Halford & Brough in the Morning - Winning Stanley Cups Vs. Playing Pokemon

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

In hour two, Mike & Jason talk NHL trade rumours with hockey insider Frank Seravalli (1:19), plus they discuss the latest Canada Soccer news and preview Tuesday's Gold Cup matchup at BC Place with Footy Prime analyst James Sharman (25:01). 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.

["Cirru Valley Theme Song"] Frank! Sarah Valley! Frank! Frank! 702 on a Wednesday, happy Wednesday everybody Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Frank! Halford and Brough of the Morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates, BC's first entrusted choice for debt help. With over 3,000 5 star reviews visit them online at Sands-Trustee.com. We are now in hour two of the program. As the music suggests, Frank Saravalli from Daily Face Off is gonna join us in just a moment here

to kick off hour two. Hour two is brought to you by Jason Hominuk at jason.mortgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him online at jason.mortgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio.

Kintec footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. Our next guest is a presentation of angry Otter liquor and he joins us courtesy of the power west industries hotline. It's Frank Cerrelli from daily face off here on the Halford and Brough show on sportsnet 650. Morning Frank, how are you? Pretty good. How you guys doing?

We're well. Thanks for taking the time to do this. As always, great work last night and overnight, getting the framework of a potential trade in which the Rangers may, it's not done yet, but may send Chris Kreider to the Anaheim Ducks. Lay it all out for us, Frank here. Beginning of the reporting to the end right now.

What can you tell us about this potential trade with Kreider going to the Ducks? Yeah, this is a situation that has obviously been developing over the last couple of days here. Got to a point last night where, where I felt like, um, pretty comfortable in explaining the situation. Um, both teams have had other irons in the fire in the last couple of days. I know the Rangers had been talking to some other teams about a landing spot for Crichter.

The Ducks had similarly been targeting some other players as well, but these discussions have advanced in a way that there's definitely mutual interest. There's definitely the framework of a deal. And with that, really now it's about getting down to the final strokes of, is Anaheim on Chris Kreider's no trade list? What does that process look like? Will it be a roadblock? I think they were hoping, the ducks were hoping to,

with permission today, have a call with Chris Crider and lay out their plans in the future. Obviously, he's got some friends there in Jacob Truba and Ryan Stroom and others. I think that's not likely to be an issue. It's really just a matter of getting it all done and across the finish line. Who else could be shipped out of New York this off season? Mika Zabatajad is certainly another name that I think the Rangers would like to consider. I just don't have any sense from Zabatajad or his camp that they'd

be willing to, you know, wave the full no trade that's totally different than the 15 team no trade list that That Crider has and so it's obviously a much more significant roadblock a much more significant contract and Then you've got Kay Andre Miller on the back end restricted free agent that There's a moment in time where the Rangers need to decide is Miller going to be part of our foundation moving forward or not. And I think with the addition of this new coaching staff that I'm, you know, I've had

some very mixed reports on what Mike Sullivan thinks of Kay Andre Miller and what their thought process is moving forward. I think he was probably already in a spot where, look, Miller was on our trade targets board going back to the deadline. Teams were interested then, the Rangers held off, but there are definitely more substantive talks this time around. What do you think the future of Artemi Panarin in New York is? He's got one year left before he's an unrestricted free agent. Yeah, it's a good question.

And a guy that I think with his slight frame has probably, I mean, I don't know if it's fair to say underwhelmed when it comes to the playoffs, but I think certainly with his regular season impact and then comparing that to the post season. certainly with his regular season impact and then look, comparing that to the post season. I think the Rangers have thought at various points in time at, you know, first off, he's been one of the best free agent signings of all time. He took a team that was rebuilding and was the jet fuel to become a team that

got to multiple conference finals and won a president's trophy. That said, yeah, his contract is winding down and another guy that they need to make a decision on. So all in all, what happened to the Rangers? Because, you know, Truba was their captain. He's been shipped out. If you look at their alternate captains, there's Zabana Jed, Penaren, Chris Kreider, and Adam Fox. So it seems to me like they are just doing a complete renovation of the leadership group and I just wonder where they see this going.

Well, they made the determination that their team as constructed wasn't good enough and I think in some ways it's probably not going to be all that Well, they made the determination that their team as constructed wasn't good enough. And I think in some ways it's probably not going to be all that different than a bit of a shakeup that we're going to see in Dallas. When you have a team that gets close a number of times and doesn't get the job done is not going to be able to have enough that gets past a team like Florida or another roadblock that's in the way. They're asking hard questions.

