerous throughout these playoffs.

The Celtics did a really good job of shutting that down yesterday, but I expect Jason Kidd to look for creative ways to kind of get those alley-oops going again and really just having more of kind of like a balance after it where the ball is popping and they're getting open looks. Adam, thanks a lot for doing this today, man. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the series and thanks again for doing this.

Yeah, no problem. Have a good one. You too. Thanks. That's Adam Himblesbach from the Boston Globe here on the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. Okay, quick reset here as we kind of hone in on the second half of the first hour. We got some giveaways today. We're going to be giving away a, not a giveaway. It's a contest.

You have to win it. We're not just giving it away for free. You have to earn all of the stuff that we're giving away. We're giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. For the best, ask us anything. That premise is quite simple. Hashtag it AUA and ask us literally about anything. It does not have to be about sports.

The best one will win a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. AJ just texted me. He's going to join the show at 7 a.m. He says he has two spicy hot takes that he's going to share with us at 7. We also have Snoop tickets. He's going to be here on June 25th. That's going to go to the best of what we learned. Hashtag it, WWL.

Tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports. Put a ticket emoji into that text. Dunbar-Lemar, text line again is 650-650. And you will be entered into the grand prize draw contest for a pair of tickets to see Snoop on June 25th. What have we flagged so far, Jamie Dodd, and Dunbar-Lumber text message in basket? I'll start with this one from Colin Intuosan.

It's a what we learned and an ask us anything, although he only included the pizza emoji. So I guess this is officially an ask us anything. He says, watching the new Jim Henson documentary, I didn't realize until now that Kermit the Frog's voice was basically Jim Henson's regular voice. It was funny seeing a regular guy who naturally talks

like Kermit. That does sound funny. Yes. What would be the funniest voice for a sports broadcaster to have? Before we answer the actual question, Andy, you've watched said documentary? Yeah, I watched it the other night. It was really good.

It was directed by Ron Howard. Very, very insightful, emotional. The guy led a very interesting life. Passed away way too young. I want to say he was only 53 when he passed and left quite the legacy. And it was a really cool doc. I'm not like a big Muppets guy. I don't know much about the history of them or anything like that.

That surprises me a little bit. Yeah, I would have guessed. And he's a big Muppets guy. I never was know much about the history of them or anything like that. That surprises me a little bit. Yeah, I would have guessed. And he's a big Muppets guy. I never was for whatever reason. I mean, I like the show. It's funny. I just never really was into it. You like Labyrinth, though, right?

Also, no. Really? I was never into Labyrinth either. Yeah, I don't know why. Unbelievable. But yeah, anyways, watching the doc, it was very educational. You learned a lot about the guy. But I agree.

It was very jarring because the entire time, I just assumed Kermit was like a projection, like he changed his voice to sound like Kermit. No, Jim Henson just literally sounds like Kermit when he talks. His normal speaking voice is Kermit. So the entire time listening to this guy speak to you, you're listening to Kermit talk.

It was very weird, but a great documentary. If you have Disney+, I recommend checking it out. So I'm often jealous of sports broadcasters that have great deep, rich, baritone voices. Anyone that has the ability to do it. Like Al Murdoch. Listening to Al Murdoch talk. We were down

in Philadelphia for that sports trip that we went back at the old shop at TSN and Al was there. And we were having a conversation at the bar. And then at one point I was like, can you just keep talking? I won't interrupt. I won't say anything with my weird, nasally, gravelly voice. It's like when we have Dan Shulman on.

Dan Shulman has an amazing voice. Shulman's so good, man. There are a handful of people that are built to do it, even if they don't necessarily know anything about sports. They're like, just go talk. Just do it. Just do it. On the subject of sports broadcasters,

this actually parlays nicely into something that i wanted to talk about in the intro segment in case you missed it rick ball longtime voice of the calgary flames is on his way to chicago the blackhawks announced on thursday that baller is going to be the club's next television play-by-play announcer, this isn't just a big deal because of the gig and the original six franchise in a big market like Chicago. There's this new thing called Chicago Sports Network, which is the new television home of the Blackhawks. So they're making this big push with this new network

with this brand new voice. Now, this move is not without controversy because Baller is taking over for a guy named Chris Vosters. And he was relatively new on the job. And what's more, he took over from a Hockey Hall of Fame broadcaster in Pat Foley. And the way that it happened was they kind of held like an open competition with a bunch of different broadcasters a couple years ago. Vosters won it. And then he was a bit of a surprise choice

