-♪♪ Is this just 'cause me and Daniele are back together? Or just -- You can say just 'cause. It doesn't even need to be a reason. That works, too. Bad morning show, Gunner and Daniele here. You know, I love -- I love all you guys, but God, Sandman, they keep doing this to us. It is the Fresh Prince meme every time. I think the band is back together. I'm sitting here, and I got to be honest. You're always here, Josh Sandman. It's me and you standing in the empty living room. So this is like a melding of Fresh Prince memes. It's us alone in the living room. But it's also me and you. I don't know which one of us is uncoful. But why don't they don't want me no more? No Ben N.S., you'll see her him or see him later. No Jeff as a party. Apparently, knock, knock, knock in on Death's door. So he's not here today. But that's got me feeling good. 'Cause it means a return to my Leaf Nation feeling. I got my man, Armin behind the glass. And if you guys listen to bunk at all, it's going to be a very different experience for Armin. He's going to hear he did something right today. He's not going to get screamed at. I don't particularly care about the Lakers. I'm just going to leave them alone on all that. How are we doing on a quick date check? It is Tuesday, Tuesday morning. Daniele, what's up, buddy? Great to be back with you. I'm doing okay, man. Yeah, you know, we can't complain too much. It was nice to have a moment. Don't tell me, but you're right, we can't. Well, yeah, I mean, Hackett is what it is. It is what it is. A moment of a previous yesterday not having to wake up at 6 a. Or not wake up at 6 a.m. I was going to say. Wake up at like 3.30 a.m. to be here at 6 a.m. to be here at 6 a.m. to be here at 6 a.m. So that was nice. But great to be back with you in this chair, my friend. It's always fun. Yeah, I just pull him back to Curtin right now. It doesn't matter. 'Cause it's not like I made copious notes for this first segment we did. I got the old spinning wheel of death on my computer right now. We don't like that. Where are the cursors? Like, hey, chill out. Give me a minute. So that's the kind of start to the morning where we're all having here. No obvious lead story today. You know, we had a great day down at the Jay's Care Foundation. It was actually kind of a perfect day for it. 'Cause, you know, shout out, sorry, my beloved open championship. Even that wasn't like obvious leads stuff yesterday. Talk to Frank Cattleman. Oh, no. We talked to Jose Cruz Jr. But specifically those two, they're both coach and college ball now. So it's just really cool to kind of talk to them about the new age athlete. And, you know, a lot of times when people talk about that from a distance, they talk about it one way. But when those guys are actually in the mud, grind and work with those kids, it's very different. So it's just kind of cool to kind of hear their experience talk about it. And the kind of stock question was, so what do you think about Paul Skeens when he was in your orbit? Last year. It was just a really, really great day down there. It's pretty cool. As interviews, yeah, on the pod yesterday, wherever it is, you get your pods. Now, a piece of news we got laid in yesterday's show. I had to like smack myself down, it's like, all right, this LeBron's involved, but it doesn't mean it's breaking news, let's stop the show. But I did almost feel the need to stop the show because LeBron James is named flag bearer for the US. Now I should clarify, not the flag bearer, one of two flag bears, which like, okay, I'll hear it. I understand the idea of like you want to equal representation. I'm fine with it. I also do want someone to make a choice in this world and have some colonies to hit to stand behind it. You want to make LeBron James your flag bearer? Make him your flag bearer. You want to make, I don't know, pick one of the sprinters, usually there usually is good about the American. Sure. Sure. Well, I was thinking of a woman, but you know, like they've got tons of great American track athletes. Guess what? I guarantee you there's a swimmer. I'm going to hear way too much of a tremendous number of gymnasts of course, right? So that's fine. You want to make them the flag bearer, making the flag bearer. But I loathe this idea of, you know, this is why I love and haven't talked to Damien Cox on the show in a while at the Northern Star Award. Yeah. We don't like Canadian press. I believe does one as well. That's like the Canadian male and female athlete of the year. Great. Good. I like when you make a decision. And if you're going to say Brooke Henderson, like I always do is the Canadian athlete of the year, say it with your chest and say it's going to be Brooke Henderson. So that's just my own little quibble. If I understand the idea, you want to make it more fair, you want to have more people involved, but from what we do, make a decision. Have a take. Jim Rome said it best. Have a take. Don't suck. Say it with your chest and make a decision. So I don't know. I mean, anytime it is a it's always a star, right? It is very rarely a completely unheard of person, even if the star is not the star performer, the story becomes the star. So I'm not overly surprised, but I got to be honest, I was pretty surprised that LeBron was named flag bear. I suppose the little difference seeing is how the athletes themselves voted on it. But yeah, it's not it's not who I think a lot of people would assume. I think swimmer, gymnast, track and field again, pick your myriad of sports that don't get enough shine other times of the year. Yeah. Pick the. I mean, you can have your pick of the litter given how many athletes they're going to have. They're probably going to be it's usually them and why is it China, Japan, they have the most athletes. Just think good and sheer numbers have been China, right? Totally. Like I think there and that's why even if you look at, you know, betting lines and odds, you want to place a friendly wager, it's pretty much the United States and China atop the metal board at this particular point in time, because that's typically what it is in the summer Olympics. Now, what matters more total metals or total gold? Golds. Okay. I like that. Yeah, golds. I would go goals for sure. I think I mean, heck, if you're just want to have a running tally of all the medals, okay, but who won the biggest ones? I don't disagree. One more. The big one. Point system, like three, two, one, almost, and that should be the middle. Interesting. Okay. I kind of like that. You know what? Why has this never been amended and discussed further? I got to understand. I got to be honest. I think in the, in the course of time on this particular stretch of sports radio, not just here, but all across North America, because again, like, I