Halford & Brough in the Morning - Whitecaps Head Coach Jesper Sørensen + What We Learned

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

In hour three, Mike & Jason chat with recently re-signed Whitecaps FC manager Jesper Sørensen (2:20) ahead of tomorrow's home opener, the boys tell us what they learned (27:00), plus it's Ask Us Anything Friday (40:00). 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.

Today Friday, happy Friday, everybody. It's a Fiesta Friday here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Halver and Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Does you have payday loan debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut your debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands-Trustee.com. We are now in our three of the program. Whitecaps manager, Esper Sorenson, is going to join us in just a moment here to kick up Hour 3.

Hour 3 is brought to by Campbell & Pound Real Estate Appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell and Pound. Visit them on the internet at Campbell-dashpound.com today. We are coming to you live from the Kintech studio, new year, new opportunity for comfort with orthotics from Kintech. So if you're PVRing the game, turn the radio off right now, there's about five minutes left in the first period. And nil-nil in soccer parlance, Canada,

just three shots on goal to Finland's seven. There was a terrific opportunity early in the game for Sellebrini off a pass from McDavid, but Yusisaros, made a good, good save on that. Otherwise, you know, it's, it's looking nervy again, kind of the same as the Czech game where the Finns are right in this. And, you know, it looks like if Canada is going to win this game, it's probably going to be on the backs of McDavid, Celebrini, and McCar. Well, I had McKinnon's out there right now, too. I can't tell exactly what's going on. Are they double shifting Nate?

Sometimes at the end of periods, they'll bump up Nate to that line just because they don't have to worry as much about the other lines. Sure. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, it doesn't, I mean... Shots are 7.5 now, by the way.

I'm done with the spoilers thing. It's the end of the Olympics folk. Figure it out, okay? We're done on Sunday, and then we'll go back to not spoiling anything for you. Let's go to the ABLE Auctions hotline right now. Our next guest is the manager

of the Vancouver Whitecaps, newly re-signed manager of the Vancouver Whitecaps. Jesper Sorensen joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Yesper. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. I'm fine. Thank you. I want to start by saying, congrats on the extension. For those that didn't hear prior to break us announcing it, Yesper has agreed to a contract extension with the Vancouver Whitecaps through the

2027-28 season. Yesper, congrats. It is a very well-deserved extension. Tell us about maybe the negotiation process, your desire to stay in Vancouver and how excited you are to get this deal done. Yeah, we can start out by talking about, you know, what I've experienced the past year has been extraordinary together with the club and with the fans in the city and with everybody. And I think, you know, my contract was up to the end of this season

and it's normal that you start looking for what's going to happen in the future together with the club. And I was pretty early on convinced that this would be a good opportunity for me, and I would like to extend if the club wanted. And when both parties wanted it, I think it was pretty easy. I think working for the organization and getting to know soccer and football here in North America, it's been a great experience and I really enjoyed it so much and working with the players and staff and everybody has been thrilling for me

so I think it was an easy one when the club also wanted it so I think that was yeah it was not that difficult to make that decision. I have to ask and I appreciate if you're going to keep your cards close to your vest here with the answer but I got to ask were there any offers or calls made from other clubs

just based on the fact that you had overwhelming success last season as a manager. Yeah, that's not something I want to go into. That's fair. To be honest, no. But yeah, you have to ask that's okay. The White Caps season, the MLS part of it anyway, gets underway on Saturday. It was funny when we were talking about it.

Earlier we were like, it feels like the season just ended. And that's because it did. It was only December in which you were playing in the MLS Cup final. And then it was a few weeks off, off to Spain for the preseason. the regular season is upon us. So I ask you, Jasper, how ready are the white caps for this season? It's different from last year, because last year we had to get to know. When I came in, I didn't know much, we had to start working on some new ideas I had bringing in,

and we had to work a little bit on a little bit different game model. and now that game model and style of play is well known for everybody but having said that we also had some some difficulties with some players that were not fully ready to play when we came in we've had of course Ryan now out again for a while and we've had some bumps on the way on the training camp we had a training camp that was a little bit more difficult than last year

So we are good and ready to go. We also have a couple of players who's not made it yet because they haven't gotten their paperwork done due to work permits, but they will be fixed in a short amount of time. So we are ready, but we will be even more ready two and three weeks from now. So I think that's a good thing. As is often the case with MLS clubs, it's not just the start of the MLS season.

