Game day audio from Minnesota…11/1/2002
This could be the best place for us right now. You know sometimes when you’re at home you just , you know for whatever reason you just feel the need to get fancy at times. And instead of simplifying things, it makes things just that much more difficult for us. You know, when you get on the road you just try to stick to a simple game plan and keep the puck going forward. Look for my left winger, Markus, when he gets his chances to bury them. But uh, you just try and play each game on the road.

Audio from Colorado (about not facing Patrick Roy)….11/4/2002
Obviously, he’s probably one of the best ever to play the game, there’s no question about that, but..I’m sure he has a solid backup, we’ve faced him a couple of times. We’ve had some pretty good success against him. The main thing is just to get the pucks in the net with traffic in front.

Game day audio from Minnesota (he really doesn’t have an answer as to why he has a 6 pt scoring streak)..11/24/2002
It’s just one of those things that happens, you know I’ve been pretty fortunate that the puck’s been going in for myself and for a lot of other guys too. And uh, I don’t know what the difference is. Sometimes it’s just a matter of inches from game to game but you just try to stay upbeat and positive and work hard and be consistent every night.

Game day from Nashville (about wanting to bounce back from the Chicago loss) …..12/19/2002
Yeah, we want to make amends from that game. It was kind of a difficult game to call, we didn’t get generated a lot but we hung in there and we tied it late. And you know, if at least you have a good chance to get a point out of that game and hopefully win in overtime but, obviously things didn’t work out that way. And they got that late goal on us but we have to respond tonight and we have to really respect this team although their record isn’t very good, I mean they’re a team that can do damage. They got a lot of team speed and they play extremely well at home.

