Linking the country ... X-SMU showdown looms, UVic welcomes Carleton's challenge

Football

• St. Francis Xavier DE Dave Skillen and WR Akeem Foster are game-time decisions for the No. 9 X-Men tonight vs. No. 7 Saint Mary's, where home field for the Loney Bowl is on the line. Throw in the key injuries and X's long losing streak at Huskies Stadium ... well, there's a reason they play the games. Expect Huskies QB Jack Creighton to wash away the stain of those four interceptions he threw in the first meeting on Sept. 12.
  
  No team has ever won the Jewett Trophy after having to play the semi-final since AUS went to a three-team championship. (Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Metro Canada Halifax)
  
  
• Huskies Football Outsider looks at the top teams, attendance-wise.
  
  
• No. 3 Calgary's defence hasn't got a ton of press, but rookie D-lineman Hughes-Martin Kalonji's name is starting to get out there, with the way he's been playing. (Calgary Sun)
  
  
• Personal opinion: Is anyone, aside from Rob, expecting something other than an easy win for Manitoba vs. UBC tonight? (Winnipeg Sun)
  
  
• No one on No. 2 Queen's has forgotten last November, as wideout Blaise Morrison related to Monty Mosher.

  "Maybe in retrospect it was a good thing to have suffered such an agonizing defeat, because now we know how it feels and how much it hurts. As a team we have made a commitment to train even harder, practise much more efficiently, and we have made sure not to take anything for granted."

  Morrison's high school team was called the Cheetahs. Western found out last week that he's pretty fast. (Halifax Chronicle-Herald)
  
  
• Western wideout Nick Pasic has made a nice conversion from quarterback, where he starred in high school. (London Free Press)

Basketball

• Regina Cougars point guard Darius Mole has made the cultural and climatic adjustment to the cold, cold Prairies after growing up in Texas and Arizona. The Cougars beat McGill 95-72 last night, by the way. (Regina Leader-Post)
  
  
• Fifth-year Saskatchewan guard Mike Linklater is balancing hoops with helping raise a family of four young children. Some of us don't anticipate ever having that responsibility, let alone at his age, 27. (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix)
  
  
• Victoria's annual Guy Vetrie tournament is one of the best in the country. The Carleton-UVic matchup on Sunday should be one of the better ones of the weekend, with the young Ravens going up against a Vikes team which Craig Beaucamp describes "10 or 11 deep." (Victoria Times-Colonist)
  
  
• Memorial Sea-Hawks supporters are mourning the death of Clarence Sutton, 46, a well-respected high school coach in Newfoundland who played at MUN in the 1980s. He succumbed to brain cancer on Tuesday. (St. John's Telegram)
  
  
• Western fans would beg to differ, but some could listen to former Carleton star Stu Turnbull describe his buzzer-beater from last season's Final 8 semi-final all night long. Nik Wood has a new interview posted at Life Athletics:
  
  
  
  You've heard of nothing but net? That was no net at all. Some colleagues at the Ottawa Sun related after the fact they initially thought Stu had shot an air ball, because the netting barely moved as the ball went through the cylinder and through the heart of that Mustangs team. It was a pleasure to have a near straight-on view of the shot from SSN Canada's broadcast vantage point.

Hockey

• Veteran defenceman Erick Tremblay is wearing the 'C' for the hopeful St. Thomas Tommies. Tremblay played for the Rimouski Oceanic the year they went to the Memorial Cup, with help from some guy named Sidney Crosby. (Fredericton Daily Gleaner)
  
  
• Ron LeBlanc's No. 16 sweater will be retired by the Moncton Aigles Bleus tonight. LeBlanc was a star scorer across the first half of the 1970s and was on the coaching staff of two national championship teams. (Moncton Times & Transcript)
  
  
• Bill Hunt's suggestion: A challenge game at the end of March between No. 1 UNB and the ECHL's Florida Everblades. It would be in Florida. He would cover it. What a trooper! (There's also an update on some UNBers now playing in the pros.) (Fredericton Daily Gleaner)