They're saying status quo, just being a good team, just getting to the final four, just winning the president's trophy is not good enough. And it's a high standard. It's an impressively high standard at that. There's, you know, 25 other teams in the league that would kill to have that type of run. But their goal is to win a Stanley Cup, not to play Pokemon. And with that, they want to push the envelope here. They want to try and make something happen that knowing that they've got some guys that are aging, knowing that they've got some guys that are aging,

knowing that they've got some contracts that are up. Part of these are also natural inflection points to ask these questions and make the changes necessary to be a team that can compete for a Stanley Cup. Let's talk about the Dallas Stars for a bit, because Jason Robertson's name is out there. And obviously I don't know what happened all season in Dallas, but I did tune in for the last few games of the Edmonton Dallas series and Jason Robertson might've been the only offensive

weapon that the Dallas stars had. Why is he the one apparently on the trade block? It's really kind of a very similar conversation. His contract has one year left at 775. He's been an up and down player this season and they need to ask themselves and decide, are we paying Jason Robertson for the long haul? Are we giving him a massive raise? Cause a guy that has. Underpoint season. And even this year after a really slow start, close the year as one of the very

best players in the game over the last half of the season, 28 goals and 48 games down the stretch, are we paying him or in our current cap environment where we only have a handful of million dollars to fill out five roster spots, is he the first guy out the door to help make room and provide flexibility for some other pieces that we want to bring in to try and change the look? You're right. He was one of their only weapons but part of their questions that they need to answer for or solve for are why is this team that has some really nice quality foundational pillars now having

transferred from the Sagan and Ben era to you you know, Wyatt Johnson, Rupay Hintz, Miro Hayskinen, and Thomas Harley. Why is it that this team comes up short and why is it that this mix, which has a ton of skill, but not a lot of hard skill, why is it that this team isn't getting the job done and how do we fix it? Well, on that note, what did you hear in the aftermath of Peter DeBoer being dismissed as head coach? Well it's another foundational question. Why aren't we getting over the hump? Is part of it, why hasn't Pete DeBoer gotten over the hump? Six Western Conference finals in eight years. Why has

he not, in any of those years with obviously good teams, why has he not won a Stanley Cup? And is it because he runs hot? And then you could answer some of the other questions about how there seemed to be some distrust that evolved in that locker room starting with, well probably started way before, but some of the finishing touches were not just the Otter situation and the awkward pull and the fact that he doubled down on it, but go back to the morning of game five the night the day they were eliminated. He's sitting at the podium at a morning skate press conference and says, I'm paraphrasing,

the coach can't put the puck in the net. Players don't like hearing that. That's not something that inspires confidence or trust. And it's more or less the coach throwing his hands up saying, hey, this isn't my fault, not on me. And you're supposed to be the guy that comes up with solutions. And they've had great seasons by any measurable count.

But again, short of the ultimate goal. And so whether you lose in round one, you lose in round two or the conference final, doesn't really change the fact that you're not getting the job done. Are there any early indications on who the next head coach in Dallas might be? Not yet. And knowing how methodical Jim Neal is as a manager and how long he took to make the decision on Pete DeBoer's future. I can't imagine that they made that decision to fire Pete DeBoer without at least having

a really short list of candidates to go into this process with. And I've said this publicly, I don't, I'm not advocating for anyone and I haven't heard his name much, but I can't think of a better fit than Peter Laviolette, a guy who's had almost immediate success taking three different teams to a cup final. The message might not hang around long. His last tenure with the Rangers was only two years, but there's a reason why he's consecutively been a head coach in this league for 25 seasons in a row now. Let's turn our attention to offer sheets. We are speaking to Frank Cervalli from Daily Face Off here in the Halford and Bref show

on Sportsnet 650. Two part question here, Frank. One, who are some of the targets that could be offer sheeted this summer? And do you think that we'll actually see anybody sign one this off season? Well, whether we see someone sign one or not, I think this is a changing environment. I mean, this is also true for the trade market. And maybe to a lesser extent, free agency. In conversations with managers yesterday, they were saying the trade market is very quiet right now.

And they think part of that is because there's just not as much of a push as there's been in recent years to move out players because teams have cap space, really for the first time in a long time. And they can see the light of what the next two years looks like. It just takes a lot of the heat and pressure off that sometimes produces transactions.

And when you've got cap space, signing your RFAs typically isn't a huge issue. So there's obviously mechanisms in place to get that done if you're ARB eligible or whatever it is. But I think what we saw last year with the Blues grabbing Holloway and Broberg from Edmonton was really a sense that this actually is a viable way to acquire players. And so I think you have to bypass the guys that are sort of at the top of the RFA masthead.

