The Best of Halford and Brough 3/26/26

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You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.

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That's into the middle. Cross the line to the left, circle, soccer, shot, scores!

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Good morning, make your 6-0-1 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford,

it is Brough, it is sports and at 6-50. We are coming alive from the Kent Tech Studios and

beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning.

Hey, dog, good morning to you. Good morning. Glad to be good morning to you as well.

Hello, hello. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates.

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and DIY champions across Metro Vancouver for generations. Find them at three convenient locations

or visit Dunbar Lumber online today. We have a huge, huge sports day ahead of us and subsequently

a huge Alfred and Brev's show. We will begin with the duic morning drive. That is our

morning guest list brought to you by the duic auto group. It begins at 6-30 this morning.

Dan Shulman is going to join the program. Play by play voice of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Happy, happy, happy. MLB opening day to everybody, including you. Do you say happy?

Yeah. Well, I was kind of happy. Happy, happy, open day.

Happy, happy. A little happy. Are you calling today opening day?

Yeah, I don't get a chance. I don't get that was opening night today.

There's a terrible baseball game. And they stuck it on Netflix.

MLB opening night last night, 11 games across the American League and National League today,

including Seattle Mariners opening at home against Cleveland. Dan and the Jays open tomorrow

at home against the A's. So Dan will join us at 6-30 for a Blue Jays preview and MLB season

preview. Maybe we can even get into some March madness talk with Dan because he of course calls

college basketball for ESPN. Lots to get into there. 7 o'clock Max Boltman is going to join the

program Detroit Redwings reporter for the athletic. We wanted to check the old panic meter in Detroit

today. Redwings have a couple days off. There's a busy night in the NHL tonight. They don't play.

They have to sit and watch. And the question here are the Redwings going to miss the playoffs

this year. Follow up question. If they do, what will the follow be? We'll talk to Max Boltman

about that at 7 a.m. They've never had a playoff game at the new arena, right? They have not.

Like the last Redwings playoff game. That non-COVID year or whatever was because I can't

remember if they were in the bubble in Edmonton. But was it Joe Lewis arena? Yes. And if the

Anaheim ducks make the playoffs, which they will and the Buffalo Sabers make the playoffs,

which they will, that means Detroit is going to have the longest playoff drought in the NHL.

By a considerable margin too. It's going to be an end of the charts. I think they were the

team that consecutively made the playoffs the most every year for like 25 years. They sure were.

I think they had the record of like the most they didn't miss every year. They made it.

That's St. Louis had a long record too. Detroit had 20. I want to say 25 or 20 years or

some crazy. Mr. Famon. Part of me. Mr. Famon. That's just how they do straight years of

whatever. So we'll talk to the Boltman. Max Boltman had a seven o'clock this morning.

730 Parker Burgess is going to join the program head coach of the Vancouver Giants.

Speaking of the playoffs, there will be no playoffs for the Giants this season.

Their year has come to a wrap. So this is going to be an end of year media availability. So to speak

for Parker Burgess today as the Giants have officially wrapped their 2025, 2026 WHL campaign.

Parker's going to join us at 730 eight o'clock. Randy Jand is going to join the program.

Connox analysts for sports net 650. He'll be on the call tonight. Connox kings seven o'clock

from Rodgers Arena. It will be the last of this season high eight game homestand for the Connox.

Taking on a King's team, desperately fighting to get into a playoff spot in the West. We can talk

to Randy about all that at 8 a.m. It's a huge sports day. We will get into what's on the horizon

later on in the show, but we got a lot to get into. So without further ado, Ladi, let's tell

everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? Oh, 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. With all the things going on, why not start with

the connox returning to practice, which they did yesterday ahead of today's game against the

Los Angeles Kings? Well, believe it or not, the connox only have four games remaining at Rodgers

Arena this season. To reach double digit wins at home, they'll have to win two of them.

Perhaps one of them will be tonight against the LA Kings. A team, the connox will see three times

in their final 12 games overall. So four home games, eight road games for the Vancouver connox,

not really much to report from practice or very least not much to talk about.

Horonik Besser and Vaynercane all took maintenance days. The latter of Vaynercane will play NHL

game number 998 tonight. I guess Adam foot yesterday was asked about his plans for Vaynercane

right now as it stands, Vaynercane's 1000s game in the NHL would be in Las Vegas next Monday night.

And Adam foot had thought about maybe keep him out of the lineup so he gets to play his 1000s

game in his hometown Vancouver in front of the home fans. But he said he hasn't even spoken

of Vaynercane about it because he didn't want to provide any injury jinx. The hockey gods

could intervene. So presumably tonight will be a Tolopilo game after Lankanin made the last four

starts and we got that very interesting explanation from Adam foot, which I'm still not sure I

understand about why Kevin Lankanin made all those consecutive starts. But we'll see if Tolopilos

in there tonight against the Kings with all due respect to your favorite team tonight's opponent

is interesting. It's been a frustrating season for the Kings who still have a chance to make

the playoffs despite a minus 27 goal differential. Yeah, they can't score. The Kings are probably

counting on the three games they have against the Kanaks to give them a leg up on Nashville,

the team currently in the second wildcard spot. I suppose it's possible the Kings could catch

Vegas or Edmonton as well. But for now, they got their eyes set on the Nashville predators.

