When word reached us yesterday afternoon that John Avery would be doing his first headlining stand-up comedy set at this place...well, we just wouldn't be able to live with ourselves if we hadn't gone. And naturally, we weren't disappointed.

For one thing, it's always nice to go into a room full of football players as they try to figure out who the hell you are. Full credit to Jerome Davis for taking the initiative, although we're pretty sure he thought we were someone else based on the hearty "Hey!" he greeted us with. The considerably meeker "Hey" we responded with seemed to throw him off a bit, which led to some awkward introductions before we turned away as he asked Peewee Smith if he had any idea who we were. Naturally, Peewee had no idea.

It's a bit difficult to judge Avery's set itself, since his biggest laughs came with his Argos-related material - which might not go over as well in a normal club as it does when about 80% of your audience is either a player or sleeping with one. (Note: We fall into neither category.) But bottom line is, the guy came nowhere close to embarrassing himself in a 30-minute set, doing best when he went off the cuff. Equally impressive is that he was willing to risk his job by poking fun at Keith Pelley, and risk his life by taking some shots at Robert Baker.

Naturally, the Ricky jokes were flowing fast and furious, including a great bit about trying to get Ricky stoned so he could get his job back, and a suggestion that on this team, Ricky could buy from his teammates. And so were the Spergon Wynn jokes, which brings us to the night's most surprising revelation.

See, you watch the games lately, and you're thinking Spergon's not much of a quarterback. Then you watch the dude working a room, and you know he's got the role down pat.

Actually, "working" may be too strong a term. While his teammates hovered around the bar, Spergon had his own booth, front-and-centre. Now, granted, the booth was a little crowded...but that's just because it was loaded up with admiring women.

It probably didn't hurt matters that Avery devoted an entire routine to painting Spergon as the Milton Berle of the CFL, which is going to put some unpleasant images in our heads the next couple of days. But if this is what greets an 0-3 starting quarterback, we're thinking that even Charlie Peterson probably wasn't much of a Mormon by the time he left town.