I don't know how you could possibly overpay Evan Bouchard enough that it makes sense for your team to acquire him and for the Edmonton Oilers to say no. Same thing with Noah Dobson or pick some of these high end guys. To me, I think you have to look way further down the board and Matt Nyes isn't that far down, but you know, you really have to make it, put it in a spot where the Leafs are believers in this guy. How do you make it untenable for them? And I conduct, I concocted five different offer sheet potentials in a story posted yesterday that outlines not just

who some of those players might be, but how exactly would you do it to pry them loose from their current team. And so it's a short list as mentioned, but I think an intriguing discussion point. And sometimes in the offer sheet game, that's really all it ends up being is an intriguing, salacious discussion. Yeah. Who do you think is, I mean, do you have one that's most likely? Or like the thing with, I always come back to this to the point where I'm like lecturing is like the player has to want to leave. That's another thing. You actually got to sign that contract. It's not like you present him with an offer sheet and you go. You have to convince him and it doesn't sound, when it comes to Matthew Nines, he said, I want to be a Leaf. Well, you know.

Yeah, I pointed that part out. He said all the right things. That's the tough part is you can think it, you can want to do it, you can be aggressive and he might just say, dude, I'ma leave. Yeah. You're asking someone to leave their team. And I think in the case with Broberg and Holloway, those guys weren't exactly thrilled with their roles. So they were like, okay, well, I'm going to go. Well, it goes beyond that.

What's that? Yeah. The Oilers are still upset today because they believe that one of the agents for the players convinced the other one who wasn't even his client to say, hey, let's do this together so there's less focus on both of us individually. Like if one of them were to do it, if we're both unhappy and we both do it together, then therefore there's going to be less scorn. The the Euler fan base is going to be less upset with you and more upset with

the team and not for nothing but one of those players over the last week fired their agent and you know it's not always a perfect situation and it doesn't even if you sign the deal and you align your pocket with $4 million that you otherwise would not have had in the last calendar year, you don't always feel good at the end of it. Yeah. Um, Frank, we were talking about the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier in the show, because there was

some reporting from the athletic about Chris LaTang and what his future looks like, uh, in Pittsburgh. Um, what are you looking for from the Penguins this off season? I think the Penguins are a true wild card. I think, well, their coaching hire dictates, proves, shows that they are a wild card. They took a guy that wasn't on a single person's radar in Dan Muse and hired him.

Now, I don't know if that's Kyle Dubas demonstrating that he's got a depth to his knowledge that no one else in the NHL has in completely going off the board, or if, as some have speculated, that this is a play to help begin the process of Pittsburgh moving on from its vet. That at some point, these guys will turn around and say,

what are we doing here? And can I get out? And maybe that's part of it for turning over this roster that I think LaTang's deal is incredibly difficult to move. I think LaTang was the first of the three players, the three core superstars in Pittsburgh to raise his hand over the last couple years and say I'd be willing to do something different but his deal is just simply not palatable for other teams.

And with that, they've kind of been in a holding pattern. This is the last year of Malkin's contract and there's been a thought process that not only has Sid said that he wants to stay in Pittsburgh to close out his career, but if there's any chance that he moves, a lot of people believe that he's gonna finish out his tenure with Malkin by his side and then once Malkin's out the door that maybe that opens things up a little bit but based on what I can tell you and the conversations that have happened behind the scenes, I think there's been a lot of movement on a lot of different fronts. Yeah, cause it's easy to say,

well, I want to be a penguin for life. You know, when Sid signed the contract, but it's a lot harder to do that when you keep losing games and you're going through these seasons and it becomes a little bit of, you know, as you put it, what are we doing here? And I just wonder if wonder if his mind might change on whether or not he wants to go out like this. Now, who knows? The Penguins could surprise us all next season,

but do you think there could be a breaking point for Sid in all this? I've wondered about that. I think he's been the good soldier and let me, let's face it. Did wouldn't say bleep of his mouth was full of it. Um, because that's just not how he's wired. Uh, but I do think that playing in four nations and playing really meaningful hockey and then even just being around other guys from other teams at the worlds again. I mean, there have been people close to him that have speculated that this is all kind of opened his eyes to, you know, maybe exploring what that looks like or feels

like, but I think there's been a huge mental roadblock and hurdle that he hasn't come, you know, hasn't really spent a lot of time thinking about what life might be like outside of Pittsburgh. It's all he's ever known. Frank, this was great, but thanks for taking the time to do this. As always, we appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week and whatever's left in the Stanley Cup final do this again next week See you guys

Frank Sarah Valley from daily face-off here on the Haliford and rough show on sportsnet 650 so Oilers head coach Chris Knoblock just completed his zoom availability He did not confirm a starting goalie. Although I'd be shocked if he goes with Calvin Pickard. I'd love it. For game four. I'd love it. He saved him before.

