Sporting Madness

I've been planning to bring back my regular Link Train feature for some time now,and the amount of great coverage of the Grey Cup out there provides an excellent opportunity. I'll throw in a few Vanier Cup links as well, as I'll be live-blogging that game (from my Calgary hotel room) with the rest of the gang from The CIS Blog tomorrow at 12 p.m. Eastern (10 a.m. Mountain, 9 a.m. Pacific. I'll be back to regular coverage of other sports as well after Grey Cup Weekend. Song of the Day: U2 - Mysterious Ways This has always been one of my favourite U2 songs. The rhythm groove of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. fits perfectly with The Edge 's guitar work and Bono 's vocals. Plus, it was played at CFL commissioner Mark Cohon 's press conference this morning, which gave me a great excuse to use it here. League links: - David Naylor of The Globe and Mail reports that Argonauts' owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski are ...

Continuing in our proud 1-year tradition , and in step with everyone else who uses the meme, here's the Sporting Madness Christmas gifts for the world of sports: Soccer: - To the Vancouver Whitecaps and Bob Lenarduzzi : a nice, gift-wrapped MLS franchise . That could make the entire city happy. I'll have more on their chances soon. - To the Montreal Impact: good luck for their forthcoming CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal matchup against Mexico's Club Santos Laguna. Montreal's unexpected run has been tremendous to watch, and it would be great to see a Canadian team keep going. - To Toronto FC: Well, they did already get one very nice Christmas present , but we'll send them a quality designated player as well and a playoff berth. This franchise has been great for Canadian soccer and the city of Toronto. They have so much support and so many tickets sold in advance that they really could just go through the motions, so it's refreshing to see them continue th...

(Apologies to Sean Keeley for the blatant title theft ...) Perhaps the most impressive thing about Saturday's Vanier Cup game was the play of Laval quarterback Benoit Groulx . I came in expecting him to be good, but not great. Yes, he put up some tremendous passing numbers, especially in completions, but that's in a conference where Matt Connell can become the all-time leading passer in CIS history. Laval's West Coast-style offence, filled with quick, short passes, also certainly played a part. It's also difficult to compare players across different conferences solely on a stats basis when they play different opposition and in different offensive systems, and I didn't get to see Laval this year, so it was tough to learn much about how they played. I wasn't even entirely convinced that Groulx had a big advantage over Western quarterback Michael Faulds (who I still think is rather underrated; he led the league in passing yards with impressive rate stats as well...