There's a lot of different competitions, including the Concaf Champions Cup. You guys just got back from Costa Rica. You've got to play at home on Saturday, and then you've got the return leg against the Costa Rican club on Wednesday. Is this schedule to start the year a good thing or a bad thing for your club?

Normally you don't want to go directly into a two-legged, you know, playoff situation like we have in the Concaf Cup. But it's also, we did it last year. and I don't know that we don't even after last season when you look back you actually think about

that we lost the first season when I was here oh sorry but it's always tricky when you have to go directly into a you know a Concaf Cup situation

where the room for error is not that big and you have to win and the pressure is on early on not to get out of, kicked out of the tournament. So I think that's not something that you usually want, but it's something that it doesn't mind from my perspective because it gets us going from the beginning with playing games. And we also get more players involved because we have more games.

So that's a good thing for the roster and for the squad. So I think it doesn't mind me, but of course you would like to play one or two games before you go into a setting where you're in the knockouts. pages of a tournament. One of the big differences in preparing for last season to preparing for this season is there's a fair amount of uncertainty about the future of the club, the stadium situation, it's been the majority of the talk of the offseason.

Has all that talk been a distraction for the white caps? It's not something that we have been talking about throughout the training camps or throughout the preseason with the players. I think our focus is on the pitch. and it was a little bit of the same last season right that there was um not rumors there's talks about um change in ownership and and selling the club and it's not a it's not a hidden thing it's not you know something that people can uh doesn't don't know about that the club is for sale so i think it's it's it's just something that is a minor distraction somewhere for somebody maybe but not

for us. I think we just have focused on what's happening on the pitch and what we are about to do on the pitch and everybody is so ambitious and everybody works so well. We have mainly focused on playing and we love playing in B.C. Place. In front of our fans,

we're just here today after arriving yesterday from Costa Rica and it's nice and good to be back. The last memories from B.C. Place was against L.A.F.C. when we won in penalties in front of a full crowd. Yeah, it's great to be back, and I think everybody, you know, wants to really hit its heart from the beginning here at home because I think it's, yeah, we have such good memories from last season.

Yeah, I can understand why players would block it out and how they're able to ignore it and focus on the task at hand. But for you, I imagine it's got to be different. You did just sign a contract extension with the club to keep with the organization until 2028. How much did the uncertainty or where the future lies play into your conversations about you sticking? with the white caps. Of course, that's also always something that you just talk about, but it's not, it didn't, it was not a big thing for me in this. Of course, you have some things that you, that you look into and regarding to where you,

where you work, but, but there's so much uncertainty. You don't want to get too much involved into all the uncertainties because then you can't make it, make a, then we couldn't make an extension, I would say, because there's too many things. So, no, I'm happy for the organization. I'm happy for the city of Vancouver. I love being here. You know, the connection we had to the fans last year,

and I hope that we're going to get again. The way we play, the players, everything made it very easy. And then there are uncertainties that, you know, we can't really, we have to deal with when those matters are solved instead of start worrying too early. I don't think that helps. The White Caps return to MLS play tomorrow. Saturday 4.30 kickoff from BC Place.

It's against Real Salt Lake, an opportunity to build on what was a successful season last year. And an opportunity for everyone to congratulate Yesper face-to-face on his contract extension. Yesper, once again, congrats on the new deal. Very well deserved, very well earned. Best of luck tomorrow. Let's do this again soon as you guys are now fully underway with MLS play. Thank you very much and thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on.

Yesper. We appreciate it. It's Yesper Sorensen. Vancouver Whitecaps manager, newly minted, re-signed manager here on the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. It's an Olympic spoiler time. Turn those radios off. It was a tough first period for Canada. Adversity. They're down 1-0 after 20 minutes in Italy to Finland.

They didn't look great. You know, they did have that one great scoring chance right off the top. Celabini couldn't put it home. Sam Bennett took a bit of a silly goaltending goaltender interference penalty and then Bo Horvatt was out there for the PK and lost a key face off

went right to Rantanin who ripped one past Jordan Binnington and it's 1-0-0-0-Fence I mean that that didn't look good from the Canadian team We talked about Sebastian Ajo at the beginning of the show and he was the one that beat the Horvatt on the draw

got the singular primary assist on the rant and goal. The Finns have kind of done what you expected them to do. They've made it a relatively muted affair in terms of the Canadian offensive four-As. Just eight shots on goal. I think it was eight-eight shots in the period. So this is where this is where this team is going to be tested once again. They were tested against Chequia and they escaped by the skin of their teeth. and now they're being tested again against Finland.