don't know that people do this art form, like we do in North America here, I guarantee you someone has come up with it in the dead zone that is baseball star break, but I'm stealing it now and that's my idea. Point system for Olympic Games. I like it. No, I like it. I think that would, you know, it would actually lend itself to providing a better idea, a better sense of who actually was the most productive nation in the Olympics. Okay, back to LeBron. So funny enough, as you alluded to, voted on by the athletes, yep, secondarily, he was initially nominated by Steph Curry. That's an interesting little wrinkle here. It was Steph Curry that sort of spearheaded this movement to say, let's nominate LeBron as a candidate for the flag bearer, the role of being a flag bearer at the opening ceremony. And I kind of understand it, A, the name recognition is there, B, you also have the fact that this is his fourth Olympics Olympic games. He's won two goals. He's seeking a third goal medal. He's won a medal in each of those three now again, caveat is it's the United States. It's men's basketball. They're always going to be very good. Yep. But I do understand it. And I know you, you want to say, gosh, make a decision. I do want to be definitive in who you're declaring as the flag bearer. Yes. But that happens in the closing ceremony. The nations have one representative in closing ceremony in the opening ceremony. It's always two. One female athlete, one male athlete. And it's equal representation, fairness, all this stuff, good, all this jazz, fun jazz. And then at the end, they are rewarding the individual. That sort of stands a cut above everybody else in terms of their performance throughout the course of the games that that person is going to have the honor and the privilege of being the flag bearer on the way out to honor what they accomplished. So I get it. I think this is another little feather that LeBron can have in his calf, man. Of course. He's the third basketball player ever in the first, the first male player to be a flag bearer for the United States. That ain't nothing. Like we're talking about, think of all the incredible male basketball talent, the sheer breath of talent that they produce. Michael Jordan, have you heard of him? Exactly. Yeah. And there's not a single other male player that has ever had the privilege of standing there walking out with the flag as the flag bearer, and he's going to be in that position. So it's a, it is a big deal and it's an added feather into the cap and something that'll go on his resume. Yeah, it's funny. I also think of this as a kind of, and maybe I'm completely off base. I don't know, but kind of a uniquely American, North American thing, because I think I just think of the other athlete in the sun, you know, the kind of the, the waning years of his, I mean, he's even more past his prime than LeBron is in Leo Messi. And if soccer players are at the Olympics, and like, I know they're soccer, but it's like an under 23. I think it is. Right. So which I think is awesome. Quite frankly, I would have no problems with other sports saying, Hey, this is effectively our, you know, slightly older world juniors and we're going to make this an event. But if soccer players were there and Leo Messi was playing for Argentina at the Olympics, guess who's carrying the flag folks and hey, like maybe they have some beloved sprinter or some, some cyclist that I'm not aware of or something. But in most countries, they'd be like, this is our guy. We love him or this is our girl. We love her. And we want to show the whole world, but it does seem like with North America, it is one of the things. And I think part of it is that our biggest athletes are often there, right? Be it a hockey player, be it a basketball player. You know, we were talking yesterday, the idea of one day baseball, being in the Olympics and the throws of the season, and you have a Mike Trout or show, Hey, Oh, Tony, guess who might be carrying the flag for their country? Show Hey, Oh, Tony, if he was at the Olympic games, right? Yeah. It's very odd, only that only it really does feel like a Canada and America thing where we go, well, these guys are so feted year round. We can't give it to them all the time. Why not? Like again, I have no problem with the argument of, but this, and I don't know why I should probably pick another sport other than the steeple chase, but it's like this person is so good at steeple chase. When else will we ever talk about it? And it's like, I don't know if they're so good when they win the gold, probably we'll probably talk about it, then slightly less of a silver and even less than that if it's bronze. But I think that's what I keep falling back to. I love the notion of it being, you know, I go back to winter Olympics of like Katrina Lamay, don't a great speeds, a great speed skater for us. And you know, those were all fine choices. But I also, and it's like, obviously my own bias or a play here, I'd have no problems with if we're just going to again, parallel Sydney cross walking in is the flag bear. And it's not always the case, right? Because with hockey, it happens in the middle of the season. Those guys probably aren't even going to be there for the opening ceremonies. So it's a moot point, really. But I think it's so interesting that it is just again, I don't think there are other countries in the world that go, Oh, this guy's too famous. We love them too much. They're too fed. We can't make them represent our country. Of course, of course, of course you can. I think the fact that it's voted on by the other athletes completely removes any debate from this. In the world where you go, LeBron James, look at it. And I don't have this tape, but I'll do it for everyone else out there. I'll give arm in a flashback to when he's working with JD. It's like, you know, Machiavelli in LeBron. He went into the US Olympic offices and is like, if you don't want clutch sports, ruining the Olympic games, you better let me be the flag bear the fact that all the players get all the different athletes voted on this. And guess what? I'd love to hear from an athlete that's a little sour about this. I don't think we're going to. I think they'll probably zip it. But I'd love to hear from some again, like Katie Ledecky again, you know, my opinion on swimmers. We don't need to go back down that road. But oh, she's a swimmer. Right. Yeah. Okay. You're fighting this out. Yeah. Female Phelps. But the they with her, it's like she goes, okay, hold on. I got every four years in the world, chance all around, but like that me and I can completely see both sides of the of the argument. Is LeBron going to wear a crown? No. Crown. Get out of here. King James should. This is sucking James. Well, maybe the