He'll save them again. Um, Ryan Nugent Hopkins is going to be a game time decision once again. He was a game time decision for game three and managed to play. He'll play. Um, you know he'll play. And then he said, uh, Knobloch said there could be one potential lineup change. And from a Canucks perspective, I do wonder if it could be Stetscher in for Klingberg.

Got to get Tony Stetscher in there, man. Klingberg looks terrible. Yeah. They were doing well with Stetsch. He's a better defender than Klingberg. Stetscher sometimes- You're a better defender than Klingberg? Sometimes there are issues with Stetcher's puck movement.

I never thought he had a good first pass, but he's a better defender. And it honestly, it looks to me like the Panthers are teeing off on Klingberg. Not even teeing off, targeting him. And they're like, don't hit him, just take the puck from him. Stats for Klingberg seems pretty obvious. The more intriguing one. But Klingberg seems pretty obvious. The more intriguing one. But Klingberg was on a regular pair of practice yesterday. They switch up their pairs all the time.

That coffee said that at the beginning of the series. They just, they run through them like he just flips them all over the place. So I would say I'm sure they'll skate tomorrow after that performance. You got to make some kind of change. And I'm with you. I think the goalie one is too severe, even though there's a proven track record in last year's series against Vancouver

and this year's series against LA, that they respond well to that switch. Yeah. Stanley Cup finals are a totally different beast. Well, Mark Spector actually, I'm just reading a tweet from him. He said, Noblock says there will be a lineup change for game four and Speck says,

likely Stetcher in, Klingberg out. Yeah, I mean that makes sense. And good on Stetcher for getting back in. Good on Stetcher for keeping this thing going. He's been a nice little spark plug for them in fits and starts throughout this run. So I mean, for the sake of having a competitive series and having to go as long as humanly possible,

which I think we all want, hopefully Edmonton can rally and win that game. Yes, I'm saying it out loud. Win that game for him. Push this thing a little bit further. OK, we are up against it for time. On the other side of the break, we're going to dive back into the soccer, the footy, the host of the footy prime podcast. James Sharman is going to join us.

We'll look back on the Canada Shield tournament, which finished yesterday. We'll look ahead to the gold cup. We'll look ahead to the World Cup. We'll look ahead to the world cup. Maybe we'll talk some European internationals as well. The future of Jonathan David. I'm talking England with him. Well, I need three minutes because England lost to Senegal yesterday.

3-1. At home and the Thomas Tuchel era isn't off to a great start. So just be warned, there's going to be some England soccer talk coming up on the Halford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. Their goal is to win a Stanley Cup, not to play Pokemon. Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Strantz.

Get your daily dose of Canucks talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on Sportsnet 650. Or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. 732 on a Eurodance Wednesday here on the Halpern & Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. Halpern & Bruff of the morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal reduces your debt by up to 80% with no more interest. This is them online at Sands-trustee.com. We are in hour two of the program. James Sharman from the Footie Prime podcast

is gonna join us in just a moment here. Talk a little footie in hour two. Hour two of this program is brought to you by Jason Homonuck at jason.mortgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at Jason. Got mortgage.

We're going to see Jason today at an undisclosed location. So the autograph hounds don't find us there. Yeah. Parts unknown, but we are going to see Jason today. It's going to be good. It's going to be sunny. Sometimes the paparazzi follows us and we got to lose them. It's true. We pose in for pictures, but not really posing for them. You know how to do with paparazzi mm-hmm a big day yesterday a big night yesterday for the Canadian men's national team ahead of the gold Cup Joining us now to break it all down as mentioned James Sharman here on the hell for the brush throw on sports net 650 James

Of course joins us the powerwest industry's hotline. Good morning James. How are you? Good morning fellas doing great. Thanks. It's nice to see Canada lift the trophy of sorts. Right. So a good night last night. It was good. We had to explain to everyone this morning that Canada drew the match against Cote d'Ivoire, then lost

the shootout, but then won the shield. And everyone was left happy yesterday. It was like the participation ribbon for youth soccer, except on a grander stage. But the match itself, let's start there. Not an oil painting for the Canadians, but I think that there was some positives to be taken,

even though it was a very choppy and let's be frank, not the most entertaining match we've ever seen. No, I'm glad you said that because it was a, it wasn't great. It was not, as you mentioned, an oil painting. There was no flow to it. So many fouls. It was so physical. I suppose that's one of the positives. Ivory Coast came out and went to really kind of temper the fluid fluid motion of Canada's attack and they did a good job but Canada didn't back down. Canada was also very physical and we know they can do that. But they did have difficulty breaking down that, you know, Ivorian defense. But overall, listen, you know, nil-nil against a really good side.