The Kings have had a fairly event eventful last couple of months, not necessarily on the ice,

but off the ice. First, they traded for Penaren and then they lost Fiala at the Olympics. So

this is kind of like pretty good player in, pretty good player out. All the while, Anze co-pitar

has already announced that he's going to be retiring at the end of this season and rated this

moment. The Kings don't have a great replacement for the 38-year-old, which begs the question of

whether they'll try to address that issue this off season. I think they will. Now, a couple of

reports have linked them to Elias Patterson, but it's not clear how real their interest is

and what it is right at this very moment. I remember there are a bunch of reports

and the Kings are going to be watching closely at the Olympics. Yeah. Well,

the Olympics didn't go terrific for Elias Patterson. Maybe they'll watch that one game where they

had two goals. Yeah, you just said two goal game. Take that one, send it to Ken Holland.

The Kings are in a tough spot, though. They just acquired Penaren and they didn't necessarily give

up a ton to get him, but they did give him pretty big money over the next two years. That's not

the type of move you make if you're planning a significant retooling. That's a win-now move,

and their general manager Ken Holland said as much after the acquisition of Penaren. I was looking

back on it yesterday and here's a quote for you. I guess there's two ways to look at it. You're

either compete or you go into this long-term rebuild. We're not interested in a long-term rebuild.

I'm not interested in the long-term rebuild, and I think some of the people that we signed

are not interested in that. So we're trying to compete. Now, we have heard similar stuff from

the Bank of Reconnex not too long ago. The connex were an interested in a rebuild, and then

their hand was forced, but I don't think the King's hand has been forced yet. So I'm going to be

real curious to see what they do in the off season. Remember, this was a team that was feeling

pretty good about its center depth not too long ago. You had Copatars, and he was still playing

at a fairly high level, despite being well into his thirties. They had Phil DeNoe, but he's not

with them anymore, and his game fell off, and they had Quentin Byfield, who was this young guy,

who they expected to be a really good center for them. Well, DeNoe's not with them anymore.

Copatars retiring, and Byfield just hasn't, I mean, he's been fine, but he certainly hasn't

panned out like his draft, draft pedigree would suggest he would. They're a super weird team,

because if you look at their results this year, there's a couple of things that jump off the page.

The first one is the absolutely wretched home record. You want to talk about the connex being

bad at home. The LA Kings are not much better. They have 10 home victories this season. They're 10,

16 and 8 at home, and that's the second fewest in the Western Conference, only two more than

the Vancouver connox, who have been absolutely awful at home this year. So you would think with

a home record like that, they have no business being near the playoffs, but the other weird

thing about this team, they lost in the shootout to Calgary in their last game. That was the 18th

game that the Kings have lost this year in either overtime or the shootout. So they've got a remarkable

number of games that have gone past regulation. They just, with regularity, haven't been able

to secure two points. So you say, well, if even that overtime and shootout record was closer to 500,

which is just sort of like the coin flip down element of it, they'd probably be in a playoff spot,

maybe even comfortably by a certain measure, but whatever the case, the final part of all of this

right now, and if you go into LA Kings media and you dig into some of the Twitter conversations

that are happening with their fan base, everything now is like, we're doing it for Copey.

Like we are trying to put all hands on deck, all efforts forward. We cannot have him go out

in his retirement season, not making the post season. I have a question for you. Yeah.

Well, next season, be doing it about, so this season is doing it for Copey. Yeah. Is next season

for Dowdy? I wonder. Can you do that two years in a row? Can you run it back for another guy?

Because I think Dowdy's contract is up at the end of next season, and look, he's still obviously

playing at a decently high level who's good enough to play for Canada at the Olympics.

But I think Drew Dowdy will play hockey until he's like 60. Like if he could, he would.

He loves playing hockey. Yeah. And I'm not saying Copey Tower doesn't. Let's not get that twisted.

But, you know, we had Jonathan Davis from Sirius XM Radio, who does like the sort of West Coast

teams, especially the California ones in his coverage. And he said for a while to us like,

there was always an exit plan with Copey Towers that he kind of wanted to make it known when his

final season was going to be. I think he wanted to go back home. I think there was an element of

returning to either living in Slovenia or just going back to Europe and kind of, you know,

putting a bow on his career. And that's why they made the announcement the way that they did,

you know, beginning of the year. This is his last year. Here's what his retirement tour.

I don't get the same vibes around Dowdy. Yeah. I think Dowdy will just play until the

wheels come off. And they'd be like, okay, I'm done now. But I can see I can see Dowdy getting

annoyed playing on a bad team. Yeah. And that's like really annoyed. I think a little bit grouchy.

I think they're in like making big swings like uppercuts as an organization right now. And that's

a risky way to be. But you've got so many eggs tied up in all these different baskets, including

the penair and one. Yeah. That you're almost forced to take a big swing this off season. Like,

you have to try something. They're going to see Elias Patterson three times down the stretch.

And, you know, I'm not saying it's going to be that's a good point. That's that's scouting.

