There are so many Damon Allen memories to choose from. The initial joy in seeing some skinny little kid come into the game for the Eskimos in the '87 Grey Cup, and the ensuing horror as he dismantled the Argos' defence. The glorious one-year stewardship of the late and lamented Memphis Mad Dogs (R.I.P.). The resurgence in B.C., and the next one in Toronto. The shattering of assorted records. And of course, the '04 Grey Cup - one of the all-time clutch performances, considering the guy played about 800% better that game than he had the rest of the season.

What sticks in our heads, though - because we're all about the anecdote - is a little incident at a Labour Day Classic that Damon wasn't even playing in.

It was sometime during his tenure in B.C., and because of some quirk in the schedule the Lions had arrived for the Argos' next home game before Labour Day was even done. Evidently unenthralled with whatever there was to do in Toronto at the time, they opted to cruise down the QEW to take in the action at Ivor Wynne. They may also have been drawn to the area by the annual Burlington Ribfest - truly the finest ribfest of its kind - but we digress.

Point is, we're sitting in our seats enjoying the game, when a dude in a Hawaiian shirt turns up in the aisle in front of us. He's shaking a few hands, chatting up a couple of people - and just as we realize that it's a certain legendary quarterback, the local Hamiltonian working security turns up to tell him to move along because he's blocking the aisle.

This was a quintessential CFL moment - one of the league's most prominent players not being recognized at a football stadium. But it said something about Damon, not just the league. The guy was so small and unassuming, you wouldn't have pegged him for a football star; you'd have thought he was just some regular dude 9-5ing it somewhere. And there was no pulling rank; more polite than a lot of Ivor Wynne patrons would've been, he took the hint and went back to wherever he was sitting.

Whatever ego Damon has - and one isn't entirely unwarranted when you're wearing four Grey Cup rings - we'll remember him as an ordinary guy in a league full of them. He just happened to be an ordinary guy who threw for 72,000 yards.

At first glance, CFL fans may feel that the Riders have gotten a little cocky after winning their first Grey Cup in nearly 20 years. It almost seems as though they've decided to add a degree of difficulty to their campaign to repeat.

First, head coach Kent Austin left to become the offensive coordinator at his alma matter Ol’ Miss. Then starting QB and 2007 CFL MOP (that really is a quality acronym) Kerry Joseph was traded to the Toronto Argonauts. Throw in the loss of Fred Perry and useful RB Cory Homes… and… well... perhaps after all those years of losing and cleaning house might have joined watermelon headwear as an enduring if not always explicable Rider tradition.

But at closer glance, Riders fans have to admit that last year's storybook script of a season might not have been rewritable. After all, a lot of things bounced the Rider’s way: Joseph putting it all together for an MVP season; facing a rookie QB starting his first ever game in the Grey Cup; a poor season from Calgary; Luca Congi catching fire in the playoffs; the enduring presence of Danny Maciocia in Edmonton.

There are still reasons to be optimistic for the coming season. First and foremost, Marcus Crandell actually is an experienced and serviceable CFL QB - people forget he was the Grey Cup most outstanding player for Calgary in 2001. The integration of new coach Ken Miller should be a smooth one; apparently Miller called 95% of the plays last year, which might explain Kent Austin’s success given his abysmal play calling during the short-lived Ricky Williams era in Toronto. Throw in a year of playoff experience, a deep offensive line and the great Ronald Flemons (from all of us here in Toronto – you’re welcome, Saskatchewan). Oh, and Maciocia is still in Edmonton.

I'm predicting a second-place finish in a tight Western conference. with avoiding injuries and the integration of Crandell into the offense being the key for the Riders.

As an assed bonus, reason #239 why I like the CFL:

After trading for Hamilton’s pick in the final round of the CFL draft, the Roughriders selected the University of Regina Rams star quarterback – and two-time finalist for the Hec Crighton Trophy – Teale Orban (or is that Orban Teale)? The move made so much sense (draft a local kid from a local school to give the rabid fan base even more to get excited about), I seriously doubted it would happen. Yes, the lack of an import quota for quarterbacks will not help him, and there may be added pressure to play him if he looks even remotely up to it. But this was still a no-brainer and in a sports world sometimes gone mad (Maciocia), I do feel it is important to celebrate the no-brainers that do actually happen.

For most of us, it's good enough that the Argos have won seven in a row and nine of ten, claimed the top spot in the East, and ended the regular season with an offensive outburst that made Damien Cox look like a doofus. (Seriously, the game ended at 6pm - nobody thought to update his column for the cover of the following day's sports section?). But for one fan in particular, there's a special bonus.

Rare is the man who buys the jersey of a relatively obscure offensive lineman. Rarer still is the one who continues to wear said jersey for an entire season after the offensive lineman has left town. But game in and game out, our man Shoomy has carried on his solemn tribute to Jerome Davis - the "bald man with a beard" he first rhapsodized about last year.

Now, our hero is back. It's unclear if he'll actually be playing, or just doing all that "stomping around the sidelines" that Shoomy so admired back on that fateful Labour Day in Hamilton. But regardless, even those of us still wistfully wearing our Clifford Ivory jerseys have to acknowledge this is a happy ending worth celebrating. 

University of Oregon grad and avid reader Karl let us know that the Ducks play this clip of Kenny Wheaton before every home game to get the crowd going.  Hopefully he'll provide some of these heroics in the playoffs as well. 

Also, we can only hope that Kenny had the announcer belt out this call whenever he was chatting up the ladies.