London games he would have tried to have a little bit of a just a just stealing of the monarchy right then and there that obviously goes to Canada. I feel like the most and again, maybe just maybe I'm I'm missing people, but off first blush, SGA feels like the most famous Canadian we're going to have there. I'd be quite frankly, floored if he was the flag bearer. I just don't see it. I think part of it is that it's really easy with LeBron to do basically the career achieve improvement angle of it as well. And we, we got a lot of career achievement left to do for SGA and that's not a knock on anything. He's done, but I just think that's the other part of it is that if, you know, Steve Nash was a 42 year old point guard on this team and he was kind of seen as like the de facto captain. Well, SGA and the new kind of generation was coming along. That's a story. You can sell that. But the idea of SGA, hey, he's very good. He nearly one MVP last year, it's not the same as a LeBron James or a Leo Messi, quite frankly. So that's why I do think again, I haven't really looked at who the short list is you got it. Interesting option. Yeah, I haven't. It's funny. This is normally like my favorite topic of all time and I haven't really delved completely in yet. So give me some, give me some favorites or some short list people. I have quite a few here, but before we do this, do you want to take a guess? So almost certainly no just when you start a question now and never know. So there have been a hockey players on occasion that have served as flag bearer. I imagine. I imagine Poulan has done it. So she did it. She was one of two in 2022 for the opening ceremony. It was her and Charles Amland who was in his final Olympics. I do remember him. Speed skater. Speed skater. I love our speed skaters. I do. So they're, they obviously, and in that instance, the women's teams coming off a gold and now she serves as the opening, the flag bar for the opening ceremony. Based on what I'm looking at here, Gunner, it's happened. We have to go prior, okay, 1948 since 1948, there have only been two hockey players, two service flagbearers for this country. One was Poulan. The other, you want to take a guess of this one? Also a female player, not a male, no male hockey players. Was a wick and I was. It was a wick and obviously. Those are the two. Those are the two. Those are the two. Those are the two. Those are the two. Greatest speech in Olympic history that you can't ask her about because she's like, I got bad. I know. I got fed bad info, but I just will remove that from history. You got fed great info and it was an awesome speech. Awesome. And you should assign the flag and you should have sent it. Yeah. I love her. That's it. So her, Haley Wickenheiser and Medi Felipe Poulan, they're the only two hockey players that have served as flagbearers for Canada. That is a, that's interesting. Should have been our boy. That is really, really interesting. Should have been our boy Jason Demeris and the no NHL players are at least no active NHL players of the 2022 games. I'm kidding in that. But I think that is the problem there is that the unlike basketball, which it has the unique advantage of being a winter sport as far as we're concerned, but a summer sport as far as the Olympics is concerned, those guys get to go and they get to take. I mean, you've heard this from, you've heard this from NHLers about going to the Olympics. They love it. But the problem is what the way it's done, and this would be a much more similar experience. The baseball players would end up having, if it goes to the games, is they don't really get the feel of being Olympians. They get it for the time they're there, but they don't get to come in for the opening ceremonies or almost certainly gone by the time the closing ceremonies happen. I mean, there is a amazing picture of Sidney Crosby, I think it's the night before, maybe two nights before the gold medal game in Vancouver, and he is watching curling and you'd think he's on the bench. So locked in. I think that's the experience these players all kind of want and they don't and that's the other reason why we just don't see it from that. I think the other thing with summer sports specifically to like make it about this Olympics for Canada, which makes it so hard is I don't feel like we have our crown jewel summer sport. They're the crown jewel events of the games like the grass is in it. We're excited. Soccer has now very much, especially on the women's side of thing become a marquee event to the games. Again, people's mileage may vary on this. We have a lot of swimmers, but so do a lot of countries. We don't have the event that we own or expect to own quite frankly in the way we do with hockey at the, at the winter games. And I think that's the other reason why this becomes like one of the great sport debatables is again, there is no slam dunk cancer for who should be Canada's flag bearer there. They're in winter games. There isn't even this answer either because it's the exact opposite problem. They got too many athletes and they're all, they're all so deserving. And that's the thing I keep coming to. And that's why I love this topic because it is just, you can honestly, you could put forth 10 candidates and they're all valid in one way or another. Like, you know, we do the swimmer thing. We do the career achievement thing. It's like crazy to think we're getting there with Penny Alexiac. This will be, I think her third. It's probably going to be our last one, which is crazy to say she's only 20 to say, right? 24 last Olympic game, it is probably going to be a, you know, and you could see a world where she is somebody who gets kind of fed it in that way. Okay. So a couple of things, one, I, you know, the interesting thing when it comes to having the honor bestowed upon you to be the flag bearer, you only get to do it once pretty much, right? Now there's no rule. I don't think. And I looked at this yesterday, there's no rule that prohibits a country from selecting the same person to do it multiple times. That being said, you could be the Jonathan Taves of flagbearers for a world junior shoot out attempts. Being said, generally speaking, it is a one shot deal. You get one opportunity. So then they're going to look elsewhere the next time around. That's what also compounds the overall difficulty in selecting these individuals. So what do you, because if I look at it now, like for example, if they realistically, like Damien Warner was the closing ceremony flag bearer for 2021, AKA 2020, and he has a great argument to be the flag bearer again. On Friday. It really does. Like he's the reigning world champion in that sport in decathlon, which is considered essentially the Holy Grail of the Olympics, right? Yeah. Old