Linking the country: So, uh, about UBC...

What you missed while having six years added to your life ...

Another night of close, well-fought games (he said with sarcasm) with the average margin of victory topping 40 points. Friend of the blog David Larkins had previewed the Canada West games, and had Friday's results much closer than they turned out to be — Saskatchewan and Manitoba don't play until tonight — but he was 2 for 2 in picking winners. Goes to show that the score itself can be a random outcome even if you do know that the Dinos will handle the Bears no problem.

UBC's second half last night is what you'd expect out of a lower-tier OUA team: they went from 13-7 up to 49-20 down, at one point allowing five unanswered touchdowns. While the T-Birds couldn't play a full 60 minutes, the Rams didn't even need to, as we learn from Ian Hamilton. (Bonus fun: a Rams player saying the coach gave a great halftime speech, then the coach saying he didn't say much at all.)

Montreal's win over Concordia was deceptively a blowout, as it was close in the fourth, yet still a "fumigation" (including ten sacks? yikes).

Allan Maki writes in the Globe that CCES doesn't have funding to test the same number of CIS football players this year: from "more than 500" to "only 100." There are jokes to be made here, I'm sure, but it's enough to say that the $200,000 to $320,000 they're saving by not running those 400 tests (according to the numbers in the story) is a pittance when compared to the full expenses for London 2012 — the apparent reason for their now-limited budget.

In non-football news, the various teams at Mount Royal seem to be going into their first year of Canada West play with eyes open, writes the Calgary Herald's Kristen Odland, who speaks to the men's volleyball and women's basketball coaches.