That's a say. Is it a scouting mission? I don't know. Because at this point, I think everyone

knows what the player is. I don't know what you could possibly see in a good way. I know

you can see it a bad way. But there's not a lot of centers available, right? We've talked about

the lack of them in free agency. And that's where the Kings and Ken Holland have done some pretty

significant shopping over the last level. And the argument to go for Patterson is he wouldn't

cost much, except for cap space. Right. If you're going to try and get Robert Thomas out of St. Louis.

Well, that's what I wonder. You're going to spend significant assets to get them out of there.

And I don't know if the Kings have the assets to give up necessarily. Yeah. They give up a top

prospect to get penair. He was a first round pick. I mean, by there's one of their top

prospects. I don't think he's got like huge potential in terms of being like a star in it.

So I don't think we need to talk too much about the Kings this morning, because we're going to see

them three times down the stretch. So we're going out of the way. Well, yeah, let's save a little bit.

See what we get from them. Quiet night last night in the NHL, the Leafspeed, the Rangers. I

didn't watch that game. But I'm enjoying the Leafs putting some wins together down the stretch.

Well, they're already out of the playoffs. They're doing it for Joe Bowen. I did watch Boston

and Buffalo. And that was a big win for Boston, who won it in overtime. But while I was watching

that game, a question came to mind because of one of the things that was set on the broadcast.

So we all know that the Sabers General Manager, Kevin Adams, was fired a few months ago. And

as soon as he was fired in your MLKK line and took over, the Sabers took off. And they've been

one of, if not the best team in the NHL since then. So let's say the Sabers

are legit. And they win the Cup or come close to winning the Cup over the next couple of years.

Does Kevin Adams deserve credit for the roster that he built?

Great question. What if this season, the Sabers go on a run, they win a few rounds or even

win the Stanley Cup? How would Kevin Adams be remembered? Would he be remembered as the guy

that put their roster together? Or would he be remembered as the guy that they needed so badly

to fire because of reasons? Yeah. Okay. I thought about this when you brought it up last night.

Believe it or not, would you do some prep for the show? You know what? I got major vibes from

in terms of Kevin Adams was Dale Talon as the General Manager of the Chicago Blackhawks.

That's what I thought. Yeah. So for those that don't remember the story, back in 2009, the Chicago

Blackhawks demoted, and I'm air quoting that right now, demoted Dale Talon from General Manager

to Special Advisor. Now it was a lateral move. It was a lateral move and the truest sense of lateral.

So what happened was Dale Talon, while building this great dynasty team in Chicago,

had one major screw up. It was the now infamous fax gate. You remember that?

He failed to send the qualifying offers. I think it was Christopher Stig and Cam Barker,

and he failed to send in their qualifying offers in time to the National Hockey League because

I guess he did it by fax and the fax either got jammed or I don't know if there was like a PC

load letter issue with machine. His tie got caught. Perhaps, you know, there's a number of

faxes tied. And it cost them Cam Barker. No, it didn't cost them Cam Barker, but it almost cost

the fax bar. You guys looks like a tie pattern. What am I looking at here? It's just a bunch of

salamanders. I don't know what it is. Anyway, what happened was the delay and then not hitting

the qualifying offers, essentially rendered these guys unrestricted. So it meant short answer,

short story, like long story made short. They had to pay them more money than they would have,

and they were really pressed up against the cap because Talon that summer was the one that went out.

And I think that was the summer he got Marion Hosen, John Madden. So he had made big moves.

He got demoted. Stan Bowman comes in. Stan Bowman becomes the general manager as we go to

the history books now. They're like, Stan, do you know how he uses a fax machine? He's like,

I do. And if I don't, I can learn. And then he took them, took them to the great, you know,

Stanley Cup winning teams in Chicago. And when you go back through the history books now,

it's Stan Bowman's the general manager of those dynasty teams in Chicago, not Dale Talon.

But the real ones know that Dale Talon was primarily the architect for that team. I'm not mistaken.

I think a few writers actually, or whoever picked the GM of the year back in the day,

you know, kind of tongue in cheek gave Dale Talon some votes. Yeah.

After he had been removed as the general manager to win general manager of the year.

Anyway, there's a long roundabout way of saying, I get those vibes with Kevin Adams,

should this Buffalo team go on a similar trajectory and they go a long way to go to get to the

great black hawks teams of 2009, 2010, 2011, et cetera. Does he end up being like that? I think

he might because he is the guy that made a lot of these moves and a lot of this stuff happened

on his watch. Yeah. They just need to get rid of him to get serious, apparently.

Well, I mean, in a Brock from Vancouver, Texan, he said, what about Knowness and Burke building a

team for Gillis? I mean, Burke did pull off that brilliant trade to get the sedans for the connox.

So, you know, I think, I think, I think Gillis changed a lot the way the team operated and he

brought in a lot of new ideas and he did bring in some players as well. So that will

him was, there were still people that said, you know, Gillis is, you know, he's using the

co-tails, he's using the core that this pre and I don't think Gillis necessarily pushed back

on that, but he did make a lot of changes. He made a lot of organizational changes, like

philosophically and identity wise. That's where that culture was. That was a big thing for me.

