Allow us to break, ever so briefly, from our usual diet of snark and gentle mockery. Because this genuinely depresses us.

It's not that we didn't see it coming; the assortment of insiders who'd look at our Clifford Ivory jersey and inform us we'd soon be buying a different one was kind of a dead giveaway. But you can tell from the press release that even the Argos are depressed by Cliff's release, and they're the ones doing the releasing.

Cliff is one of the CFL's genuinely good guys, and he'll be missed. This also presents some of us with a dilemma. If he goes to, say, the Ticats, we're gonna feel pretty uncomfortable still wearing his jersey. But if we run into him wearing a different jersey, he might be crushed. This, after all, is the guy who dispenses hugs, free drinks and invites people to come party after the game in his trailer when he sees you wearing #13.

Then again, he never did call us for that drink we were supposed to go for in the off-season. So you might say he's a bit of a tease. We're gonna tell ourselves that, anyway, because it'll make this whole thing a bit easier to take.