Audio clips from camp-day 2 (talking about Braeden)…..9/14/2002 w/ John Shorthouse
JS: Well Brendan, if you don’t mind, let’s start with some of the personal stuff. I know a lot of people will be wondering because it was during the playoffs last year. You were expecting your first baby. Tell everybody how it went and how the little guy’s doing.
BM: It went great. My wife and I were blessed and you know, anybody who’s been through it, you know you talk about it. It’s just a miracle, it truly is. Being in there and watching the whole process, it just blows you away. He was born on May 4th, right at the conclusion of our playoffs so the timing was perfect and he’s 4 months old now. And I’ve been able to spend the whole summer with him.
JS: Braeden?
BM: Braeden, that’s his name.
JS: Has it changed you at all? I mean you’ve only had 4 months to get used to it but are you a different guy now?
BM: I think it does change you, you know, no longer what you do is geared towards yourself or toward your wife. I mean everything is for and based around your child. When you think about going to do something, he always enters your mind, you know? ‘Should I be gone this long?’ , or ‘Is it appropriate to bring him into this type of atmosphere?’. So everything’s curbed towards doing the best for your child.
JS: So it’s cutting into your fishing, probably.
BM: A little bit, yeah, but Mom’s been great with that. She lets me get away and escape cuz she knows I love to do it and have my quiet time.
JS: What a great way to do it, though. To have the first four months of his life where you’re home all the time.
BM: Yeah, it’s been tremendous, I mean like I said, perfect timing. And just watching him go through the early stages in life and you know, right now he’s at that stage where he’s laughing a lot and trying to grab everything and put it in his mouth. So yeah, it is pretty neat.
JS: Alright, well let’s talk hockey now. What did you do in the summer to get ready for this?
BM: Well I worked extremely hard this summer like everybody does nowadays. I trained out in Burnaby for the last few years. I’ve had a personal trainer out there, Shawn Carpe (sp?) is his name, and then another fellow named Derek. They put me through the grind, we do a lot of applying metrics, a lot of jumping. With one of the guys I do more of power lifting, a little heavier weights. The other guy focuses on more strength and endurance so I get a good combination of both and they put me through the gears pretty good.
JS: What , specifically, you talked about what you were doing, but what specifically will that help you with?
BM: Well I think overall it’s going to help my quickness, power, strength. I gained like 4 pounds this summer of muscle. You know, just battling in situations, protecting the puck. I think everything. I’m always looking for errors in my game. I worked on face-offs this summer and shot a lot of pucks this summer as well so you know, all facets of the game.
JS: Take me back to late April. What was the feeling when everything wrapped up. You obviously had Detroit down 0-2 and you had the great second half of the season. Did you think you could have accomplished more?
BM: Definitely. It was real tough to swallow. You get into a situation like that when you’re up 2-0 and you get pretty excited. Even though we knew we were playing a tremendous team in Detroit we felt that we could still get the job done. It’s a funny thing when you get into playoff situations and the momentum shifts like it did in game 3 there. We just weren’t able to get it back. It seemed like no matter what we did, we just couldn’t grasp it. I think as a team matures you learn what it takes to get it back and you gotta give Detroit credit when they got on a roll. They didn’t let us get back into the series at all. But at the same time I think we learned a valuable lesson about when you have a team down, don’t let them creep back in. And you gotta bury them no matter what the situation is.
JS: Well clearly, it’s made you guys pretty hungry this summer to get back at it. Talk to me about, everybody’s talked about it from last year, but the start to the season and how you’re approaching it this time around.
BM: That’s going to be a huge key for us, obviously. See we want to build off from where we left last year. It was a tremendous second half for this team and a big step for us. A lot of people had written us off at Christmas that there’s no way we could get back into the race but we proved a lot of people wrong. The guys in the room believed we could do it and we did it. Like I said, we want to build off of that and get out of the gates. We don’t want to be in a full sprint again from Christmas time because as much as we talked about it , when playoffs roll around you do have a lot of adrenaline and you don’t really have time to be tired but in hindsight maybe they do take a little bit out of us. Every night was a do or die situation for us so it would be nice to get out of the gates early, so we don’t have that pressure of a do or die situation every game in the second half.
JS: You mentioned the word pressure there. Is there any on you with Andrew Cassels not here? Does it put extra weight on your shoulders, do you think?
BM: I think a lot of people from the outside looking in are definitely putting a little bit more pressure on me but , for me, personally, I put a lot of pressure on myself at the beginning of every year. I demand a lot of myself. So the way I’m approaching it is this season’s not going to be different from any other season. I expect myself to go out and be the best player I can be, do whatever I can to help the team win games and I really want to focus on being consistent this year, night in, night out. Be accountable. Be a guy that can contribute each night . Not only offensively but a guy that can be relied on defensively as well. A guy that can play special teams. So I’m really looking forward to this year.
JS: Well, it all starts now. We’re at Camp. It’s not just about hockey, I know. I hear there’s some trout out here. Are you going to take a run at some of these fish?
BM: That’s the rumor up here. I guess they have some. There’s a stream of rainbow trout in Kamloops and it’s supposed to be awfully big. Me and Trent Klatt are pretty good fishing buddies so we’re going to hook up with a guide up here and go out and see if we can get into a couple.
JS: Well good luck with that and especially good luck with the hockey. I know everybody’s really excited about this year.
BM: Yeah, thanks a lot, Shortie.

Morning skate audio (talking about being “snakebit” around the net)….1/13/2003
It’s nice to have those two guys as options, but you still like to contribute. You don’t wanna be a one-dimensional guy, you want to put the puck in the net sometimes.

Canucks/red wings morning skate (media questions always the same)….1/24/2003
It’s pretty similar. Basically everybody wants to know about how you feel about tonight’s game, how come you’ve been successful against Detroit this year, all pretty much on the same page. A little variation here and there just in the way the question is relayed to you but other than that it’s pretty similar.
(what he would ask Detroit players if he was in the media)
I’d ask guys how they prepare. Like, how do they mentally prepare for games. Do you visualize, do you go over the rosters, do you watch a tape, things like that. So as a player, you get a different perspective on how, especially a team that’s got so many elite players on there. How do they get to that level, how do they become that successful?