Like, he didn't just inherit this group and then, you know, okay, we're just going to run it back

in the same fashion. They tried a lot of different things. I don't think the

notion that the text are sent in is wrong. I do think there's some elements of it, but especially

in the case of Tallinn going to Bowman and then now, and we're going to wait and see how this

place gets happening real time, Adams going to Kekalainen. It feels like there was one major

gaff or series of gaffes that you had to get rid of the previous regime. I remember when

the Burke Knowness regime ended. There was a lot of people that thought that was an unfair and

unjust removal, right? Yeah, that there was like, you know, they had no reason to go. They were

building something here. Well, Knowness had brought in the long go. Yeah, so there were some very

different vibes. I'm just for those that don't remember the Dale Tallinn story. That's the one

that really stuck out to me because he really truly was the architect of that Chicago team. A

couple other things I want to get to. Victor headman, the Tampa Bay Lightning announced yesterday

is going to take a personal leave and they said, listen, this is a private matter. Please respect

his privacy. And headman's last game was in Vancouver where he only played a handful of minutes.

I think it was under five minutes before leaving the game. Now, things have been kind of

odd around Victor headman for a while. And you remember back at the Olympics, wasn't there a

game where he barely played? So here's how the timeline went. He missed 23 games earlier in the

year, about seven weeks after elbow surgery came back into the lightning lineup on February

the 1st, played a handful of games before he went to the Olympics. Then there was that odd

moment in the Olympics where he was said to have a lower body injury and then he watched their

quarter final loss from the bench against the US. But then he said, like, I was, you know, I could

play it. I was ready to go. No one was quite sure what was happening. The official reason for his

exit against the conucks earlier last week was an illness that he left four minutes into the game

or after playing just over four minutes into the game due to an illness. I wonder if this is

just a combination of health issues that is maybe led him to need to take some time away because

there was the elbow surgery. There was a lower body injury. Then there was an, I don't know exactly

what's going on, but it sounds as if he's really struggling with his health, right? Well,

hopefully everything's okay for Victor headman, but certainly something to keep monitoring.

The draft lottery date has already been reported, but it has now been made official.

And this is going to be a big day for conucks fans. And hopefully a good day. The 2026 NHL

draft lottery will take place on May 5th. And it can be seen on sports net and sports net plus.

Everyone knows the deal. This has been the case since 2021. The first two picks in the draft will

be determined after two draws. The team that wins the lottery can move up a maximum of 10 slots

in the draft for the Vancouver Cux assuming they hold on to that last place spot, which they're

going to. They will either pick first, second or third. Actually, the odds suggest that the

most likely slot is number three, but we were obviously hoping for one or even two. I kind of want

to, I'll be honest with you because I'm scared of failure. No, I'm, I'm a weak man and, and I'm

scared of failure because if the connects win first and they choose poorly, no, you can't take

mechanic, go up, get the first overall pick, take mechanic. I'll say it right now. If mechanic

doesn't turn out the hellford and bluff, bluff, the hellford and bref show, we will not blame the

organization whatsoever. Then it won't be their fault. We, we might if they develop them badly.

No, no, it's not your fault. Creemptively telling you like goodwill hunting. It's not your fault.

You did not do this. There needs to be a clarity and vision here that you want the first overall

pick. You want to make it with confidence and you want to take mechanic and not mess around and

get to the very important first part of this rebuild. I think the, here's, here's my nightmare

scenario for the connect. So I just simulated the lottery on tankathon. First overall pick goes to

Winnipeg. Wow. Second goes to San Jose. Yeah, there are some teams. There are some like quote-unquote

good teams that could win the lottery. Like, I don't know what happened to Winnipeg this year, but

you know, the New York Islanders weren't a horrible team and then it ended up getting

who's going to be one of the best defensemen probably in NHL history the way it's starting.

Second went to San Jose. So, you know, mechanic goes to Winnipeg. Stenberg goes to San Jose.

And then on tankathon, it has the connects taking the right shot defenseman Keaton Verhoff.

Here's the nightmare scenario. The connects fall to three and then reach on a player. That's like

a center. Ah, yeah. You know, they're just like, well, we've already got some defenseman.

And we've got a little bonus. So, drafting is a good positional need. That always works out well.

Now, would you feel differently if the player that they reached on was Caleb Malhotra,

who could be the first center off the board? I would be disappointed if they reached for anything.

Yeah, yeah. Anything. Verhoff's going to be a player, I think. Go and find the best player available

and bring him into an organization where you don't have a lot of best players. In fact, I don't think

you have any. Just over talent. I'm not advocating for that. No, but I know exactly what you're saying.

Throwing out this scenario. Yeah. It's like, we went through all this for, I don't want to call

Caleb Malhotra a middling prospect, but he's not McKenna. He's not Stenberg and he's not Verhoff

in terms of quality, even Chase Reed, who's a right shot defenseman. Some people have been wondering

if he might go in the top three. Don't galaxy brain it. Just go up and pick the best guy available

with the highest pick that you got. That's some good old fashioned logic. Yeah, passing on Verhoff

at three would be, oh man. I mean, they've already done this like five times in my lifetime where

they've passed on a guy that was like, sure, fire and turns out he was really good. That would

that would be that would be hilarious though. Well, not hilarious. It keeps happening. Can you imagine

though? If they keep passing on this obvious choice and take a swing and miss. Can you imagine

though? If they're like, no, we already got VLander and VLander is like, you should take Verhoff

because I'm not that guy. Yeah, Verhoff, have you seen this guy? He's huge and he hits people

and he's got a bomb of a shot. I'm more of a coach. Chase Reed, who's going to play in the league

for a long time. I don't know if I'm going to win a Norse or anything. Okay, we got a lot more

to get to on the program. That would be better than CC. I hope. We do. We did think he will be.

