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Ivan Gutfriend said Thursday that he’s walking away from the Saskatchewan Roughriders on his own terms.

The CFL team’s long-serving athletic therapist had been contemplating retirement for the past couple of years but, as he put it, he had “always been afraid to pull the trigger.”

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That changed after Gutfriend met recently with Chris Jones, the Roughriders’ newly minted vice-president of football operations, general manager and head coach.

“I find it hard to believe that 38 years went by that fast.” — Ivan Gutfriend.

When the idea of Gutfriend’s possible retirement was raised during the meeting, the 68-year-old revisited the issue.

“I had a little difficulty with it for a day or two, but after giving it some thought, I thought, ‘Maybe this is a good time to go,’ ’’ Gutfriend said. “I thought, ‘I’m going to be 69 years old in April. Why not go out now?’

“Obviously there are new people here and I understand that it would be nice for them to start with a clean slate.”

After a woeful 2015 season in which the Roughriders went 3-15-0 and finished with an interim general manager and interim head coach in place, changes were inevitable.