And Sydney Crosby is not playing in this game. And a lot of the pressure is going to fall on guys like Connor McDavid and Nathan McKinnon and Kail McCar. Now, everyone has to do their role. And it's little things that could decide this. You know, Bo Horvatt losing a face-off. It happens, right? But Bo Horvatt was put on that team

to Pekay and a lot of people in Vancouver went, really? That'll be interesting. And he loses a key face-off and Ranting and beats Jordan Bennington right away. Sam Bennett was put on this team because he's performed in big moments before, whether it's the Stanley Cup playoffs or the four nations. He's performed. Probably a silly penalty to take, though. We all understand what he's trying to do. He's trying to get things going out there. But, you know, if you play on the edge and you go over the edge, sometimes you put your team in difficulty. It is a very thin line between playing aggressively and doing something stupid. And Canada right now is in a big fight.

We didn't expect them to have very much trouble with Chequia, and they did. And I think they looked. A little disconnected at times, a little frantic. And then I think Finland is a better team than Czechia, and it kind of looks the same now. So we all know that Canada has the ability to come back and win this game. Okay? Not quite panicking yet, but there is a concern level because we're also wondering how this team is going to stack up against the Americans, should the Americans beat Slovakia and should Canada get past Finland, which isn't a guarantee

at this point. And it doesn't look great right now. And I think it's okay to say that, right? It doesn't look terrific. It doesn't look like this team is clicking. And there is a lot of firepower up front, still, even without Sidney Crosby and with Nathan McKinnon not being 100%. But the defense is a big deal.

You've got to be able to move the puck effectively. and if you can't get it into the forwards hands and the forwards can't be in a good position to take advantage of that, it's really tough. I mean, Coop's already shortened the bench, it looks like. I mean, Reinhardt played a buck 41 in that. Well, he's the 13th forward, so he wasn't going to play a lot anyway. Marshawn played 242.

Hegel played 206. Yeah, he's going to have to shorten the bench. He's going to have to go to essentially three lines, I think. Well, and then you want to talk about the defense right now. Theodore played two minutes. Doughty played just under four. and Sandheim played just over four. So they're based...

So you can spread it out a little bit more. But what you've done is you basically eliminated the bottom 3D and you're playing Taves and McCar. Taves and McCar played almost half the first period. And that's what it's going to be. Here's a thing. At this stage of the game, Cooper's sole, sole objective is to get this team into the gold medal game.

It doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter who does the heavy lifting. It doesn't matter what the deployment is. You've been dealt the cards you've been dealt. And right now, if his most dangerous option is to play the wheels off of Celebrini and McDavid, and I think it's going to end up being McKinnon and they're going to see a step back from Wilson, then he has to do it. You can't really apologize right now for how the tournament's gone.

Like you can't say, well, you should have had X over Y or A over B or, you know, you should be trying to work Hegel and Reinhart and March on into the Mixmore. If it's not going, it's not going. The last thing you want to do right now if you're Cooper is at the end of a game, look at the sheet and been like, at the expense of our top guys, we got our bottom guys, 11 or 12 minutes instead of six or seven.

That's what we're talking about here. There is, and I love how Wyshinsky put it yesterday. He said that, you know, at the end of the day, you could just say, we're Canada. We have McDavid, McKinnon, and Celebrini, L-O-L. And then that's your strategy. And that's fine. You have the best player on the planet.

Use them as much as human as possible. You know what the fence say? We're great structurally. Right. We're really good defensively. We'll check, check, check. Yeah, which is again why, I mean, here's the question. What would option B be for Cooper at this point? Because he's kind of running out.

Which is crazy to me that it, you know, that it's got to this point. But when Crosby goes out and Nate is less than 100%, then all of a sudden, the team looks very, very different. It would be very different if you had McDavid and Celebrini together on the top line. That should be, who cares? You could be on the wing. And they could still create some chances.