Okay. Okay. Are you done? Are we good? Are we good? Are we all done? You know?

Hey, Andy, break. I just want to be positive. Break. We got to go to break. We got to go to break.

Sorry. We got to go to break. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening

to the best of Halford and Brough.

Hey, no one on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford, Brough, sports night 650.

Halford and Brough, the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have paid

a loan debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut that debt up 80% with no upfront fees.

Visit them today at Sands-trustee.com. We are now in hour 3 of the program. Hour 3 is brought

to you by the Duacotto Group. Find out why nobody beats a Duac deal or nobody has since 1926.

Visit Duac GM on Marine Drive, visit them downtown, visit them in Richmond, and visit them online

at DuacottoGroup.com. We're coming to you live from the KinTech Studio,

Step Strong with Orthotics and Footwear from KinTech. We're going to do the smart decision brought

to you by Crow right now. You're trusted accounting and tax advisors for over 55 years. My smart

decision for today is decision that the Seattle Seahawks and John Schneider made in giving Jackson,

Smith and Jigba that monster contract, which caught the eye of some people in the football world

for the amount of money spent on the star wide receiver because it was a lot of money.

It's a record deal making him the highest paid wide receiver in football.

But according to the general manager, John Schneider, it's all cool because Jackson, Smith and

Jigba isn't just a great football player, Jason. He's a great person too. I got the quote here.

This is a really exciting day for the Seahawks organization. This is me being John Schneider right now.

Say hello with a little more gravita.

When you go to ownership and you ask for an investment like this, you always have to be cognizant

of who the person is. And I'm just so proud of Jackson. That's Jackson, Smith and Jigba.

And who he is as a person. Then he turned to Jackson, Smith and Jigba and said,

your parents did a great job of raising you man. People forget how young you are.

That was nice.

And then Jiss and his parents were like, can we have some money?

You got some now. 24-year-olds, a rich, rich dude. Now, do you ever feel like this entire

show is just about pity? Everything's weird.

Oh, is that where you were going to go with this?

Everything we talk about.

I was going to go with it.

Or the culture of the connox. It's everything. We're talking to Parker Burgess about the culture

of the Vancouver Giants and deciding between talent and all the buying in and all that sort of

stuff. It all seems like, what do they call it? Sub-tweeting?

Everything is about that.

You're sub-tweeting right now.

So that didn't come up in your mind?

No, I'll tell you what kind of thing.

Because someone texted it in.

Because I think I know what he's sub-tweeting.

Okay, someone texted it into the show this morning.

It was an unsigned text, but it said,

John Schneider's JSS and press conference yesterday had some interesting comments.

He said, you better be sure about a player's character before you present a monster contract

to your owner.

Yeah.

Well, you know why?

Who do you think that was above?

That text.

Well, the text, yeah, but that's because we're in Vancouver and it's too

myopic in scope.

We're only thinking about Elliott.

I guarantee you, John Schneider, I bet he didn't think once about Elliott's better team.

What do you decide in the contract?

How do you know how do you know how can you say that?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, I'm not even just talking about a person.

I'm talking about like JT.

I'm talking about everyone.

Anyone that the connection signed on term,

like they better be damn sure about their character.

But let's not talk about hockey.

You know what he was doing here, right?

John Schneider.

You don't.

I think he was talking up his player.

No, he wasn't.

This was when you talk about sub-tweeting someone or trying to get one in on the

slide, he's talking about the also 24-year-old

star-wide receiver of the Seattle Seahawks

fiercest divisional foe, the Los Angeles Rams.

Oh, yeah.

And he's talking about...

You're stuff going on with Puka.

Do you think it's coincidence?

Let me ask you, caustic listeners, out there.

Do you think it's a coincidence that on the day

where Jackson Smith and Jigma meets with the media

to announce that he signed the richest contract

for an NFL wide receiver ever that

John Schneider uses the remarks he uses about

how he's a great person and your parents

did a great job of raising him.

What a man you've turned out to be.

While that's going on,

a woman in Los Angeles

files a civil lawsuit against Puka Nakua alleging

that the Rams wide receiver made a quote-unquote

unprovoked anti-Semitic statement and later bid her

on the shoulder.

Now, the backdrop of the Nakua situation, of course, is that

given that he's the exact same age as Jackson Smith and Jigma,

he's longer tenured in the NFL, but he is also in line for a monster contract.

Maybe even more than JSN because

for his greater way, JSN has not bit any women that we love.

And he's looking good.

And then he checked his phone.

He's like, yep, can't confirm.

No lights.

Yeah.

So I think here, obviously, because of the rivalry between the Seahawks and the Rams,

and of course, I don't know if you all remember this or not,

but the Seahawks defeated the Los Angeles Rams

in the NFC title game to advance the Super Bowl.