school Olympics show. 100% because of all the multiple. Yeah. Like we have a great answer. Oh, we do. Got one in there. And literally, and I'm not going to say, I don't even know the guy's name. Okay. But I did see him mentioned on various lists. I'm like, come please. Give me a break. I actually wanted to adjust to see all the uncles in the country get angry. We don't need. Come on. Respectfully. We're sporting respects enough respectfully stand over there in the corner and don't be the player. Okay. Just be proud. You're going to walk out. You're going to be donning the uniform. It's a great moment. Enjoy it. All right. Over there. Yeah. But just over there. Okay. We know where you said. Okay. So Damien Warner, I think is it would have been very deserving, but he's not going to get it. He's not going to be in consideration because he just did it. Yeah. So that is we have to throw him aside. Another guy who probably also at the Catholic should have been there could have been a very good option on the middle side. Pierce LaPaj. What happens? Yeah. Gets hurt. He's out. So without it's funny to say that because the whole time I'm like, Oh, it's even our best guy. If La Paj is healthy, like it's pretty neck to neck. Yeah. Exactly. La Paj was is the reigning world champion. He was going into this Olympics as the favorite and and Damien Warner, the defending champion. You know, he's just trying to stay on the podium at this point. So what do you want? I think the ultimate answer or question in this is what do you want? In your opening ceremony, flag bearer, like, do you want the most famous person we have? No. Do you want the best story? Do you want the most accomplished person? Do you want? I think there's some people who like it this way. You're almost doing futures betting. You're like, I want to look back in two weeks and look so smart and who I picked is my flag bearer. Because they're going to have an awesome game. It's like, what are you? Or the inverse is true. Oh, okay. Because if let's say let's, so here's a good example, Maggie McNeil on the women's side. Okay. Maggie McNeil. Can I get the sport, please? Thank you. 24 year old swimmer. She had three medals in Tokyo, one of each gold, silver, bronze. That's good. Okay. One a medal and all three. She went three for three, one medals. Yeah. So there's good reason to say Maggie McNeil has a very strong case to be a flag bearer. But here's the thing, they're expecting her to be very successful in this Olympics. So at the end, would you maybe say, Oh, Maggie McNeil has a good chance to close as the flag bearer for Canada? Do you understand? Here's one guy on the men's side that I think if you, if you, if you're going to give anybody there, do, and I think you really only have one shot because I don't see this guy winning this turner. I know where you're on with this. Nick Taylor. Oh, okay. That's not where I thought it was going. Nick Taylor, I think is an interesting choice. Yeah. A guy that obviously ended a 69 year drought and our national open last year, 72 foot bomb. Exactly. In the most electric fashion possible, but you, and you only have one chance to truly fit him. This would be it because he's not, with all due respect to Nick Taylor, he's not winning the Olympic golf tournament. And I don't know if anything could happen, but sure, be sure, I'm sure, let's live in that world for a moment. But I think this is a unique opportunity. So I'm looking at how do we match as you alluded to the accomplishments, the resume with the opportunity. And I think if I'm going down that list, that's why he popped out. He jumped off the page for me. Another guy that jumps off the page for me is the grass. Why? Because I'm not so sure Degrass is going to have the most. That's who I thought you were going to. He's another one. I'm not so sure. We're guaranteed to have this prolific illustrious run for Andre Degrass here at these Olympics. So as a result, if you want to give him his do, you want to acknowledge his greatness and what he's done for sprinting in Canada, do it now. Do it now. Give him the honor of being the opening ceremony, ceremony flag bear. So those are two that came into mind because of opportunity meets accomplishment and resume. Take advantage of it and capitalize on the opportunity that's in front of you. That's why I think those two are probably the strongest in my estimation. No, I like that. I think the Degrass one, he feels like he feels like an opening ceremonies fly or closing for that matter. But definitely an opening ceremonies flag bear. It's a guy who has been at the crux of the Olympics. It's very Canadian that it's like our favorite summer games moment. It's him coming in second. Yeah. You remember. Oh, no, test test. Don't you dare. But that's going to my kid is going to be watching Olympics in 30 years and go, oh, this footage looks old and I'm going to go, you shut your mouth. This was awesome. I was there. Not really, but I watched it on TV. We're going to remember that. It's going to be one of the moments. And I think to your point about the lack of guaranteed success, I think that's where I kind of go. I think the Taylor thing is interesting because he is almost caught in the middle. He is closer and not in terms of public fame or perception, but definitely in terms of like riches and stuff to the pro hockey player, to the pro basketball player. And we again, I don't know that other countries are doing this, but we go, eh, doesn't he have enough? Doesn't Nick Taylor get feted every time he comes back to the end? It's like, yes, so do our swimmers by all the swimming people. And I think there is an element of, I see this guy on my TV all the time. He's almost too famous. Seems like a crazy thing to say about Nick Taylor because he's the world's most boring man. Quite frankly, God love him. But I think that's the problem. He's kind of stuck in that middle ground to grass feels like he belongs to the Olympics. Nick Taylor feels like he belongs to our sporting life and he happens to be going to the Olympics. And I think that that's kind of the problem. Again, if this was Scotland, like Robert McIntyre, he's going to be at the Olympics, he just won their Scottish Open, could easily see it being him. And they go, this is awesome. We love this guy. He's red hot. Get him out there. But with us, we would have, I think there is a natural inclination from a lot of people, not everyone. And it wouldn't be me if it was the way I was going about it to say, this person has enough. They're feted all the time. Millions of dollars. Adidas contract. They're these framed pictures of him up in clubhouse is all across the country. And I just think that that's quite frankly the wrong way to look at it. I would give it to the grass over