Let's not forget that this is Ivory Coast, African champions. They're an excellent side, players playing at some pretty big clubs around the world. And it's not often that Canada get to play an African team, right? So different systems, different styles overall. It was okay. Poor game. Um, like you mentioned, very confusing for a lot of people in the stadium when it's nil nil and Canada win, but there's still the shootouts.

Uh, but there's some, it's these kind of weird 14 tournaments you see in the, uh, in the post season are often very odd very weird But it's a chance to get the guys together playing games and get that winning mentality baby steps, right? It's what Jesse Marsh keeps saying get that winning mentality Get a trophy no matter what it is and let's start building now towards well the gold cup I guess and then obviously the World Cup But overall a positive week, I think coming off last night's result and certainly the Ukraine match on the weekend. I think the biggest takeaway for me was that Marsh was able to essentially turn over his

entire starting 11 from the Ukraine match to the Ivory Coast match and still get a result. It just really sort of emphasizes how deep and how talented this Canadian Men's National Team program has become over the last little bit, to the point where you can have two starting 11s against two very good competitors and put up results against both. Yeah, that's a great point. 10 changes, just Derek Kanelius was the holdover

from the Ukraine match. And we discussed it on this show, guys, last year after Copa. Okay, great Copa America, but beyond the first 11 or 12 players, what's there? Is depth the biggest problem for this, this team? And here we are now. And the coach is turning over like he mentioned there an entire side against a very good African side and playing okay. That's, that's huge. There's competition now for places that just weren't there a year ago. We're seeing players like Luke DeFosgeral get on the defense. Jamie Light-LeBelle getting at center back as well. And the absence of Moise Bambito playing pretty well, both of them. DeFosgeral in particular. We've seen Promise David start out front,

get a goal. Dan Jeberson getting minutes yesterday as well. So really important. And perhaps, you know, the most important thing I think for camp is the form of Tasion Buchanan, who has been one of Canada's best players for a number of years, but then broke his leg at Copa last year, had had a tough time bouncing back at club level. He was outstanding on the weekend. It was Tasion of old. So things are all kind of lining up really well right now, I think, for what should be a successful gold cup. I'm glad you pivoted to the gold cup here

because we've been talking about it a lot on this show over the last week. We had Jesse Marsh on the show last week. Earlier this week, we actually had the gold cup in studio with us. It's a lovely trophy. It's very big, yeah. And you've got the match at BC place to kick off Canada's gold cup on

Tuesday. It just feels like everything's pointing towards this being a very, very important tournament for this team and for this group for a variety of reasons. One, they want to start experience success, success internationally with trophies to this is the closest thing that they're going to get to a real impactful warmup ahead of the world cup. Cause they're not going through qualifying and three, it feels like a lot of the players have really bought in like Jonathan David, for example, he's got his club career up in the area.

He still made the commitment to go and be a part of this. It feels like they understand too, that this is a big summer and a big tournament coming up. That says everything, doesn't it? I mean, John David, I didn't think it'd be here. Honestly for the gold cup, I thought for sure he'd take his time choosing his club take the summer off so yeah they've bought into this being an enormous opportunity. It's probably the best chance this team has to win a trophy since 2000 and even that was a surprise when they won it wasn't it? So it's a great opportunity now I know a lot of people are getting I think ahead of themselves saying yeah Canada is going to win this thing. Well

you know let's just take a bit of a breath here. It's still a very very difficult competition to win. Yes the States are wrestlers and players. Yes they're in complete disarray after another big loss yesterday but they're still the States and then you have Mexico who are playing a pretty strong squad for this tournament. A team that beat Canada last time out in the Nations League, that won the Nations League. So they are still the favorites for a reason. But yeah, I mean, if you're a Canadian fan, I don't think you've ever been as excited about a gold cup ever. Because generally speaking, the last number of years, Canada has been resting players

for this tournament. This is a full strength side, except for of course, the injured Moise Bumbido and Alfonso Davis. But apart from that, you're going to see a very, very good 11 for every match. And man, this could be it. This could be the first real trophy in 25 years. How would you rank Mexico, Canada, in the United States now?