And then I don't know if you remember this,

but the Seahawks won the Super Bowl

on the strength of a great year by Jackson Smith and Jigma.

I like to think that maybe there was a little bit more

than just praising your guy that went into that.

I don't know.

I think Schneider was still referencing PD.

Yeah.

Or are you just talking to us too?

Or are you just talking to PD?

Yeah.

By the way, confusing with multiple John Schneiders.

I don't like it.

Very.

Yeah.

I don't like it.

There's a lot of John Schneider.

As a blue jays fan on the West Coast,

it's very confusing.

Yeah, Laddie perks up when he hears John Schneider,

and then every time that's about the Seahawks.

There's a lot of GM John Schneider.

Okay, so this was what a smart decision to not buy women on the shoulder.

That was that was what your conclusion was.

You know what he's right?

That's always a smart decision.

Don't do it.

Don't bite.

Don't be a bider.

Don't be a bider.

I think he, I think guys like,

we don't like this smart decision.

It works for toddlers and NFL wide receivers.

Didn't they say something like

Nikoa's Nikoa or whatever you're having?

Puka Nikoa.

Nikoa didn't say the

represented who's like,

yeah, it's just a little horse play.

Yeah, he did.

Horses do bite sometimes though.

You would know.

They need to be able to do it.

Yeah, it's possible.

All right, let's finish this read.

I don't know.

Did she have an apple?

All of this on some levels unfortunately,

all of this, some levels unfortunately,

was bred to you by Crow.

Smart decisions, lasting value.

Learn more at chromeakai.ca.

We've got the entire hour open here.

So if you want to weigh in,

Dunbar Lumber text line is 65650.

We're going to do what we learned all hour, correct?

Okay, can I can do whatever you want?

Share some anecdotal.

I'm going to share an anecdotal story, okay?

Yeah, right?

It's just an anecdotal tale.

I think it's just an anecdotal.

Can you have an anecdotal story?

Right, okay.

Isn't that like a story story?

Right.

Well, redundant thing.

Okay, first of all, an anecdote.

My brain was bogged down with like,

don't say antidote, you know?

I was like, I wanted to get the story thing.

Right, first of all.

And anyway, you're sharing an anecdotal story.

What about artichoke?

I have heard from multiple people

that they're cancelling their connox season tickets.

Oh!

And I'm always skeptical when I hear these stories

because I was like, I'm pretty sure you told me that last year

that you're going to cancel your season tickets.

A little performative perhaps?

And then, they obviously don't.

But I'm really, really curious about this off season

in terms of the season ticket holder base.

And there's an article up right now

on citynews.ca that you can read.

And the headline is connect season ticket holders

outraged over price hike next season.

Hey, we're a little late on this story, too, by the way.

A lot of people were talking about it earlier in the week.

No, I know.

I don't know what we were talking about.

I know, but I just find some of it it's hard to report on

because there's like the silent or the loud minority

will be just be like, I'm cancelling my season tickets.

And I'm outraged.

But there's a lot of other people that are like,

I'm not happy about the price upgrades.

But I love hockey.

And, you know, if you're a business,

you're just like, I want to take my clients to games.

But I really do wonder if there's a couple of things

I play here.

Number one, they're just upset of the way the hockey team

has operated over the last little while.

That's fine.

And number two, the people that I know that have season tickets,

usually they don't go to all the games, right?

Like, I mean, it's a lot.

It's 41 games or whatever.

It's a lot of hockey, 41 on the button, right?

But what they do count on is being able to unload

their tickets on the secondary market.

Or at the very least,

being able to give them away to a client or a friend or whatever.

They make a nice little gift.

And this year, it's been hard to do.

Yeah, I've got to, I've got to buddy that,

that is like, listen, I can't get rid of my tickets.

Like, and he's spending time texting people,

like, do you want to go to the next game?

And then it's like, yeah, I'm washing my hair tonight, right?

You know, and he's like, again, you're like, yes.

And if you're, if you're,

let's say you have these tickets for business reasons, right?

Yep.

It's so easy to just buy them on the secondary market now.

And if you're not paying a lot of money

to buy them on the secondary market, then why wouldn't you?

Yeah.

It's interesting, right?

Because the escalation and price of,

and it's not just going to the game.

I think that's a big part of it.

Is that if you say, like, especially you're going to

gift the tickets to someone that's got kids or something,

if you're not, it's not a, it's not a free night.

It's very expensive to go.

Well, that is true.

Like, if you get gifted tickets, like, that's great.

But it's going to be expensive.

You gave me a bill.

Yeah, you gave me a bill.

It's like the George Costanza Super Bowl ticket thing.

Like, you're giving me a bill for $2,000

to give me these Super Bowl tickets.

Yeah.

I get to get a flight, a combination, food.

Yeah.

So there's that, there's that part of it for sure.

And it is, I mean, I sympathize with everyone

that has to bring even just another person

or multiple people to the games,

if you think you're right to sympathize with that, dude.

You got to watch, you got to watch what's on the ice.

You got to pay $28 for a beer.

You can't kill it everywhere over here.

But it just, it looks, I do generally want to,

genuinely want to know though, like,

why would they raise ticket prices this year?

Cause they can.

But, I mean, they feel that can.