It was a strange scene for a professional sporting event.  When Dom Dorsey came back to the bench after scoring a touchdown off of a punt return last week, Pinball picked him up and had him stand on the refreshment table facing the crowd so that he could receive a standing ovation.  I can't recall a coach ever hoisting a player a good three feet in the air before.

So what can we take away from this?  Well first, Pinball is obviously not an ordinary coach. We already knew that though. What's more impressive is that Pinball can control his power well enough that in a moment of joy he only picked Dom up three feet.  Let's face it, if he lost control Dorsey could have ended up in the 500 level.

So as far as I can tell, with the signing of Cody Pickett the Argos QB depth chart is:

1. Mike Bishop

2. Rocky

3. Damon Allen

4. Cody Pickett

5. Mike McMahon

6. Eric Crouch

7. Tom Arth

8. Noel Prefontaine

9. Robert Kent

10. Peter Kent

11. You

12. Me

13. Kevin Feterik

In case you're wondering where some of us have been the past little while, we've been moving, travelling, starting new day jobs...and finally caving in by joining Facebook.

Okay, that last one is pretty inconsequential, save for one glorious aspect of it: the discovery of a whole slew of Argos' Facebook pages.

If you're on there, we highly recommend doing a search on your CFL player of choice; there's a good chance he's got a page, and there's an even better chance it'll be awesome.

In the meanwhile, a few observations:

• If we were going to hang with one Argo's Facebook friends, it would have to be the collection of talent that Jordan Younger has assembled. The dude has the most photos of girls in cheerleaders' this side of Charlie Sheen.
  
• Among the unlikeliest recurring characters among assorted Argos' Facebook friends? Councillor Mark Grimes. 
  
• Possibly a more predictable recurring character? This person. We don't know who she is, but she's friends with a lot of Argos.
  
• Speaking of which, if you're young, female and go to York University, it appears there's an excellent chance you're friends with at least one Argo. Cliff Ivory is going to own that place.
  
• There are not one, not two but three Facebook groups dedicated to Edmontonians' severe hate-on for Danny Maciocia: "Fire Maciocia," "I hate Danny Maciocia" and the somewhat more verbose "Let the Esks Return to Greatness: Fire Danny Maciocia Now!"
  
  Maciocia!

So three of the Argo quarterbacks from last year are now injured (Mike Bishop, Damon Allen and Eric Crouch) and the fourth, Spergon Wynn, is presumably getting his braces off this week. This obviously puts the team in a bit of a bind for its game against the Riders on Friday, so let's go ahead and put some odds on the various candidates to take the snaps this week.

Rocky Butler (2 to 1): Tough to know what to make of Butler's first appearance as an Argo. On the one hand, the game was close and he barely lost, implying that this is his Rocky and that he'll score a victory his next time out.  On the other hand, he was terrible and tossed up four interceptions, implying that this was his Rocky V, in which case we'll need to wait another 16 years before he puts in another halfway decent performance.

Mike McMahon (8 to 1): Man, this guy's had a tough year. Rutgers finally gets good well after he's left, his car gets stolen and he loses his job to a guy who was cut by the Ti-Cats.  Not quite sure how you recover from that last one.

Tom Arth (750 to 1): This move would most likely be made just to appease the Toronto Sun headline writers who were unable to use gems like "The Arthful Dodger" and "Arth! What A Dog Of A Game!" after Tom was released in the first week of camp.

Reggie Slack (1,000 to 1): Seriously, it worked once before.  

Pinball Clemons (1,000,000,000 to 1): Obviously this would be the ideal situation, as it is well established that Pinball wouldn't even need a supporting cast to beat the Riders. However, much like Superman wouldn't play a football game against a bunch of high school kids, we see Pinball as being much to moral to actually play. Pity.

Let the record show that anyone who wears a paper bag over his head to the first game of the season, as one of the regulars in our section did this past week, does not deserve to be taken seriously. All the same, the paper bag in question - on which the gentleman in question had written that it wouldn't come off until Damon Allen has been removed as starter - was an ominous sign.

We have many fears. only some of which involve being forced to watch another season with Kent Austin as our offensive coordinator. But now, something is happening that we couldn't have imagined in our worst nightmares: Toronto is becoming Buffalo.

Admittedly, we haven't quite reached the level of fans putting out campaign-style lawn signs supporting their quarterback of choice. Also, most of us haven't developed those weird accents yet and our average weight remains approximately 112 pounds lighter. But still, the Argos' apparently unresolvable quarterback controversy - now into its second year - is starting to look like the sort of thing that's tormented Buffalonians ever since the Flutie/Johnson era.

Now, apparently, we've got Steve Christie coming to town. Granted, this isn't nearly as alarming as Scott Norwood would be. But still, this needs to stop. If Jamel White forgets to put on his helmet before taking the field next game and Wade Phillips so much as passes through our airport, we're fleeing town before the housefires start.

It's rare to see a CFL player featured in the newspaper outside of the sports section, so we were delighted by the Globe's decision to run a piece on all-star defender Byron Parker in the Auto section (they've also provided a photo gallery of Byron's ride). 

It's nice to see that Byron is thinking about fuel efficiency when choosing a car; however, it should be noted that he totally copied the "number 28 in rhinestone studs" idea from my 1998 Toyota Camry.

In any case, Parker has indicated that he's only been pulled over by the police because of his car once and we suspect that probably won't happen again.  Unless of course he's driving in Montreal.