Taylor, like even as much of a golf circle as I am to grass feels like the choice. But I think that, again, is just a thing that there's precious few countries on earth that are looking at it in the way we do. And I think so much of it is just the America infecting us quite frankly, because we're so much closer to all those other countries, guys, like there's only one America. It's America. And then there's China. They're like, I guess they're super close as well. So there's really two Americas. You got to stop thinking yourself in that way and more like these other countries without an SGA. And like, I don't think they would hold this against him or hold him back from this. But if SGA is the MVP of the Olympic basketball tournament in Canada wins a medal, I want that guy walking out of there with the flag. I don't care not to say somebody else couldn't have had a great Olympics, but I don't care that he's super famous. I don't care that he plays locals in the city Thunder. I don't care that because he's in the NBA, he's going to make 60 sheets a year soon. I don't care about any of that. If he's deserving of it, I think he should get it. And I just think that I do wonder if the LeBron decision, like all things in sports, bring it back to LeBron, it gives other nations kind of the courage for lack of a better term to say, yeah, this guy is super famous or this girl is super famous and we want to fed them. We don't want to go look for the Olympic story. Do you think it would be enough hypothetically? Is it enough for Canada to in men's basketball? Let's say they win bronze. SGA is great, but they win bronze is that enough to make him the closing ceremony flag bear for a bit of a cop out answer, but it depends. Like if it is, let's just say France, hypothetically, an SGA is going toe to toe with Wembanyama and he's looking at exactly the alien that he is and he's like, Oh, we haven't seen him play basketball in two months. And now he's the third best player in the world already and somehow Canada overcomes that. Yes. But and this is super disrespectful to the team that just won the World Cup, but like if it's against Germany and Dennis Schroeder and the Wagner's here, like, eh, it carries much less weight for, I think a lot of people and maybe that shouldn't matter. But I do think that the way it happens will matter. If it is, if it is some, you know, some even, even, you know, they win still or they lose the gold medal. Yeah. Let's say there's some crazy, like they play the American or something or they lose to the Americans. But then they come back. I think they have to beat someone of note in a game that matters. And that doesn't just, that can't just be the States though. Like, I think even though the team, we don't think of it that way and they're going to have to go through them in the group. But like, if it was against Janis, if it's against one of those players that we look at in that way, even if it was a yoke of it or a donch itch or something like that, those are the guys that I think would kind of carry that weight. But if it is just, they beat Australia in, which is super unfair because Australia is as tough a test and as tough out in international basketball as any non American side. But I think you need the storyline to go along with it. It can't just be the result. You want to know something interesting? Sure. Luca Donchich, not in the Olympics. I figured as much. Yeah. He's not. They didn't, they felt to get out of their qualifying tournament. That's right. He was the, it was them and like Janis. I was a priest. I don't know if they were in the same one, but I don't know if they were right down there to the wire. I'm pretty sure they were. So Canada would have been screwed either way. They would have got Donchich or, or Janis in that group, it seems like. Here's why I'm a little bit skeptical of the theory, the notion that anything, because I think anything short of goal for Canada men's basketball, I would, I would be hard pressed to envision one of those players, probably SGA, being the flag bearer. The Canadian woman's soccer team won gold. Yeah. In 2021. Kind of really little, right? Well, right now. Yeah. That's what I mean. But they won. That's a massive accomplishment. Oh, yeah. They didn't have. It was, it was Damien Warner that was the flag bearer to close that Olympics, not somebody from that team, even though that arguably was the biggest, totally, the most viral moment of the games for Canada was the women's soccer team. So I think the United States, so here's the difference though, is that there is, and Christine Sinclair is the easy person to point to, but she wasn't Christine Sinclair. It was the clear option, the minister of defense. I remember Diana Mattson making big say, like, I remember all that. But I think the problem was, was that that was a story that evolved throughout the tournament. So much of this is, where does the story begin? And we are all primed for the story of Shagil just Alexander, not, not Dylan Brooks, not Lou Dort, not even Jamal Murray, not Kelly Olenik, Shagil just Alexander. That's the story we're like primed for. And I think with Canada's soccer, they are a victim of the team that they are. It's been so much about, and this kind of what we talked about with Kevin Bloom. We had him on last week, the idea of, it is the program, and it's not that they haven't tried to sell. Janine Becky's and, you know, Steph, right, all these players, they've tried. But when there is a North star like Sinclair, it kind of casts a shadow over everything else. And I think the problem was, if, if Christine Sinclair had two goals, like, we're ready and more than able to accept that narrative. But when it's somebody from a team that is seen as a true team, I think that's the thing that kind of held those girls back last year, whether that's fair or those women back, whether that's fair or not, whereas with men's basketball, again, if, if SGA has a ho-hum tournament and it's Jamal Murray doing it, I don't know that we've prepared ourselves for that narrative, like we have on the SGA side of things. Interesting. Okay. So, I mean, before we take a break, you got any predictions, you got, you got it, you got two, one male, one female, you got any selections in mind. Yeah, I think, I think we, I think we narrowed it down. I think it's Alexiac and I think it's, it's to grass. Okay. If you go, if you go male female, I think it's the, the two of them. I think the Degrass one is the most, the most obvious now that we kind of talk, talk about it. But yeah, Alexiac, if it is in fact, her last games, you could, you could definitely see her, her getting that not as well. And we love it. We love a swimmer. I mean, we as in you, you know, like, hey, it's part of our nation, like