Because I know the Americans lost bad to Switzerland, but Switzerland also beat Mexico on this trip, which Switzerland's a good side and they always hold their own in these international tournaments, sometimes pull upsets, but I don't think anyone considers them among the elite of the European countries. No, but they are a decent European country that qualifies regularly for European championships. So they are a good side, but that's regardless of the fact that the States

are just in disarray under Mauricio Pochettino. It just hasn't clicked for him since taking over. Um, and again, yesterday just, just outplayed the outplayed in the weekend. And yes, I know there've been lessons and players and some players are hurt, but at the depth that the U S has, they should be doing better than this. Can they bounce back? Yeah of course they can and maybe you know this would be the tournament especially with home field advantage but right now you look at the squads Mexico, Canada and the States and Canada I mean if they're all healthy everyone's healthy Canada is for sure in the top two as far as quality in a squad I think it's better than Mexico. Now Mexico are still the Mexicans. They play a certain style of football. They know each other. They've

got that identity, which makes them so, so strong and always a favorite. We get that, but it's nothing like the Mexico of 10, 15 years ago. And as far as the States, they've got some star value there as do Canada, but right now they're,, you know, nose nose with that star quality. So we can, we can definitely, without doubt, look at this tournament coming up this summer and say, yes, Canada's got a definite opportunity to win this thing. It wouldn't be a shock if they won it.

And I don't think we've ever said that before. James, I have to ask you about England because every time we chat, we've got to talk about England. We have to. What's going on there? Because I don't know what Thomas Tuchel promised everyone, but it was supposed to be different from Southgate, who I personally think was unfairly maligned by a lot of people. Like I thought he did a lot of good things for England and won a lot of big

games and allowed England to play in a lot of big games. Um, but he was constantly criticized for the plotting way, the conservative way that England played. I don't know what Tuko promised everyone if they're going to play like this fun, free style, but it's not working because they lost a Senegal yesterday at home. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and that's coming off a poor performance a couple of days back

as well. Listen, it's early doors in the Thomas Tuchel managerial time with his England team, but they're looking stodgy. They had difficulty breaking teams down just as they always have. It's the same old problems. They're playing players that are position left backs, that aren't left backs, right backs, that aren't right backs, you know, midfielders that don't play out wide usually, um, that the top players Declan rice, these types of players who are just brilliant for, for their clubs, can't quite do the same thing for their country due to Bellingham as well. You know, it hasn't quite got it done.

Harry Kane still scoring goals, but he's a guy now getting older. I honestly, as frustrating as it is, I'm not that concerned. This team's proven to be a bit of a tournament team the last little while. They do well in tournaments now. I know they haven't won it just yet or won anything since 66, but they get to semi-finals, they get to finals. So we'll see. Thomas Tickle isn't one to suffer force gradually.

He does rub people the wrong way. And I wonder how long before he rubs the FA wrong in England or some players wrong in that team as well, because the youth and that that, like you mentioned, that excitement we thought coming through the system hasn't really clicked yet under him. But it is still early days. So I'm cautiously optimistic. I think ahead of big tournaments for this team

ahead of next year at the world cup, they're going to qualify. They always qualify for tournaments. Well, they're going to qualify, but are they kind of in, in, in between like, you know, like some teams, they go into the tournament, they're like locked and loaded. And I've actually felt that about England over

a few of the tournaments that they've done well in recently. But you know, you mentioned Kane is getting older, is he at the height of his power still? And if not, who's going to score goals for England? And then you look at some of the calls that Tuchel made, like why is Jordan Henderson getting the call? Why is Ivan Tony getting the call?

Is Kyle Walker almost done as an international? And if the answer is yes, are there some young players that he can turn to and can they be tournament ready in a year because they've got a year? Yeah. Well, the problem is also these, some of these young players are on very, very good teams and aren't getting the minutes for their club teams, right?

If you're in a Man City or you're on a Liverpool, you've got to be very, very good. A prime example would be Harvey Elliott, right? A young player that could really unlock defenses, very skilled, can't get minutes at Liverpool. And now he's coming out and saying, maybe it's time for me to leave. Even Curtis Jones playing it right back yesterday on the weekend. He's a central midfielder being played out of position. Reese

James playing on the left-hand side. The amount of money they invest in St. George's, the academy in England, there are young players coming through, but they have to get minutes at the highest level. And the Premier League is majority wise is, is non-English again, at this moment. That is, is a problem. But I, you know, I look around Europe, I look around the world right now. Who is that team that, that it used to be, you could pick out a Brazil or a Germany. Yeah. They're going to be favorites to going to win these things.