And if Nate could drive his own second line and then Sid is on the third line, then that's great. But you don't have that right now because you don't have Sid and you don't have Nate at 100%. I will say this. I think at times Suzuki, Stone, and Marner has looked all. all right. And that's your second line right now because they're going all over the place. And that's a bit of a slower pace line, but that's fine. And it's a change of pace. If you're flipping

those two back, then I think you might... The change up. Yeah, the fins are like, we don't know what to do with this. They figured it out, but, hey, at the end of the day, it was, I think this was always going to be a tight game. Yep. I don't think that anyone expected anything close to the first score that the Canadians had against Check or any of the group. And yet,

it's still concerning, I think, the way that first period went. Yep. Now, look, maybe, hopefully, it's going to be like the women's hockey game yesterday, but in reverse for Canada, because Canada went up 1-0, and then the Americans eventually tied it up and won in overtime. But what happened in that game, which must have been concerning for the Americans, is that the Canadians, I think, gained belief in that first period. Now, ultimately, they weren't able to hang on.

It took a really nice play by Hillary Knight in front of the net. It was just one, you know, details, little details, not being able to get a stick to tie up Hillary Knight's stick. That's a detail. And it ultimately mattered. Bo Horvatt, not winning that face-off. Look, you know, you do lose face-offs, but, you know, face-offs in high-leveraged situations. Okay, Drans. They are important.

I mean, face-offs overall, like, there's no correlation between, like, a good face-off team and winning the Stanley Cup, but you do need those guys. that are able to go out and win those face-offs. You know, I think about, you know, on the PKK, we're talking about 2011 earlier, remember how reliable Manny Mulhoucher was on the PK? He would go out and win that first face-off and they'd get it down the ice. Bo loses that one.

And it's a big deal then. So, you know, this is going to be another nail-biter for Canadian fans. And right now, this is a coin toss. Yep. And maybe the Finns even, I mean, they're up one nothing. But I actually wonder what the betting lines would be right now. Like are the Finns are the favorites right now?

Or are the Canadians still the favorites to win this game? Because the way that first period went and the way that Finland was able to match Canada, I don't know. I think it's a coin toss right now. Anyway, you were going to say something. I was going to say, okay, so right now, wow, this is really odd. So according to 365, Finland on the money line right now

is 2.40, so they're still pretty heavy underdogs on the money line. Canada's 155. I mean, I get it. There's going to be something swayed by, obviously, where the public money is coming in from, but the fact that a team has a 1-0 lead 20 minutes into a 60-minute game alone

should dictate it. This isn't like we're talking about Latvia getting out to a shock 1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-1. It's a team like this is a good, solid finish team. What I was going to say is that if you watch the quarter-final between Switzerland and Finland, the first period, Finland has a very specific script that they stick to, and that they want it to be low event. And that was a relatively low event for a period.

You pointed that out. There was the one chance, one really good scoring chance from Canada from Celebrini. Outside of that, the shots weren't exactly of the highest team. or highest caliber. In that opener against Switzerland, the two teams combined for nine shots and a grand total of seven credited scoring chances. And Finland fell behind in that game.

What they've done in this first period, I would think that they've got to be thrilled with how that first period went. They were able to keep the Canadians off the board. They kept it low event. They were able to capitalize on the man advantage. How is Canada playing like this? What's going on?

With this much talent. And I'm not discrediting the Finns. They have a very good team and they're playing to their strengths. I think they might be feeling the pressure a little bit. Yeah, but you got so much talent. Like you should be able to, and you have so many leaders on your team. Not just talent, so many leaders. Yep.

You should be able to acknowledge that pressure and embrace it. It shouldn't be difficult for this group. Well, let's see if they can do it. Get your ask of anything. There are any comments into the Dunbar and Lembert text line, 650. 650. We've got one final segment to go for the week of the Halford and Brough show on SportsNet 650. Before we go to break, I need to tell you about JanPro.

Are you tired of miss cleans or unreliable service? If so, JanPro delivers consistent cleaning and responsive support you can count on. Start clean, stay clean. Visit them online at janpro.c.c. It's Canucks Central on Sportsnet 650. From exclusive interviews to insider scoops and post-game breakdowns, We've got it all. Tune in weekdays 4 to 6 p.m. on radio and on demand through your favorite podcast app. Welcome to Colonna, Farnia.