But after the season they just had, I mean,

and if they are worried about attendance,

I mean, maybe they aren't.

I don't know if they are not.

But if they were to say be worried about attendance,

why would they justify raising the ticket prices?

They don't, I don't have justifies the right word.

They just, they just know they can do it.

Yeah, if they're mad.

But, but, so they're not, I guess they're not worried

then about attendance.

No, they are probably not.

I don't, I disagree with that.

I bet they are.

I mean, I don't know, I'm genuinely asking.

Aren't you making a calculator gamble

when you, or when you set prices for anything in a business?

You're like, well, I hope, I hope this works.

Like, I get raised in the prices

after their playoff run, obviously,

cause there's a lot of hope around the franchise.

People are like, hey, there might be a future here.

Hey, we understand what you're talking about.

When the team is good, you can set high tick prices

when it's not going to be lower.

But, but it's also, it's not as simple as that in Vancouver.

They, they know that they are still the biggest show in town.

And people can text in and say, like,

oh, the white caps are, you know, the lions are,

they're like, no, they're not, they're not close.

They're not, right?

They're still, they're still, there is still something to be said

for going.

And maybe it's not even watching the connox,

but you get to go watch, you know,

Sidney Crosby, or Connor McDavid, or McLean Telebrainer,

or any of the stars that come through town.

And there is a, got to hate using this word,

but there is a premium experience to going to a connox game

that others can't sell in this market.

Two words, but point taken.

I just, I just hate that.

Well, to be, I hate the phrase to be premium experience

because we're going to hear it a lot.

But to be fair to them, I mean,

their in-game presentation is excellent.

I mean, it always has been quite good.

And it's definitely even improved over the last five or so years.

I think it's fallen off the last little while.

I think it improved and then it's stale.

I think we need more skits.

If I could criticize it, my one criticism would be,

bring back the organ.

And I don't say that jokingly.

I miss the hockey arena organ.

Can you tackle him for a bit?

One sec.

Just like, take him down.

Am I not right?

Wrap the knee.

Do you not miss the organ?

Can I follow up with a question, though?

Oh my God.

I feel like we're strained closer.

This is a legitimate question, though.

This is a legitimate question.

Closer, not any.

I'll bring it back to on track here.

We appeared to be getting off topic.

Gag, go ahead.

It's not antidotal.

You're seeing a lot of headlines saying,

even though they're in the midst of a rebuild,

the connox are raising ticket prices.

Is this the specific reason why they were so reluctant

to agree to the word rebuild?

Because of this exact moment where they raise the prices

and then the rebuild gets thrown right back in their face?

But that's just obvious.

So you're going to sell it the right way.

Now, winning the draft lottery and having Gavin McKenna

would be a big battle.

But you talked about the in-game presentation, everything.

I saw a discussion the other day online

where they just talked about a complete rebrand of the team.

And even when you go to the game like they kind of play

the same music, there's this same rhythm to everything.

And I think over the next couple of years,

I know they got a lot on their plate right now,

but I don't know about uniforms or anything like that.

But I think they've got this opportunity to rebrand.

Yeah, re-identify.

Yeah.

I still feel in some ways like I still feel 2011 vibes,

sometimes when I go to the game,

just with the presentation that they have.

I mean, every year, they make the same,

in my opinion, kind of like weird video

where the connox are like superheroes or something like that.

But they need to edit 100 times

or at least.

Yeah, but do you need it?

Well, once, I mean, I don't know.

Exactly, once.

But I know they do that sort of stuff for kids,

but I think they might just want to rethink everything

about the way they operate.

I like the playoff run.

Like they had the string quartet to start the game.

Like there's some cool stuff that they did during the play.

So what's the goal that they're doing?

Look what they're doing in the game presentation.

It's a totally different vibe when you go to one of those.

Yeah, yeah.

You can completely change the mood of the building

just from your presentation alone.

I like the playoff run, too, Adok.

But you know what?

That might not be something they can bank on

in the next little while.

So to bring it back to center here,

the conversation about season ticket holders

and ticket prices and not having an organ

and not having an organ,

the three biggest issues that are facing the club right now.

There is a very interesting dynamic at play

because you talked about the loud minority saying,

I've canceled my season's tickets.

Look at the screen grab of the email that I sent back

to my ticket representative at the Canucks.

And that's great and everything.

But there's still probably a large quiet,

dare I say, silent percentage

that are just gonna buy them again,

because that's what you do, right?

It's like on their credit card.

It's set to auto-renew.

It's like you're any subscription

you have just streaming device.

Baked into the business plan is they're not gonna check.

Yeah, some people have more money than us.

If you make it difficult to cancel,

where there's like three steps involved,

you're probably gonna get a renewal

because it's a lot to try and cancel.

So there's that part of it.

The other part of it is there are people out there

that are bending over backwards

to take screen grabs of crowds and attendance figures

and use it in the sort, you know the vein

of the conversation where I always goes with this.

Sarcastically,

Vancouver won't support a rebuild

and then they show a full building

or people cheering and everything else, right?

I disagree with that, I mean.

What do you disagree with?

That fans wouldn't support a rebuild,

especially season's ticket holders.

They're the ones that have been one in the rebuild

for the last 15 years.