Penguins game day audio (what it will take him to get him rolling offensively again)…..2/4/2003
Bury opportunities when I get them and I’ve had a lot and it’s really frustrating. You just gotta stay positive and I’m going to try to shoot the puck a little more. You know, not always look to pass right away. Hopefully you break out of this and go on to better things.

Blackhawks game day audio (working on finishing the game rather than starting it)…2/10/2003
It was that way for a while and now we’re starting to play good and our finishes haven’t been as good. So it’s just a matter of putting it all together and just being prepared right off the bat. There’s always going to be a line tonight and we just have to play a full 60 minutes.
(on what it will take to beat the Blackhawks)
The main thing we have to focus on is Chicago tonight and they’re battling for the last playoff spot and coming off of a big win in Edmonton there and they always seem to give us a tough time so it’s going to be a good game tonight.

Game day audio vs. Atlanta (on how it feels to be player of the week)….2/25/2003
The team wins that way. We have to get over it a lot quicker, there’s no question. I mean, it’s nice, you get recognized, but I’m the first one to realize that guys don’t get recognized unless their team’s doing well and we’re playing a good hockey game.

Game day vs. Boston (on how he liked the Canucks play the previous game)….3/3/2003
We got off to a great start and that’s exactly what we wanted to do. And fortunately, Theodore played great and he made some huge saves. I think if we get one or two early……it’s a completely different game, but that’s the way these things go and we were able to get a point out of it which was positive and we just have to regroup tonight.

Game day vs. Islanders (on welcoming a newcomer, but it’s not necessary)…..3/11/2003
I think that everyone in here feels that we can help our team, then definitely. But making a trade just for the sake of making a trade, it’s just not necessary. We believe in the guys we have in the room here and we feel we can do a good job.
(on how the Canucks can compete with anyone the way they are playing)
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s obviously different in the regular season than in the playoffs but we’ve been pretty consistent all year long and we’ve played against the top teams and we feel we can compete with anybody.

Game day audio vs. Blues (about the Blues goaltending issues)…….3/13/2003
We’re going to try to put as many pucks as possible to the net. A lot of times goaltenders are, especially in a system like St. Louis, are critiqued pretty hard because, to be honest, they don’t face a lot of shots. And that can be a challenge in itself because when you do get a chance against every ten minutes it’s tough to stay sharp that whole time. So, I think mentally, it’s definitely tough and that’s why there’s been so much talk about the goaltending.
(Markus Naslund is still getting points even if they aren’t from goals)
There’s no question that he’s our goal scoring leader and a guy that we look to every single night on offense and it’s just one of those things. He’s getting chances and he’s getting points. He’s still being effective out there and we know it’s just a matter of time before he’ll get on the board again.

Game day audio vs. Leafs (knowing the 4:00 start will mean the Nucks have to stay sharp)…3/15/2003
That’ll be different, for sure. You know it’s the same for both teams so I don’t think there’s a real disadvantage or advantage for either side. It’s just a matter of making sure you’re prepared when the game starts and making sure you’re ready right off the bat.

Game day vs. Capitals (on being aware of other teams even though they may not play them a lot)….3/23/2003
We’re definitely aware of what’s going on around us. But our main focus and concern is on our games and what we have left. Our goal is to win our division, it’s no secret. We got to keep Colorado behind us so with them playing well it gives us a little extra incentive to go out there and get the job done.

Stars vs. Canucks game day audio (on Canucks not playing up to par)….3/25/2003
2 and 0 against Dallas so hopefully keep the roll on but our first two games against them this year we didn’t play very good at all. It was really a poor effort and we didn’t deserve to win. But we play well in Dallas and we expect to do that tonight.
(the key to winning tonight’s game)
I think just playing a simple, straight-forward game. Don’t get too fancy in the neutral zone, get a lot of pucks to the net, dump it, just trying to keep the pucks away from the goalie because he does play it so well. You don’t want the defensemen to have an easy night.