West Coast. Yeah. Colonna, baby. Best place in the world right here. Right here. Colonna Fonda. Colonna Fonda. Yeah.

Colonia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, start for Canada in the second. Hour three of this program is brought to by Campbell and Pound

real estate appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell and Pound. Visit them on the internet of Campbell-Dash pound.com today. Okay, it is time for some what we learns and ask us anything. This is a rarity on this station where one of the segments

at the end of the week has been reserved to tell you about everything that the Canucks did this week at practice. Normally, we would dedicate all our shows to this, but it's been a fun, different kind of week here. So, very quickly, here's what happened at Canucks practice this week. Working in reverse on Wednesday,

Philip Heedel got hurt. Scary scene unfolded when Heed took a puck to the face, actually to the side of the head during Wednesday's practice. Man, we didn't talk about this during the week because we're just focused on other stuff, but that guy, if it wasn't for bad,

luck, he would not have any. Man, I feel terrible for him. Heidel wearing a red non-contact jersey, of course, still trying to recover from the migraines that have been plaguing him recently, was able to leave the ice surface on his own and immediately went to the room. Following practice, head coach Adam Foote did not have an update, but said that Heedle would be going for x-rays. I should mention the day prior to that on Tuesday. That was the return to practice for the guys, and that included some notable guys back in the mix, including Marco Rossi, who skated for the first time. after missing a bunch of time with a lower body injury. He needs to show a little something down the stretch.

Yeah. Can you get that audio ready, actually? We'll play that in a minute. Zeev Bouillon also returned to skate while he was also wearing a non-contact jersey with his broken facial bone. We don't have the audio from Booiam, but he did say that he was going to be ready to go when the Canucks would return to action on February 25th

when they resume NHL action against the Winnipeg Jets. Now, you mentioned Marco Rossi. Canada is all over the Finns, by the way. This is a good start. No goals yet, but they're all over the fins and they're about to go to the power play. Yeah, and we have just stopped playing the spoiler music at this point. Like, if you're listening to the station, we are too invested in this game to play the little jingle, all due respect to what the dogs did coming up with a sounder and a jingle. But the Canadians are about to go on the power play, have really come out of the gate. So that's a big hit.

McKinnon and Hintz just had a huge hit. They just collided, I think. Yeah, it wasn't, it was just a big collision. We're crossing over in opposite direction. It sticks everywhere. Yeah. Yard sale. All right. Here we go.

Things are happening. And it's Tom Wilson drawing the penalty on Sebastian Aho. So Aho goes to the box. Canada to the power play. We continue our what we learns. We jump now to Marco Rossi, who like you were saying, talked about getting off to a good start for this quote unquote second half of the second half of the season. Because he didn't really get to show Canucks fans what he was all about playing with an injury

upon the trade from the Minnesota Wild. Here now, Marco Rossi from Tuesday's practice, talking about his return to the lineup. Canucks haven't seen much of you on this, and I still feel like you've got time to show this organization? For sure. I mean, you know, a couple of games I had. It wasn't my game or, you know, even my best.

So, but yeah, it is what it is. You know, it's all about learning, too, you know. So I'm really happy to be back and, you know, not just show the fans, to my side if you know we want to be back to 100% and that's how I feel right now. How hard was to adjust to a trade? Something you hadn't gone through at this level. I mean, of course it's different, you know.

The situation the team is in, it's different and everything is different. But I think the key is trying not to think too much about it and just, you know, enjoy everything, every day and, you know, the guys have been here really nice and all the coaching staffs and everyone around. That's been really nice. So yeah, I'm really happy to be. That's enough out of you, Rossi. We get terrible news from Italy. Eric Hala has scored short-handed on a breakaway,

and Finland now leads to nothing against Canada in the semifinals. You don't see momentum swings that throw. They just panned to Doug Armstrong in the Canadian managerial box, and he looks shocked as anybody. Okay, a minute and a half still left on the powerplay. Need, well, could use a goal.

So the Canadian struggle when there's six players on the ice, the struggle when there's four opponents on the ice. Shut up. Shut up. Just everyone shut up right now. No one needs your charming sense of humor right now, Greg. All right? Brad Marchand's out there on the power play. We're basically running a foul of the

IOC right now because we shouldn't be calling play by play. So we will go, I suppose, to A-Dog. Oh, this is a good timing for that. Hey, Adol, you got something funny? I don't even care anymore. That poor dog. don't even care.