But now I look at Spain, obviously a fantastic team, some young players, they're kind of the outlier. Germany's not great. France again, you know, yes, very, very deep team, but have they actually underachieved a little bit from the World Cup? I think they probably have. I look at South America, Argentina, the champs, um, you know, not on in top gear, still relying despite what the coach says on Leo Messi at 30, wherever

he is now, 36, 37 years of age. And Brazil, they just qualified yesterday, got a brand new coach in Carlo Ancelotti, but the fact that they got a brand new coach says everything about them. They struggled recently as well. So it's kind of a weird time in international football. Great parody, but outside of perhaps Spain and,

you're right, probably France, it is a free-for-all. **Jay Stommers** Lest we forget Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo. You know what, he's Nations League champions, right? And he's still getting it done, guys. I don't know how, but he is. James, this was great, man. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

We appreciate it. Enjoy the gold cup. It should be a lot of fun. Let's go Canada and let's do this again real soon. Yeah, let's fill out that BC place, eh? Good stuff. Thank you. James Sharman from the Footie Prime podcast here on the

Halford and Bref show on Sportsnet 650. I'm going to take a cue from James and I'm going to remind everybody right now that every day this week we're giving away two four packs of tickets to see the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup at BC Place on Tuesday, June 17th when Canada meets Honduras. Jesse Marsh in his post-match media availability yesterday called on us said, hey Vancouver Canada meets Honduras. Jesse Marsh in his post-match media availability yesterday

called on us said, Hey, Vancouver show out on June 17th, show up when we take on Honduras in our first match of the gold cup. We're giving away tickets on the Haliford and Bref show every day this week. If you don't win, you can always go to goldcup.org forward slash tickets. We're going to be taking calls at at 805 and 815 this morning. Caller number five in each instance will win the tickets. The phone number 604-280-0650. That number again, 604-280-0650.

Now. Did Jesse March add any more details to his accusations about the Mexican side? I think he moved on. The Canadian side. You know what, I think he moved on from the poisoning side. I think he moved into the Canadian You know what? I think he moved on from the poisoning allegations I think he just want to just put that out there and we'll see what happens I want to focus on the gold cup now and hopefully no food poisoning at the gold cup

Speaking of the gold cup Canada soccer whitecaps BC place We do have a story that now we're trying to get a handle on this one. Let's be clear. So I'm just going to pull this up here as I get my notes. Yesterday, you forwarded this to me, Jason. There was a multiple reports from multiple different local outlets about the Sleigh with Tooth First Nation entering into a nonbinding memorandum of understanding. I want to get all the language here right with great Canadian Gaming Corporation that if completed, would see the nation acquire the casino business and quote unquote related real estate property

interests at Hastings Racecourse in Casino. Now, that was a lot of jumbled words from me. What we were trying to figure out is what the potential purchase entails. Is it a real estate transaction? Is it a Consido and gaming license transaction? How does it deal with the Whitecaps and their potential acquisition of land to buy a stadium there? There's a lot that's going on with this story.

And hopefully we'll get some answers from city councilor, Mike Klassen coming up in about 15 minutes, because when I read this story in the Vancouver sun, I thought, wait a minute, the city actually sold, because this was what reported that the city sold land. Correct. Part of the P&E, part of the Hastings Park, what you call.

A parcel of land. To the Tsleil-Waututh nation. And I thought, are you going to sell the actual land? And that surprised me. And the phrase was like, they bought the real property or whatever. But I was like, do they mean they bought the lease? Because that would be quite different than selling the actual real estate. And then you reached out to the Whitecaps because if the casino land is being sold to

the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, then that could potentially impact the Whitecaps wanting to build a stadium at the horse racing track. Correct. And it's all very confusing because there's a lot of things going on with the P&E right now. You know, you've got the PW Chow team moving into the Pacific Coliseum

and they're gonna use the agrodome as their practice facility. Right in the heart of Vancouver. Yeah, and people have been texting in going, well, why don't the Cox put their practice facility there? So we thought, okay, well, why don't we bring on someone that can talk about all these issues because it does seem like the P&E is in a bit of a state of flux and they're trying to figure out what they want to do in the future.