because he didn't have a ton of hockey background. He was a good play-by-play guy, but he had done a lot of baseball, and it was kind of outside the box. He was a young, promising broadcaster, but he didn't have a ton of hockey experience. They let it run for a couple years, and then yesterday, the Chicago Sun-Times comes out with a piece that kind of paints this as being a strained relationship and that his relationship

with Darren Pang wasn't great and it went from being this sort of really nice congrats for baller story to oh wow there's more behind the scenes here very interesting if you want to go check it out uh Chicago Sun-Times has a big i don't want to call it an expose but a look behind the scenes of you know just how important that broadcast position is especially when you're the television play-by-play voice how seriously people take it i think we all know about this in vancouver how loyal and seriously we take a guy like john shorthouse who's been doing the job for forever and is fantastic at it but it just if you want to know what other markets go through it is similar with the fans passion for who's calling the games well I think we sometimes take it for granted as well how lucky we are right with

Shorty but also I mean you like go back through history right to Jim Hewson to Jim Robson like I think Batch does an incredible job on our airwaves right now we are very very fortunate and it's not like that for every market. Some fans are very, very dissatisfied with who they have calling the games. And, I mean, Ball is going to do a fantastic job. I think Chicago fans are going to be over the moon. He's a really, really great play-by-play guy. It's interesting.

I don't know if you've seen this at all, but also in Chicago, the guy who's calling the White Sox games I think he just took over this year from people hate from no from was it Ben and Eddie went to Detroit people hate him too and as far as like one of the this is this is both like because

they don't like him and also this is how different like American sports media is one of the hosts on one of the Chicago sports radio shows it's just like actively on one of the Chicago sports radio shows is just actively railing against the White Sox play-by-play guy at all times. He doesn't know baseball. He's terrible. It's unthinkable.

Imagine if one of our hosts had this vendetta against Shorty and just constantly ripping his call. And it does happen, right? And I find it happens a lot on the television side lately because i mean let's be honest like there's a lot of people the ticket buying public is now a select few so many people will opt to consume almost the entirety of their favorite sports teams uh streaming or via television right so that job becomes incredibly important i always kind of underestimate the pressure and the amount of like scrutiny that those guys are under.

I don't know. It's just what a fun job. You get to call games for a living. But I was reading a thing at the end of Voster's first season talking about the strain and adjusting to the amount of travel and the amount of prep and double the amount of prep because he wasn't a hockey guy by trade. Right. by trade, right? And I don't think it's any surprise that the Blackhawks went almost entirely in a different direction when it came time to naming a new guy and that they got Baller, who's got a wealth of hockey experiences, called games at the highest

level for over a decade, came from a Canadian market where it's the lifeblood of the market. So kudos to Baller. I just kind of wanted to give a little bit of background there as to the new gig that he's taking over in Chicago. Yeah, congratulations. And interesting also to hear that, you know, the Darren Pang element there, right?

That maybe he was like, yeah, this guy's not cutting it. Well, that happens. Yeah, that happens. Right? They all don't have the natural chemistry of Dodd and I, where we just jump into the studio together and we're like, this guy's great. You're like, this guy sounds like crap. That's him talking about me.

No. No. Never. Of course not. Scott with an Ask Us Anything. What is your most memorable non-Canucks Stanley Cup finals moment? This is great. We'll throw it out to the listeners as well if you want to weigh in.

Dunbar-Lemmer text line is 650-650. There's a handful of them for me. Brough and I in attendance in the multiple overtime 2007 game one against Dallas when the Sedin scored after what felt like 13 overtimes. And Brough and I did a high 10. That's right. A high 10 to celebrate. Then we looked at each other in the eyes and said, never speak of this again. Except several years later on the radio.

There, you know, the problem with this is that there's a few easily identifiable goals that no one's ever going to argue with, right? And it's going to be Burrow slaying the dragon in 2011, and it's going to be Buray against the Flames, the Jeff Brown to Buray Buray goal in 94. And then the list, I don't know, BX's stanchion goal is going to be on that list. You could put them on Rushmore together.

I think it would probably be easier than picking one identifiable one. But outside of the Stanley Cup Finals, those would probably be my top three. Sorry, was this Canucks outside of the Stanley Cup Finals or non-Canucks Stanley Cup Finals? I thought it was Canucks not in the Stanley Cup Finals. I thought it was non-Canucks Stanley Cup Finals. Really? Yeah.