Got too much stuff on me. Anyway, you got on what we learned, do you know? Okay, some baseball team. What are they? A minor league team, Laddie? A minor league baseball team. They're having, uh, they're called the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. Double A affiliate of the Miami Marlins.

Thank you. The Pensacola Blue Wahoo. On June 7th of this year, they're having a brain rot night. It's a new promotion. I'm just going to read their. press release. This is verbatim. Is just everyone going to be on their screens or something?

This is literally the press release. I'm not changing anything from what they sent. Six, seven, leave your brain at the door and pay your phantom tax. It's brain rot night at Blue Wahoo Stadium. We'll be celebrating all the things you see scrolling your phone when you should be reading a book, talking to your family, or touching grass. Skibidi on down to the ballpark. Skibbity. Riz up your moots like your baby gronk and get ready for a night of baseball maxing.

Woo! Normally I'd have fun with that, but I hate that what we learned right now. I am not in the mood for any of that. No hijinks right now. That night sounds buns. You corrected to Skibitti. It sounds cheeks. This game is cheeks.

Yeah, I'm depression maxing right now. I got my own problems. What is going on? What is going on? It cannot happen. So embarrassing. Okay, it's not over yet. It's not where we at.

It's not getting out of ourselves. Jordan and Van accused us of saying that the game was over when it was 1-0. Sorry about 2-0-0-2-0. We haven't been any more optimistic. I'll tell you that. Maybe he's right now. Yeah. I mean, this was in the cards after what we saw from the Chequia game.

Yep, it was. And after Sid went out. There were some very, very glaring things that happened in the, I thought in the second half of the Czech key game, where all of a sudden, when it came time to what's going to happen when you face adversity, I was happy that Canada was able to face that adversity and get through, but I also saw what John Cooper was left with in terms of coaching decisions.

Yeah. Which is why I think this conversation that I can keep sort of having internally and then externally as I share it with everyone on the radio is, do you collect 13 of the the best 13 Canadian forwards in the NHL and then reduce that to the best

5 or 6 and say guys we love you you're an extremely talented player but we're not using you in this moment because what we are right now to win games is a nuke line and you're the Oilers

kind of Kind of. There's some similarities there. Some parallels to be drawn. McDavid is like, I know this situation. Yeah. Where's Leon? They just showed Gretzky and Messier sitting together. And the look of concern on Gretzky's face is going to be a meme. And I guarantee it.

Yeah. Gerski's face is just kind of a meme these days, is it not? Yeah, that's true. Okay, let's print out the submissions. We're even too depressed to Mou-Cal right now. I got a sad mook out already? Did get an interesting one. This is an interesting topic if we weren't so distracted,

but basketball Phil hasn't asked us anything. What do you think of Adam Silver's new tanking rules for the NBA? Do you think they will work? I think it's a good start. I don't think anything's been finalized yet. ESPN was reporting that sources with knowledge of a meeting that was had on Thursday as well as a late January

competition meeting told ESPN that the following concepts have been discussed to curb tanking I'm not going to read them all but first round draft picks can be protected only for top four or top 14 plus selections

this is an interesting one lottery odds freeze at the trade deadline no longer allowing a team to pick in the top four in consecutive years and or after consecutive bottom three finishes. Look, so it's an issue

with the NBA and Phoenix Sun's owner Matt Isbia went on social media and had a real rant and it started out by saying tanking is losing

behavior done by losers. Losers! Purposely losing is something nobody should want to be associated with, embarrassing for the league and for the organizations, and the talk about this as a strategy is ridiculous. If you're a bad team, you get a good pick. That makes sense. But purposely shutting down players and purposely losing games is a disgrace and impacts the integrity of the whole league.

And this was the kicker here. This is much worse than any prop bet scandal. This is throwing games strategically horrible for fans that pay to watch cheer on their team and horrible for all the real teams that are competing for playoffs. Yeah, well, here's the thing. It's incentivized. Yeah. But they've got a real problem right now. The NBA is not an... Like, financially, they seem to be swimming in money. Financially, they're great. They are rock solid.