Game day audio against Kings (on liking to discourage LA early)….3/29/2003
That’s the game plan. A quick start here and make sure we’re ready right off the bat because sometimes these games work both ways. We have a team that’s out of contention but they have nothing to lose, so you might have to be prepared.
(on why he doesn’t know why the Canucks haven’t won in LA since ‘96)
I don’t know what it is but the past couple years they’ve been really competitive and a great team on home ice and they’ve ran into some major problems this year. So hopefully we can take advantage of them but for whatever reason, we always seem to have close games here.

Day off practice audio (on why it’s important to keep the puck deep)……4/9/2003
That’s a big key. There’s not going to be a lot of room out there and at times it’s going to be frustrating. They have a very good team and we have to do a good job of getting pucks deep and when we do have chances, don’t pass at shots.

Canucks vs. Blues-Game day audio (Vancouver has playoff fever)……4/10/2003
I haven’t been out a whole lot lately but just your family and friends…there’s definitely excitement building. And I just remember the last couple years here. It’s a fever in the city and it’s fun to be part of.

Canucks vs. Blues game 4 morning skate (Blues doing a good job blocking shots)……4/16/2003
They’re doing a good job of sacrificing their bodies right now and one thing that they do is they relay the front shots. By that I mean at times Bert will be in front of Osgood and then there’ll be their defenseman in front of Bert so sometimes they’re not even worried about him, they’re just worried about the puck. They’re just trying to knock pucks down and they’re doing a pretty good job of it right now. We just have to make some better decisions up top and move the puck but we’ll work through it and be all right.

Canucks vs. Wild game 1 audio (The Wild pose a difficult challenge)……4/25/2003
BM: We took it to our advantage in the first round and we have to look for that again tonight. Anybody who’s at our home games experience the crowd and it was tremendous. It’s like having an extra player on the ice for us so we want to use that energy to our favor.
Reporter: Do you expect the crowd to be as loud if not louder for this game as it was for game 7?
BM: It’ll be tough to match but I’m sure they’re going to be very excited and it’s going to be very close, yeah.
Reporter: Concerning the St. Louis series, seeing that your season sort of fizzled at the end, how much confidence did you got back?
BM: As the series went on we got better and better and that was the most important thing. The team plays better obviously, you get more confident. It’s kind of a snowball effect. It’s contagious, everyone in here feels it. That’s exactly what happened. We weren’t playing well at the end of the season and it took us a couple of games to get it back in the playoffs here and now we got to go into where we feel it should be, or at least where we have been most of the year, but we still think we can get better.

Day off audio (development of Trent Klatt is great).……..4/26/2003
He really gives this team a big boost and everybody knows what they’re going to get when he’s in the lineup. 100% effort 100% of the time. Last year we definitely missed him a lot and he’s a playoff type player and he’s got experience in the type of games that…
Everytime we have to deal with some adversity we hear about it but obviously we hung with it last night. We didn’t start off great in the third period. We gave up two quick goals and we did a good job of coming back and kind of had a second life there with that late goal. We made the most of our opportunity. And it wasn’t our best game by any means but we did what we had to do.
In an ideal world, yeah but we know that’s probably not going to be the case but we can definitely build off of last night’s game. I thought we played really well in the second period, one of our best periods of the playoffs. We played average in the first and then the beginning of the third, didn’t play so good. Then did what we had to do to-hang around and get the tie in regulation and the win in overtime. These are things that as you go along you learn and we can get better.

Canucks vs. Wild-post game audio (talking after the game)…..4/27/2003
BM: We were in a good position going into the third tied at home here and they capitalized on two chances. Reporter: So third periods haven’t been your best periods and tonight, again…
BM: Well, maybe yeah but the last two game against St. Louis I thought later in the series the third was pretty good. Except for 5 and 6 there, we played great in 7. But we have to do a better job, we have to bear down and just find a way to win.
Reporter: Talk about the scramble….what it was, where it came from…
BM: Well, the puck was in the crease there and we were just trying to whack at it and I don’t even know if we hit it, but we were just trying to get it and do whatever you can to try and get it in but obviously it didn’t go in.

