Chapter 1: What news about the Vancouver Canucks is discussed in this episode?
What we just have to call Thomas Drance Erotica. Thomas Drance Erotica.
Corsi.
Thomas Drance Erotica. Expected goals. Thomas Drance Erotica. 805 on a Thursday.
Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. California Breath of the Morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates. Are you drowning in tax debt? If you are, Sands & Associates can offer to reduce your debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at sands-trustee.com. We are now in Hour 3 of the program.
Thomas Drance is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off Hour 3. This hour of the show. 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.
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Before we go to the Able Auctions hotline and bring on Drance, I want to pass a long word that the Vancouver Canucks have just sent out a media advisory to the masses. It reads that the Vancouver Canucks will conduct a media availability for a major announcement today at approximately 1 p.m. What's more, it's going to be in the team video room. Ooh, the video room at Rogers Arena.
So it's happening, folks. Who are they going to play a movie? And it's happening at one o'clock today before a showing of cool runnings. They are going to announce who will be the next general manager and president of hockey. I would just go for cool runnings, to be honest. I mean, everything else is extra devil billing. Cool runnings to electric boogaloo. OK, to the able auctions hotline. We go.
Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver joins us now in the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Drancer? I love the drama of an unannounced media advisory.
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Chapter 2: Who is Thomas Drance and what insights does he provide?
I just feel like they'll say, like, ownership. That's who he reports to.
Right. OK. But even that will tell us something versus Michael Doyle. Right. Which would sort of situate Doyle as like a overall organizational CEO as opposed to the president of business operations like that would represent a pretty significant change, too. Right.
So, yeah, I mean, if it's ownership nebulous, I still think that's telling because in the past it would have easily been Francesco Aquini. I mean, even with that, not to get all semantic about it, but even with that, I think there's information.
Okay, Drancer, you have been a supporter of Rian Johnson and you're not afraid to say it. And if you're wrong, I'm sure you'll be happy to say you're wrong, although you don't want to be wrong. But I want you to address this.
the segment of the fan base that isn't so sure about Ryan Johnson and maybe some of those fans who wanted a new school type executive, what I would call a professional thinker, maybe one with a law degree or a PhD, the type of things that we're seeing more and more now, not, you know, in professional sports.
So you can say it started in baseball that went into the NFL and now, now it's everywhere. Um, Can you help convince people that things are going to be okay with Rian Johnson? Or are there some things that this front office is going to have to do to alleviate the concerns that those people have?
Well, I think there's things that this front office should do to round out the skill set of Rian Johnson coming in with the Sedin twins. You know, I still think you want professional thinkers internally, right?
I think they have a couple, but, you know, I think adding someone with some weight in terms of the R&D slash, you know, legal compliance slash big picture strategic thought, you know, someone with that sort of profile, I think would make sense for this front office. And we'll see exactly what happens with the assistant general managers here. Right. And what exactly they need.
But I think that would still be sharp for, for Ryan Johnson and this organization to consider in terms of who he surrounds himself with. And this team is going to need to surround themselves with great people. I mean, there's no question about that. Um, I'd also add the amateur scouting side.
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Chapter 3: What major announcement is expected from the Vancouver Canucks?
Over the, over the process, feel like they're close enough to the decision-making process to understand what's being done and to feel like they've got a stake in the outcomes of the decisions that are made without becoming a distraction. It's like a balance and, you know, there's professional skills that I think can help create that environment.
Um, and those are professional skills that like, generally speaking, you know, a career like hockey player. hasn't developed the way that someone who's spent like 10 years as a CFO would have. Right. I mean, that's, that's straightforward. So that's one of the reasons that I bring up the business side in terms of the strategic thinking side.
Like I, you know, I, I, I talked about this at length last week, but I'll, I'll just do it again. The, so if you look at what's happened in the Western conference playoffs this year, We now have a Colorado matchup and Vegas is one more win. Although, man, they are stealing games. They have been outperformed by both the Ducks and the Utah Mammoths and are just kind of stealing games consistently.
Chapter 4: How are the Sedins involved in the Canucks' management changes?
But they're one win away. If this is a Colorado-Vegas conference final, then only Dallas, Edmonton, Colorado, and Vegas will have made the Final Four in the last five seasons. Four teams represent... all 10 conference finalists births that have been had that have occurred since the pandemic ended.
And by the way, like if you want to go back to, um, like if you want to go back even further to like 2020, cause you can't do 2021, the Montreal Canadians were in the Western final that season. Um, but if you want to go back to 2020, it was Dallas versus Vegas. So it's like, this actually even goes back further than that. Right. so you, you were existing in a league where parody has died.
Like there's no parody. There's the same teams at the pointy end of the season, contesting it every year. Anything can happen died like a decade ago, but it's really dead now. And that was during an era where the captain grow like that happened during an era. Now what happens when a league where talent is already massively concentrating is
around several really good teams most of them in low tax states that are good to live in and that don't have significant media attention like what happens when those teams aren't even forced to make the sorts of tough decisions that you know your vegas florida's tampa bays have had to make during the flat cap era like what happens when tampa bay no longer has to be like oh man we can't afford jt miller right or uh vegas is like oh man we can't afford nate schmidt right like
these teams are also going to be able to just sort of be like, yeah, Nate Schmidt's our third pair defenseman. Yeah, we're keeping him. We don't even have to worry about it. We'll still bring in Pietrangelo, right? So we already live in a league where it's almost impossible to catch up to where the contenders are. We've already lived in that during the flat cap era.
