Linking the country ...

Football

• St. FX D-lineman Dave Skillen is going to try to suit up for Saturday's Loney Bowl with a torn ACL. (Halifax Chronicle-Herald)
  
  
• All-star Laurier linemen Adam Bestard (he long snaps, too!) is looking forward to trying to make the CFL's Winnipeg Blue Bombers next spring. (Waterloo Region Record)
  
  
• Looking ahead to Saturday's Yates Cup, London columnist Ryan Pyette points to Western coach Greg Marshall's 19-0 OUA playoff record since 2000 and says, "The biggest thing for Queen’s coach Pat Sheahan is to convince his players they can win the big one against the guy who never loses it." (London Free Press)
  
  
• 14-year Saskatchewan Roughriders veteran Gene Makowsky (U of S Huskies) was just three years old the last time the franchise had a first-place finish, so you know it's been a while. (Regina Leader-Post)
  
  
• Speedy Laval linebacker Frédéric Plesius is now known as "Fredo" to Carabins fans. Nice touch. (Allez Les Bleus)
  
  
• Paraphrasing the late Lloyd Bridges' character in Airplane, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to go vegetarian." Which CFL stadium does the best job serving a hamburger? (CFL Buzz)
  
  
• Huskies Football Outsider is making its peace with some of the Canada West all-star selections. The fact some snubbed Saskatchewan Huskies and their teammates have at least one game to play is more than enough consolation.
  
  
• Capital Region Football thinks it's telling only one of Ottawa's six OUA all-stars (receiver Steven Hughes) is a hometown player. It might be 2-of-6, since if memory serves Cyril Adjeity, a native of Ghana whose parents are diplomats, played his amateur ball in the city.
  
  For point of comparison, though, four of the nine Queen's players selected are from either Kingston or nearby Belleville. That's not saying either way is better; just the facts.
  
  (Personal opinion: People get too pent-up over the all-star selections. Fix the process, then we'll kvetch.)

Basketball

• Men's basketball RPI is once again available!
  

Hockey

• Now-unranked Nipissing is finding out about leadership. Lakers coach Mike McParland sees it in spades in Carleton centre Andrew Self:

  "I thought he was the best player on the ice and we could definitely use a player of that calibre ... That's been one of the things we've said all year, that we maybe are missing that No. 1 horse as a centre, although Ryan Maunu has really stepped up ... If we had another left-handed horse at centre, that would definitely help us."

  (North Bay Nugget)
  
  
• Nice retrospective on early-1970s Waterloo goalie Jake Dupuis, who made his own goalie masks. (Midland Free Press)
  

Soccer

• Not CIS (again), but it would remiss to not link to a Graham Hays column about Elizabeth Lambert, that ponytail-pulling New Mexico soccer player, since the clip was posted here last week:

  "This is how it so often goes for women's sports ... Roll tape, ignore the context and let the criticism and mocking commence ... from the casual references to 'catfights' circulating with the clip to the place of prominence it occupied on Web sites and sports talks shows -- attention far more lavish than anything the national championship game will receive a month from now -- it was also a reminder that some segment of the population still finds comfort in mocking the very idea of women's competing with a level of intensity at which such excesses become potential problems."

  It's off-topic, but it's only fair to give that other side (ESPN.com)