But their product is the worst of all the big four leagues. And you can even throw MLS in there. They have, and even their most ardent supporters, like Bill Simmons, is openly saying the regular season is terrible. The regular season means nothing The way too many teams It's too long There's too many games And you know that conversation

Slash argument we had a little while ago about The only part of the reason The only reason that all these games exist So you can see your favorite players Potentially come to your city But those guys are often taking the nights off Because of load management Yeah

So it's like why are we playing 82 games If you know you can't get your star player in every market To give you an idea of how bad this has gotten there are teams actively trying to outdo each other in the tank. So like the Kings, for example, who are terrible, shut down Levine and Sabonis. Yeah. They're like, you're done for the year. The Jazz then took it a step further where they would play their best players

and then sit them out in the fourth quarter of games that they still had a chance of winning. Yeah. It was most notably Laurie Markinen, who was the guy, the finished player, who was, he'd play three quarters, he'd play great, he'd score a bunch of points, and they would be winning. And then in the fourth quarter, the fourth quarter of the Jazz would shut him down. I mean, those optics are terrible. And I remember when the Sabres and the Coyotes were tanking for the McDavid uncle year. Yep. Um, was that the McDavid?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there was the now infamous game in Buffalo where Sabers fans were cheering for the coyotes to beat the Sabers. So the Sabers had better lottery odds to get McDade. It was funny, but it was also kind of gross. The thing there, though, and I thought about this, there was only two teams involved in that. It was just Arizona.

in Buffalo. If you look at the NBA right now, there's like eight teams, six or eight teams that are actively destroying their seasons to try and get better lottery odds because this is supposed to be a pretty good draft. And is there a single team that's tanking in the NHL right now?

Like you might say the Canucks, but the Canucks are the closest thing to it. They are. They are. And I'll be very curious to see if they start shutting guys down. Like, let's be Frank here. You be Jason

I'll be frank. Do you need to play Filipino anymore this season? Do you need... Does Brock Bessert need to come back from his latest concussion? You know? You can go down the list.

You can really go down the list and start making... Does Van der Keele can't? Does Vendor Kaye need to play another game for the Vancouver Canucks? No. Right? No. You might have more in the tank, you guys. Come on. Give him another chance. You might have more in the tank. He might ruin the tank. Credit to Justin and East fan.

Brough just became a meme, catching amazing reaction, live reaction to that short-handed goal. Sometimes I forget we're on live stream. And it shows. This is an all-timer. I played it up for the camera. And it shows.

At Andy Cole, 1984 on Twitter to see what I'm talking about. But it's going to be a good meme for a while. Yeah. I mean, it was a bad one to give up. Let's be honest. Let's be honest. What they call maybe a backbreaker? No,

it's too early. Not yet. Finland locks it down with that. Maybe an arm breaker. An arm breaker. Finland is like the worst country to go down to nothing against. They lock it down and wants to take a lead. I say the U.S.

Shut up, Andy, all right? I'm just saying it's bad. Everyone's shut up. A lot of shut up's on the show today. We're just going to do the final 10 minutes of the show in silence. Okay? That's what we're going to do now. You know how they talk about Team Canada and Sid just being like,

Kenny was so calm in this tough situation. We're not Sid and we don't pretend to be. We are not calm right now. What's the opposite of that? That's what we are right now. We are coming apart at the seams. I'm trying to grasp onto some positives here. I'm going to start yelling at the advertisers.

No one wants your product. Shut up, Kromachai. It's just an example. I'm not actually telling them to shut up. We're just saying. All of our sponsors. That's one of them you could do it to, right? I'm not saying them.

Anyway, I will say this. The Finns showed the ability to come back from two nothing in a game. And a matter of fact, incredibly late. Yeah. Right. So it's not anywhere close to being over. There's way too much firepower on the ice.

And despite giving up the shorty, Canada has looked far better in the second than they have in the first. I think that was the painful part, though. They came out so strong. They had some really good shifts in Finland's end at five on five. And then they earned that power play. Yeah. You know, they earned it. and then Finland scored.

I'm weird. That's tough to accept. I'm weirdly not in freak out mode right now. I am. I feel like there's lots of hockey left. And I feel like this tournament has shown throughout. One, there's been a lot of upsets, which would obviously play in the favor of the Finns here. But two, there have been a lot of comebacks.