Game #4 morning audio (on the Canucks being a confident team)……5/02/2003
It’s a good atmosphere around here definitely, but anytime after a win you seem to be a little looser. But by no means is that any indication that we’re taking this game lightly. We know we got our work cut out for us and we’re playing an excellent hockey team. We expect them to be at their best tonight.

Canucks vs. Wild-Game #5 morning audio (about getting up for the game)…..5/05/2003
I don’t think it will be that difficult. I think just think about that 3 and a half hour flight back to Minny and that will give us incentive enough. We realize that anytime a team has their back against the wall, they’re going to come out with their best effort and I expect us to come out with our best effort tonight.
Reporter: Brendan, does the fact that you guys were down 3-1 in the first series make it easier not to look too far ahead dealing with these guys?
BM: Yeah, anything can happen at any given time and you never know what it takes or what it could be that can change a series around. We don’t want to give them any life. We want to make sure we take advantage of our opportunity we have tonight and make sure we play our best game of the series.
Reporter: You read the papers, you listen to fans, and people almost seem to take for granted right now that this is done.
BM: We talked about that the other day and things are going well. Everybody wants to pat you on the back and everything we talk about in here…you’re never as good as people say you are and you’re never as bad as people say you are. So just stay on an even keel and as a group we’ve been able to do that. We’re focused in here, and all of our attention is on this game tonight.

Canucks vs. Wild-Game #6 (which team is feeling more pressure?)…….5/07/2003
It’s tough to say. I know us in here we don’t really feel a lot of pressure. They might feel a little more because they’re playing at home and obviously the expectations are high for them. They haven’t done that well at home but anything can happen in one game but we expect to come out tonight and play one of our best games.

Training Camp 9/17/03
Reporter: How's camp for you personally?
BM: Uhh, I think I've done pretty well. I feel good out there. We're not quite where we want to be timing wise at this point. I know sometimes you wanna try certain things but you just don't have the feel, but overall it was pretty good.
R: Uh, your impressions of camp in terms of some of the prospects that are out there.
BM: Yeah, I mean, a lot of talent out there. A lot of young guys that are coming up pushing for jobs and making difficult decisions for the coaching staff. I think the camp was run very well. It was at a really high tempo and we were able to get our systems down. a lot of teams just throw four lines out there and scrimmage the whole time but right from day one here we're focusing on team systems and getting everyone on the same page.
R: Anybody make an impression on you?
BM: I think Ryan Kesler played pretty well out there-young guy. Tomas Moisouse, he looked pretty good. But everyday it seems like there's a new guy standing out.

Canucks vs. Coyotes Game Day Audio (Cracking down on goalie equipment and why it won't matter much...) 9/25/03
BM: No, I don't think so. There's a few guys that might be bending the rules right now but overall the goaltenders today are such phenomenal athletes and I don't think you're going to see a huge difference.
Reporter: You think it would make a lot more sense if, given how good these guys are athletically now to go back to the pads of twenty years ago? As a shooter I know you'd like that but, I guess my question would be have you noticed a huge difference in the available space from now, say when you played junior or when you first came into the NHL?
BM: Oh yeah, there's definitely a difference. Guys keep on finding ways to uh-I don't want to say cheat but-to maybe bend the rules a little bit. Or maybe just to do whatever they can to become the best goalie possible. You can't blame that, it's for trying to compete every single night and trying to make themselves better and do everything they can to help their team win but now with new modifications and plates everyone's held to the same standard so you can't be pointing fingers at guys. There's a standard there, but overall I really don't think it's going to change a whole lot.
R: How does it feel to finally be back at home?
BM: It feels good! 2 weeks to start off on the road is quite a long time but maybe at the end of the road trip there it didn't look like it was such a good idea because we lost two games but I think looking down on the road on the long haul it's going to be great for us. We got some really good practice time in. We got to work on our systems, real intense practices so it's going to be good for us.

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