I'm not sure you're quite picking up

what I'm putting down here.

What I'm saying is that there's still people

that are actively going to the games and paying money.

There's still support.

Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying.

Which is the reason that you could raise ticket prices

and not worry about the fact

that you're asking people for more money

to watch a team that won eight games at home this year.

There's not that inherent here.

I don't think it's there.

And I'm coming from at this from a perspective

where if you look at, for example,

some of the bigger European clubs,

when it's not going well,

there's almost a full-scale revolt, right?

And people will, I mean, like throwing flares

at the owner's box is probably a bridge too far,

but people will respond in kind by not showing up to matches.

Or actively saying, we are not happy with the product.

We are not going to give you our hard earned dollars

to continue to put this drag out on the playing surface, right?

That dynamic doesn't exist here.

It just doesn't.

There will be some people, but again, I think you're right.

It's a loud minority who are like,

not another dollar towards this product,

not a penny out of my pocket, no way.

And that's great.

And it's very demonstrative and everything.

But I think the majority of people are like,

it's still a pretty fun time.

I know I have a hard time unloading my tickets in March,

but at the beginning of the year,

when there's still optimism and it's still kind of cool,

and it's still a night out and it's still dare I say it,

a premium experience.

For some people, it's a bit of an ego thing, too.

Like, I have seasoned ticket holders.

I'm very successful in life.

It's a big part of North American sports

is you go to the game and you have the tickets.

Yeah.

And until that completely,

in a very dramatic way,

whittles away to almost zero,

or way below where you're budgeting.

But I'm still curious to see how this off season goes.

Because from what perspective?

From the ticket selling perspective.

Yeah.

I don't think it's got,

I don't, I think it's a bit of a dangerous assumption

to say like, oh, the building's still gonna be full next season.

And a couple of thousand makes a difference.

When you go to games and you're like,

oh, this, there's, you know what,

where do you hear swaths?

Swaths of empty seats.

Certainly so.

There is that risk.

The way you make up a lot.

I hate a big swath.

The way you make up for those swaths of empty seats

is to raise the prices.

Is that how it works?

Which they've done.

Actually already.

So check that box.

I don't know.

I mean, I'll be curious to see what it looks like.

In the future, there'll just be 500 seats.

But each ticket will be $100,000 for the premium experience.

That's the way society is going.

It's true.

In our K-shaped economy.

I think that's socialism.

Is that how it works?

I think that I saw that on Twitter yesterday.

I think, I think that's the opposite.

Oh, right.

Oh, whoops.

No, but you know where this conversation leads

and where the interesting inflection point will be.

Is it the start of next season?

Because I will say this, when the season starts in October,

everyone's got a certain level of enthusiasm.

This hockey's been gone for a long time,

and everyone's excited to get back in.

The idea of starting at zero is,

even if you're going to be the worst team in the league,

you still have some optimism at the beginning of the year.

You never know.

That kind of thing.

Who's the guy that we were talking about?

God, who's the guy a couple of years ago?

He came here and he ended up lasting like eight games,

but he scored in his first game.

Oh, God.

What?

I'm just forgetting his name.

The Dutch guy.

The Dutch guy.

Daniel's strong.

Daniel's strong.

Yeah, there's always a Daniel's strong.

You can sell hope for.

God, you know?

I don't know if we do that again.

We spent a lot, not me, particularly.

I revolted against it.

And it might work for us.

Yeah.

What about Daniel's strong?

I'm like, what about him?

Daniel's strong.

There's a few texts that are saying that ticket prices

increases from A covering the seat cost and B covering the,

I guess, soon to be announced practice facility cost.

That is.

And maybe another game is going.

Okay.

All right.

I'm trying not to mouth-bruff here.

That is the dumbest thing I have heard of.

Selling seats is not an add-on.

They're expensive.

It's part of the business.

Those seats were well past their useful life.

You should be lucky we're not used to it down.

This could be standing room only.

The whole idea of selling the we got new seats and like, are they going to have a 30 for

30 on the new seats at Rogers Arena?

You own an arena.

You should have seats that work and the practice facility is another thing.

It is part of doing business.

You're not just like, well, if you want to practice facility for your NHL team then you're

going to pay for it.

The ticket prices are going up.

That is the dumbest argument I can possibly think of.

You have a practice facility because you want to win.

You want to win.

You have seats because you don't want mice living in your seats.

You don't want broken seats.

It is part.

Do you think other arenas in North American pro sports are like, guys, I know a lot of you

have been injuring yourself, sitting in our seats, but just for you because you're so

special and we love you, we're going to get new seats.

There will be a $10 service charge for every game, but we're going to do it because we

care about you.

I don't ever want to hear about new seats ever, ever again, and I want them to get this

practice facility built so we don't ever, ever have to talk about this again, a place

for the players to practice crazy luxury in this billion dollar business.

I, on the other hand, I want to see them try and spin new seats into the premium experience.

Okay, and it's got a cup holder, I mean, that's memory foam.

Are we living in the future here?

The expense of those cup holders are?

Could you imagine getting memory foam seats?

Who was sitting here?

It's like we got new seats, unfortunately each seat costs us $50,000.

All right.

We got a good environment.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.