And now the flat cap era is over. And the cap's about to explode in terms of the upper limit.
I think that's one of the areas where Rutherford and Alvin really did not...
accurately predict the future like and and and and i think it was it was actually pretty poor analysis that they just expected things to be the same and they expected players to be available do you remember the whole press conference like we gotta we gotta find a center yeah and everyone's like um well it's not gonna be that easy right like you're not gonna have jt miller getting forced out of tampa well you're not gonna you're not gonna have that
You're right to some extent, but also Charlie Coyle moved. Trevor Zegers moved. There were deals to be had. Centers did move last year. The Canucks just didn't get any of them.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Ryan Johnson face as the new GM?
First of all, Bernie, use some commas and periods and that sort of thing.
We're new. Punctuation. Are you new here, Bernie?
This is what we do. We make fun of everything.
Yeah, it's true. We're making fun of you right now, Bernie.
And when people call this show negative, it's not. It's realistic. That's what it is. And the Canucks are in a deep, deep hole. They are at one of the lowest points in franchise history. Maybe the lowest point in franchise history. And they are going to these guys to try and rescue them out of it. You know, in the 80s, they had some really bad teams. But the 80s was a different system.
There was always the hope in the 80s that you could just make a massive trade or a massive signing and turn things around because there wasn't a salary gap. This is very different now. You know, you're looking at the next few years of the Canucks and they are going to be bad. I see maybe a 1% chance that they are good in three years. No, it is just, it is, it is just zero. Impossible.
for them to be a stanley cup contender in the next two or three years because there isn't talent available in free agency there isn't talent enough talent in the canucks on the roster in terms of young prospects they need so much more they don't have a franchise player And the teams that win Stanley Cups have multiple franchise players. They don't have that right now.
You're just being negative again now. I'm just being realistic. I remember when we would stick up for the Canucks constantly. Because they were good.
Yes.
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Chapter 6: What specific skills should the Canucks look for in their new hires?
Anyone who doesn't shouldn't be here.
Get rid of them. Like get rid of them yesterday. Like they shouldn't be a part of this culture. If you're, if you really care about, if you really care about easier said than done for sure. But if you really care about building a proper foundation and culture for an actual rebuilding team that will hopefully be a playoff contender again someday, then that's the ground level.
That's where you have to start. And if you can't even do that, then it's a fool's notion to try.
You're right, A-Dog. It does sound cheesy.
Thank you.
Let's fire up the dot matrix.
So when you tell me to move cow, A-Dog.
Speaking of cheesy, what we learned is brought to you by AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. From corporate events to special events, there's no order too large. Order online at ajs.pizza. I want to read Tatiana and Langley's first. I'm going to turn this into a what we learned. She has suggested the following question and answer for today's press conference. Question. Henrik, who do you report to?
Answer. I report to Daniel. Question. And Daniel, who do you report to? Answer. I report to Henrik. Ah, pretty clever. Pretty clever. We'll never be able to figure that one out.
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Chapter 7: What lessons can be learned from the Canucks' recent performance?
And what I maintain is, that their biggest failing over the last few years was an inability to properly judge character. And that sounds like a very harsh judgment. And I'm not necessarily saying like good person, bad person. I'm talking about
the human judgment that you have to make sometimes that goes beyond numbers, and it comes down to personality, work habits, what motivates you in finding the right people to lead you. Now, you want those people and need those people to be very talented. But when you look at The leadership that guys like McDavid and Drysaddle have in Edmonton, is it perfect? No, it's not perfect.
But those guys, I mean, I would find it hilarious what some people might text into a show that McDavid and Drysaddle have. Like, you guys are being negative. Yeah, because they got high standards. Let's bring our damn standards up in Vancouver. Drysaddle went up to a press conference and said, we're going backwards. And McDavid said a similar thing.
They might as well have gone up there and be like, we suck right now. They said we were an average team this year. We weren't good. Those guys are living in reality, not some sort of fake optimism. There's so many people that text into the show and it's like, can you guys do a positive segment on the Canucks? Do you want me to lie to you? Like, is that what you need in your lives?
You need someone to be like, it's going to be okay. You know? Zeev Booyum looks good. Linus Carlsen had a good year. Does that make you feel better? Yes. If you do it in the NPR voice, yes.
Do a whole show like that in the NPR voice.
Is that what you need? Because you shouldn't listen to this show. When they are good, we will say they are good. When they are bad, we will say they are bad. Right now, they are bad, and we are hopeful that they will someday be good.
Well, we're out of time. Enjoy today, everybody. Reminder, the press conference goes live at 1 o'clock. We'll have it right here on Sportsnet 650. And then tomorrow morning, we'll be back to talk about it and hopefully do more of your What We Learned. For now, though, we've got to say goodbye. Signing off, I have been Mike Halford. He's been Jason Brough. He's been A-Dog. He's been Laddie.
This has been the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.
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