There is some money being invested. There's a new amphitheater coming and that's going to be part of the World Cup festivities. I know Playland has plans to expand, so they've kind of earmarked the big parking lot there as part of their expansion. And from a sports perspective, we're all just trying to figure out what the future is gonna look like there. Lest we forget the horse racing enthusiasts. Yeah, so tell us what the Whitecaps said. Reached out yesterday,

within a couple hours received word back, I will just read the statement verbatim. This is from the Vancouver Whitecaps last night. We are aware of the Tsavittooth Nation's announcement that it has signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with the goal of acquiring Hastings Park Casino. Whitecaps FC continues to be in active discussions with the city of Vancouver regarding the construction of a privately funded,

purpose built stadium at the PNE Fairgrounds site, which we believe is essential to enhancing the fan experience and part of a broader development vision to ensure the financial viability of maintaining a sports franchise in Vancouver. We've had positive preliminary discussions with the city and we have every expectation that we can continue to work with the city to find a path toward and forward that helps secure a future for the caps in Vancouver. It brings up the question, how worried should we be about losing the white caps in Vancouver? And speaking for myself, I'm worried.

I heard Victor Montaliani on the radio yesterday. And FIFA vice yesterday. And. Thief of vice president. And. East Van boy. East Van native. And he was on the radio and do we actually have that audio? Let's just play this audio and you tell me, this is on 980.

You tell me if you, you sent a bit of urgency in his voice. To me, just as important as the world Cup, that's a year away, is to ensure that the Whitecaps stay in the city, play out of their own stadium. Because to me, I think it would be a shame to have an event like the World Cup, as global as it is, and then find out, I don't know, a year later or whatever, that we no longer have the Vancouver Whitecaps That's been here since 1973. I think we've lost enough things in the city Whether it be the NBA or NDE or even the PGA that I think you know, and I'm sort of Happy that I'm hearing that the talks are going really well between the city the province and obviously the caps

But for me it would be an absolute crime to allow this club to walk. I don't think it will. And I'll do everything I can in my position to ensure that it doesn't. Because I think one of the biggest legacies for the World Cup is to ensure that the game is here, that young boys and girls have an opportunity to look ahead, to look up.

And that's not just the saving of the white caps, that's also the rise, the new women's team, that's also Vancouver FC that plays out of Langley, and even Pacific that plays out of Victoria. We have to ensure that these clubs have their right position in the professional landscape, because ultimately that is the legacy that young people want to see.

As adults, we can't let them down. So I think it's really important that the Whitecaps and the city and the province find the solutions to ensure that the club stays here. It just seems like a really big task to me, getting a stadium built in Vancouver, not only in effort and the millions of dollars involved, but in time. And you wonder if the owners have the patience for all of this.

When they could probably sell the team tomorrow, if they didn't care if it got moved. And it also feels like this story has caught some people off guard. Like they hadn't really been thinking about the possibility of the whitecaps moving and now it's staring them in the face. I think if you were paying attention, you could see the trend in MLS with a lot of teams building purpose-built soccer-specific stadiums and

having control of those stadiums. That's important because the Whitecaps have neither. They have neither a purpose-built stadium and they're not in control of BC Place, which gets them kicked out for motocross and doesn't allow them to get food and drink revenues or parking revenues, big time revenues that other clubs have. That should have been worrying to you as a fan and there's also been this crazy elevation and rise in franchise values of MLS teams, where some of them like Miami are over a billion dollars now.

And that should have been worrying because you might wonder, okay, well, when are the owners just going to say, well, I've had enough of losing money every year, I'm going to cash out on this investment and I'm going to book out on this investment and I'm going to book the hundreds of millions of dollars in profits on franchise values. And what would happen then?

Now, there is a chance that the whitecaps say, okay, well, we're going to sign a five year lease with BC place. And during that time we'll build this new stadium at the P&E. That's possible and I hope that's what happens, but things in this city don't move that quickly. And when you're asking, when you're saying,

okay, we got to build a new stadium on the P&E with all the quote unquote stakeholders involved, and that involves the people that are employed by the racetrack and just all the other people that would be like, hey if we're gonna make this big change at this big parcel of land in Vancouver, you know, let's talk about it. Let's talk about all the alternatives and let's talk and talk and talk and talk and plan and then wait a minute do we have enough transit to go there and there are all these issues that come up.

It's a lot of things to go through. So coming up next, we've got city counselor, Mike Klassen. He is also the chair of the P&E Board of Directors. So hopefully Mike is able to answer some of our question. Like what is the latest on the Whitecaps stadium file? Because we've heard they're in talks, but to what end? I mean, you can talk and talk, but they got to start making some progress on this soon.

You're listening to the Alfred and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650.