we got, we got great swimmers. Yeah. I know what about you. You like that? No, no, I'm on board. Yes, on the women's side, I think there's a little bit more variance and totally slight unpredictability because I think Alexiac makes a lot of sense from a sentimental standpoint. And she's obviously had the prior Olympic success to back it up. I think McNeil is really interesting because here's another thing Gunner, like summer Macintosh could end up making a strong case to be the closing ceremony flag bearer for this country. She's probably going to wipe up a bunch of medals and dominate competitions across the board during this Olympics. So that might even preclude Maggie McNeil from having an opportunity to do it. And then I think that's sort of where I would lean probably between Alexiac and McNeil on the women's side and then Degrass would be my pick, even though I think, as I mentioned, I think Nick Crick, Nick Taylor deserves consideration. I didn't even think about him. And now that you've mentioned it, now I will, I will be stoking my Canadian golf brethren into a riot tomorrow morning when we find out that it's not Nick Taylor, even though before five seconds ago, I had not considered the possibility quite frankly. I think about Brooke too on the women's side. So Brooke, Brooke Henderson, she's even more into the too far away camp than Nick Taylor. Like she's had more success. She's one real live makers and her Canadian open do it in snow pants from Regina. Don't get more Canadian. Like we love, we love Nick Taylor's story of a 72 foot triple breaker plot and he throws it. And Adam Haben gets Goldberg speared by that's all great. It don't get more Canadian than Brooke Henderson doing it when they, she's doing him basically snow pants from Regina when she won our national open the first time. She's done it twice as well. That's bad. That's all done. There's just nothing about Brooke that gets enough too. So I would love to see her, see her get that shine and maybe from that regard that she has even more of the Bonafide as you could see her in there. I just, I don't think it'll happen. I don't have the LPGA schedule in front of me. The PGA schedule does boat itself pretty well for these guys to be there. If they want it's a non elevated event, we're done with those for the year. So it's the three. I'm open. And then the week after that is the final week of the regular season. So if guys are secure in their playoff spots, secure with their tour cards, they can take the opportunity to and Taylor would be a guy who is secure in both of those with his big win last year and how to win earlier this year. So yeah. Now I'm ready. I'm ready to riot when it is not Nick Taylor tomorrow. I can't believe we're about to do this. It's a sign surely that the calendar is about to flip to August. But coming up on the other side, NFL news and notes, someone was screaming at Pat McAfee. He was screaming back a quarterback. This will shock you. Up for a contract and the next one's going to make him the highest paid one ever. We only are going to hear that thirteen hundred more times in my lifetime. NFL news and notes on the other side will help you turn your football brain back on Fan Morning Show on Sportsnet five nine to the fan. Fan morning show gunner Danielle a Tuesday. That's a lot of week left folks out to tell you, sorry, your work doesn't even started. I'm I'm nearly an hour into mine. So eat it closer to my Tuesday being over the new are a lot of a lot of work week left. I don't know. I always like to judge the busyness of other people's work week based on our parking garage, which is like a dangerous thing to do at six o'clock in the morning. But when I'm coming out, I feel like I have a very good handle on like our people working today. Is this one of these random holiday weeks for no reason? Because let me tell you that parking garage goes from Lord of the Flies to ghost town, seemingly no rhyme or reasons like any executives. And I also noticed this, I'm leaving at nine o'clock my people in the proletariat, my work and men out there. It's like I'm seeing, I'm seeing tons of vehicles, you know, no free ads, but you know, reasonable sedans beat up cars that look like they're hanging on for driving the occasional nice one. If I leave this building after 10 o'clock, let me tell you, you know all the expensive ones and they're driving and sipping their coffee. So I like to think I have a very good handle on on on how big a working week it is. So I don't know, I'll report back tomorrow or you, you know, you out there can go to your work and figure it out yourself. It's always work time in the NFL. Those guys just ask them, never stop grinding, truly never stops. They will, they've stole, they truly are the Grinch. They've stolen Christmas from the NBA said you can't have it. You could share these with us, but we're getting in on this as well. And I do feel like we talked about this when we had Cal brand on, that we just are exiting the only real kind of quiet part in the NFL season. Like stuff's always happening. Okay. Like, are you asking for a trade? And there's, you know, many camps that aren't happening. Aaron Rodgers is excused, but not excused, but on vacation, but not excused, but don't ask any questions about it. It's totally fine. But let me also tell you that it was not excused. So let me just make that part perfectly clear. But now we're kind of ramping things back up here. You're going to get your reports and camps really going to start in earnest. Hall of Fame game is going to be here sooner than you know it people. And this is just my favorite trope in the, in the NFL. And so much of it is because again, hockey brain, I'm so bogged down in contracts that every player who signs a contract instantly becomes the highest played, paid player in the league. Sometimes it happens. Happens happen with Austin Matthews may very well happen again with Leon Drey's title may very well happen again after that with Conor McDavid. Then it's going to be a while folks, not in the NFL. Now every time a quarterback takes a breath and gets a little bit closer to the end of their deal and they have shown one lick, one sintilla of promise. They apparently have to be the highest paid guy that's ever played the sport. And it is just something about that position. Part of it is that the cap's not real. Part of it is that these contracts aren't real, but they're also becoming closer and closer to reality than they ever have. Once DeShawn Watson went and got his fully guaranteed deal. So the report, the reason we're talking about this Jordan Love is the latest guy to apparently be ready to take that leap. Just like before we get into the contract, any of that, Jordan Love, does he feel like a guy that should be