We saw it in the quarterfinals. We saw Canada come back. We saw Sweden come back scoring with the goalie pulled. We saw the Finns come back. come back and score two goals in the final six minutes. I'm freaking out. To force overtime, right? I'm freaking out because there's something off about this Canadian team.

There is going to be, okay, if let's go hypotheticals here. And actually, you know what, even if they win, I think the conversation will be had about roster construction about what, and by the way, download hour one of the podcast if you want, Myrtle had a really good hit today, talking about if you go back and look at the history, the guys that kind of make it on reputation and history as opposed to the guys that make it on merit. And, you know, there have been some conversations. about the amount of guys that went to the four nations and won it and won the respect of the country and the decision makers and won the trust of John Cooper. Are we blaming those guys now?

Are we blaming the fringe depth players right now? I mean, Canada can't score right now. And, you know, your top guys have to be your top guys have to be your top guys. And the power play, the first unit power play gave up a majority. So I'm not here to lay blame. What I'm here to say is that the decision maker on this team right now has essentially rendered. Hegel, Reinhart, Marchant,

in effect. Well, Ryanhart should have been better earlier in the tournament. So that's what I'm saying. You do kind of maybe wonder about the selection process or what's gone on with these guys. Could use Connor Badard right now.

Well, you bring up a good point. Matthew Schaefer. Matthew Schaefer. On the heels of what Dranth said yesterday where if you've got a large enough bench that you can actually have specialists and guys that are only going to play five or six minutes anyway, should you not designate,

some of those roles for guys that are only out there in offensive situations or only have one attribute. Did you see the team? They just showed Messia and Gretti's Sitt and Missailles. They both did the double face palm at the same moment. That's not good. Yeah. That's not good.

It's, uh, look. Things are not going well. The show's going to be over in a couple minutes and hopefully. Possibly forever. Hopefully the Halford & Brough show was just bad luck. You know, it was in the Czech game. The show ended and Canada was losing at the time. right? No, they tied, but still.

Whatever. Don't ruin the narrative. Venue changes are sometimes necessary. I still remember, was it the Seahawks come back against Green Bay? Yeah. I changed venues. I was at a bar. Yeah.

At the end of the first half, I went home. Oh, you really changed venues. I left. I was in a very sour mood. Okay. Now, this just only reinforces my thoughts that the world revolves around me. Yep. So if I make one change, then the whole world changes.

So collectively, as a country right now, do your part, right? Do your part. Change it up. Just do some sort of change up. If you're driving, lanes. If you're at home rooms, change it up. If you're going to work, quit your job. Yeah.

If you're at the bar, it's early for that. If you're out of bar, go to another bar. Yeah. Yeah. Go to AJ's. If you're not at AJ's right now, go to AJ's. right now, go to AJ's, right? Maybe don't talk to AJ, but go to AJ's.

Just try and do something because the future... Don't talk to AJ. Well, yeah, I mean, I know when he sent me the, you know, we're watching Miracle on Ice Text, I'm like, stop texting me, all right? I don't want to hear this anymore. There is... So, okay, just to recap, for those

that are trying to keep up with the actual game itself, we are now nine minutes left in the second period, so we're past the halfway point of the game. Canada trails two nothing to Finland. The shots are 1610 in favor of Canada. The Finns have only got two shots on goal this entire period. One of them, of course, was the breakaway chance by Eric Halle,

which he deposited into the back of the match. So they're shooting 50% this period. You know, we... That's Bittington's NHL's safe percentage, I think, this year. Guys, let's end the show on some cliches. We got to just one goal at a time. Yeah. You can't score every goal right away.

You're going to stick to the process. Can't panic. You got to keep your... composure. It'd be nice if they made it 2-1 by the end of the period. That's right. We can't have anyone freak out out there, okay? We've got to keep our composure.

That was Rick Tockett. That was Rick Tockett. That was Rick Tockett, actually, yeah. Keep our composure! All talk about it. That's McDavid and McKinnon in the second intermission going like simultaneous. Come on, boys. Let's go.

If you get this a 2-1, come on the time the second period is out, you're in fine shape. But you got to get a goal before the period is out, okay? Go get it, Canada. Go do it. watch. Thank you all for listening. Thank you all for contributing. It was interesting going through this with you. We have so little. Signing off for now. I have been Mike Alford.

He's been Jason Brough. He's been A-Dog. He's been Laddie. This has been the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet. 650.