I'm pretty sure. That's what I understood. Because what I was going for was... Dang. I just put together a list of stuff that does not apply to Scott's question. Nope. You're on fire.

I have one. Well, no, but look at how I read it. Canucks not in the Stanley Cup finals. That's how I read it. Well, yeah, like a non-Canucks But he's talking about a Stanley Cup finals without the Canucks in it. Don't do what Donnie Don't does.

They could have made this clear. Mine's not even a save. My moment that sticks out in my mind. Or mine's not even a goal. It's a save. Of course it is. Shockingly. Flurry in 2009 when he saved it right at the buzzer. That's the biggest Stanley Cup Final moment I can remember. Mine is the one I went to immediately was the

Paul Correa off the floor on the board goal from 2003 after he gets leveled by Scott Stevensrea off the floor on the board goal from 2003 after he gets leveled by Scott Stevens and comes back and scores the big goal. That's probably the one that sticks out most to me. I like the Patrick Kane one where nobody knew that he scored. Poor Jim Houston. Five minutes. Speaking of announcers, poor Jim Houston on that one.

Yeah, that was... The call of a century. Except Kane, he knew, but everyone else was like, what? Was that a goal? Yeah. What just happened? Did they just win the cup? Zero reaction from the crowd

too. Yeah. Anyone got another ask us anything? Yeah, absolutely. All right. This one came in from Matt in Surrey says, I hope this is a fun one for you. Well, let's see, Matt. Which season, recent or not so recent, did you most enjoy watching

a player have? Doesn't need to be record setting. Just has to be I had to watch. Could it be Manning's first season with the Broncos? Last year's Connor McDavid. Last year's Ronald Acuna, et cetera. He says the one for me was last year's Tage Thompson. I found myself searching for Sabres highlights, which I probably never done in my whole life. The one that springs to mind instantly for me here,

and I'd have to go back and look. Is that also Tate Thompson? Yeah, well, I mean, look, Tate was awesome. I'd have to look exactly which season, but when Steph Curry really started to break out, and it was like, okay, this guy is doing stuff we have literally never seen in the NBA before. He is changing the game.

He can shoot from anywhere. He can put up 12 points in a couple of minutes in the blink of an eye. You have to watch this guy when he's on TV. It is absolute appointment viewing. I think that's the most true appointment viewing I can remember for a professional athlete is when Steph Curry started doing Steph Curry things.

The 2015-2016 team, the Golden State Warriors, the one that went 73-9 I remember regular season games that would normally have zero consequence whatsoever holding huge consequence people gathering around televisions we were on the road for the Stanley Cup final uh that year too which obviously coincided with that now famous NBA finals where they did the New England Patriots thing, unbelievably dominant regular season team loses in the finals, right? And I remember people being glued, glued to that NBA final because that Warriors team lost nine games all regular season.

In an 82-game regular season, they lost nine times. They played at such a high level repeatedly, and they would go on these unbelievable like game ending runs in the first or second quarter where everyone was firing right splash brothers were like unstoppable and you were mentioning it was curry highlights all the time that was probably basketball played from that genre high octane offense relentless three-point shooting and the guys in their prime doing it and i do remember that season being like, you have to watch the Warriors

play, right? Yeah, you just absolutely have to. Even if you're not a big basketball fan, it was just such a unique experience watching them play. Another one that jumps out to me is Mahomes, not his rookie year, but the first year as a starter, where I was like, oh my gosh, this team is absolutely unstoppable. He's making these crazy sidearm

throws and underarm throws and running around and scrambling, and it's just absolutely oh my gosh, this team is absolutely unstoppable. He's making these crazy sidearm throws and underarm throws and running around and scrambling. And it's just absolutely ridiculous. Okay, lots more to get into on the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. 7 o'clock hour, AJ from AJ's Pizza is going to join us. He's going to be followed by David Dwork from the Hockey News Florida Panthers beat writer.

He's going to join us because today in Florida, it is media day ahead of tomorrow's game one of the Stanley Cup final. 7.30, Ben Nicholson-Smith, Blue Jays beat writer for Sportsnet.ca, is going to join us. We'll talk to him about what's going on with the Jays over the last week and that series against the Orioles and all the chatter around Bo Bichette and Vladdy Guerrero Jr. That's the 7 o'clock hour.

8 o'clock, Rick Dollywall is going to join us at 8, followed by what we learned at 8.30 and Ask Us Anything. And that's where we'll give away the $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway and the tickets to see Snoop on June 25th. It's a big show. I'll try and pull it together for the final two hours. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.