the most the highest paid quarterback in the league? Again, you understand where this is at. And you understand he took some strides last year, but man, there feels like a gap between where I'm at with Jordan Love and the absolute high end of quarterback play in this league. Do I feel he is the franchise quarterback for the Green Bay Packers? Yes. Do I think he is good? Yes. But now, and as you alluded to, we live in an era where these teams are going to compensate their quarterbacks at the first sight, the first instance where there's a morsel of hope. That is when they're going to compensate them to the nth degree and make them reward them for very limited sample of success. And look, Jordan Love's coming off a great season with the Green Bay Packers. He looked for the last, you know, eight, nine weeks like he was among the best quarterbacks in the NFL. But are you going to trust that it's an eight, nine week sample is now going to be extrapolated over the course of multiple years. And for the foreseeable future, that is a gamble that you're going to take. But here's the thing, Gunner, it's hard for anybody to like, I can't sit here and say, well, yeah, you know, I'm with you. I don't think Jordan Love, you know, strikes me as a guy that should be the highest paid quarterback in the NFL. But all that goes out the window when Daniel Jones is making $40 million a year. Yep. It's as simple as that. Daniel Jones, and he, by the way, that's not even a top 10 contract in football in terms of annual value, 40 million. He makes 40 million dollars for a guy who rode the coattails of Saquan Barkley to make the playoffs once in his life. Once this guy is somehow getting paid like an elite quarterback when he's done everything to suggest the complete contrary and opposite inverse of that assertion. So it makes no sense to me. But again, it's a product of the environment that they're in. I would still feel much better about paying Jordan Love, $57 million, let's say, than paying 40 to Daniel Jones. So that's kind of where my barometer is at. Do I feel better about paying player X, giving him the title of being the highest paid quarterback in football for five minutes? So I feel better about that than paying Daniel Jones, 40 million Kirk cousins, 45 million Kyler Murray, 46 million. Yeah, I do. So fine. I'll sign that contract and it seems like for the time being with the love situation, it is more so amicable than it is contentious. There isn't, he's present. He's just not practicing. That is his point of leverage is right now he's saying I'm not going to step on the field until I sign this deal, but I'm doing everything else. So it does feel like there is a mutual understanding there. I guess this is just the world we live in nowadays where we can't appropriately slot quarterbacks and say, okay, realistically, your resume, you are not there yet. Or Kirk cousins, your resume, are you really worth 45 million? What have you won? Yeah. What have you won? But the biggest thing with a lot of these players is they happen to be better than the alternative. That's that's where we're at. It's a state of mediocrity almost when it comes to quarterback play, we're in flux. We're in a state of flux and trying to discover and figure out why quarterback play has diminished so substantially in the national football league. Why is it that we got to watch 10 15 teams every single year go through the exercise of trying to figure out who the heck is going to be throwing the football for them? Why? We're in that position when it comes to quarterbacking in the national football league. Well, I mean, I think part of it is that it's just the league of have and have not not, right? Like you're either in that club or you're not. But we've also seen the the world where the four five six game stop gap is also kind of become more of a thing. Like I'm blanking on the guy's name. He was the Jets quarterback and then he went to Miami afterwards ball, but he played four or five six games for the Jets comes in and gives them respectability. Now part of it is that it's the shell of where Aaron Rodgers and everything going on around there and the, you know, problem child that was Zach Wilson. So he's able to kind of slide in and find a happy medium. But I think that the other part of the problem is the teams are of such a belief that it is a boom or a bus position, the idea of the game manager that doesn't exist anymore. Like Kirk cousins, we spent his entire career having referendums on what he is. And he when gets with the team, the wins a few games, and now he's one of these guys who's paid the idea of there being this kind of mid tier quarterback. It doesn't exist at least in terms of the financials anymore. And I think so much of it is that it is the one position that can sink or swim your team, right? Like you don't have a run game. Go ask the bills. You can figure it out. There's ways to get around it, right? You even lose a couple of patchcatchers. There's guys that are there to kind of suck up those targets on the defensive side of things. Okay, like if we're talking about a one on one, like an Aaron Donald, sure, Chris Jones, the city, right? And as you saw, they ponied up because they needed them. But generally speaking, those guys are to a certain extent, replaceable. The quarterback is just the floor setter for your team. And that's why you will always see this. And I think the Daniel Jones contract is punitive as it's proving for the giants. The other side of it is worked out so often for these teams that this is just the tax you're going to see. The other thing that always is going to complicate this in the NFL as well. And I haven't seen much reporting on this. I think this is one of those things that'll come out more after the deals done is the idea of the guarantee. Like I mentioned it to Sean Watson kind of screwed this all up and it being him of all people that set the precedent in that regard. And I think my home's obviously part of it is that he wants to play ball and keep the chiefs together and do the the Brady of it all essentially and not that he's taken so much less, but kind of restructured things and try to play ball. But the idea of the guarantee Lamar Jackson, that was the big hold up with him and it'll be curious to see which route love takes with that. If we kind of get back to a little bit more of the old school contract where, hey buddy, you and your agent get to go out there and you get to 600 million dollars or whatever the number ends up being when it's really closer to three, which again, hey, if someone's to give me 300 million, I'll gladly take it. But I think that's the thing that has always kind of complicated this. And this is probably I would imagine. I don't think if you're the packers, you say pick one to me. If I'm them, you say, you look, you can be the highest paid guy or you can have a bunch of guaranteed money, a ridiculous percentage that would have seemed astronomical 60, 70 percent guaranteed. You cannot have both. And I think the reason we're looking at this deal talked about in that regard is one, love is young enough in his career that he says, okay, I don't need to worry about the absolute hard and fast guarantee guarantee, I don't think I'm going to fall off a cliff. So it's not an issue that the team is going to be looking to move off of me. And then the team still gets to say, hey, we took a big show of faith in this guy, even though it's not going to be close to the guarantee percentage numbers that Watson wanted or Watson got or Jackson wanted last year. That's the other thing about this is I just watched the MVP of the league do this and he didn't get this respect. That's the other, that's the other thing about this that's kind of confusing for me. I remember just, you know, indulged me for a second. There was a time, not that very long ago, where a man by the name of Patrick Mahomes, as you already mentioned him, you referenced him, signed a 10 year, $450 million contract extension. That was in 2020. Right. Okay. And I remember that being what it felt like, a watershed occasion, a landmark moment. The young woman at the liquor store broke it. That's right. But an insane thing, like we were like, oh my God, 450. Wow. Today, Gunner, you know, which that obviously equates to $45 million a season. He's making the same as Kirk cousins. He's making less than Deshawn Watson, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, Lamar, Herbert, Gough, Trevor Lawrence is tied with Joe Burrow as the highest paid quarterback in the national football. One of those feels way more right than the other. I tell you, like it's pretty, it's absurd. So I think what this also alludes to in a weird way when it comes to quarterbacking. This is why teams are jumping the gun to say maybe 20 years ago, this Jordan love situation wouldn't have been fully rectified for another two, three years, but they're jumping the gun because they want maybe some cost certainly attached to sure saying we're going to lock in the sky. If it all works out and it plays out how we envision it, great. We have our franchise quarterback. Here's the price tag attached to it. And in five years, people are going to be looking at us saying, man, that was really intelligent. That was a bargain except in five years, you know, what's going to happen. Jordan loves going to say like, great, that worked out really well. Let's talk again. That's the problem. It depends what the deal looks like. Because I think you can point, I remember when the bill signed Josh Allen to their, his big extension. And that was thought of as being maybe a bit of an impediment, impediment, excuse me, and prohibitive to their ability to build out the rest of the roster. Guess what? In hindsight, it was kind of smart. Why? Because you've got them on a deal right now that averages out to 43 million a year. So that's not the worst case scenario when trying to build out a roster. You'd much rather be in the position of the chiefs or the bills than you would be Jacksonville who's going to be paying Trevor Lawrence, 55 million, and he's going to be accounting for 25% of your cap every year. That's where you would actually be best served. So I think what we've seen change and how it's affected the overall landscape is the next guy is CJ Shroud. CJ Shroud is going to be the next guy to break the bank. And it's going to be instructive of what that number looks like and when the deal is signed. But now it's essentially once you get to like year two or three of your deal, now you've got to already be thinking, okay, how do we extend our rookie quarterback? Let's pay him now because we can drive the price down slightly. So we're not going to have to pay him an exorbitant amount of money beyond what the current threshold of the highest paid player at that position is. Let's make sure we do that now. So it's going to entice teams to jump the market, be more proactive in that respect because that is how this is trending. The chiefs did it. The bills did it. A lot of these other teams are doing it. Now the big thing is when you sign these deals, I think a lot of these teams don't really know what they have. Like they have an idea of what they have, but they don't know the answer. There's only one Mahomes. There's only one Josh Allen. Lamar too. Look how long Lamar had to grind and wait out to get his deal. But you know what, those are known commodities at this point. I think what we're going to start seeing more of and what we have already is paying the guys that aren't as proven. And that to me is a recipe for disaster because I look at Jacksonville and I know Trevor Lawrence was the first overall pick. But you're telling me that Trevor Lawrence is a guy that should be even based off of whatever he's done in the first four years of his career should be somebody that we look at and point and say he is among and is the highest paid players at that position. That's the problem. Like it just doesn't make sense. It just boils down to the way front office decision makers look at this. It's almost like they have kind of three categories. You're you're a zero. You're a one or you're a truly one on one like a Patrick Mahomes. And guess what? If you're a one, you're getting paid. Like that's it. If they look at you as somebody who can hold them to a floor that would keep the organization afloat, you're getting paid like you're a one. It's a it's a crazy thing. But that is definitely the way of the world, especially in the NFL, especially at that position in 2024 Bush is coming to Budweiser stage for their loaded. The greatest hits tour on August 19th with special guest Jerry Cantrell and candle box and to celebrate we're giving away tickets to enter. All you have to do is tune into episodes of the fan morning show and listen for the code word then text the code word to 59590 standard message and data rates may apply. Today's code word is candle box. So text candle box to 59590 right now to enter for your chance to win. We're giving away another pair of tickets tomorrow, but if you don't win with us tickets are on sale at ticketmaster.ca Blue Jays back at it tonight. Promise or threat. I'll leave that up to you forever. We've said about this team. Well, I mean, you know, the at least tough league tough to swim in that division. I don't know that it'd be any easier in any of the other divisions right now. The ALE is not the excuse. It's always been that coming up on the other side of the fan morning show with gunning and dead yelling on Sportsnet 590 the fan. [MUSIC]
