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***bluesfan55*** · 07-05-2024, 08:51 PM

This season will be Sebastien Regazzoni's last as an active player. News of his retirement might come as a bit of a shock, but to me, this was coming for a while. Having been IA for around 2ish months before coming back, I figured I might ride him out for a little while, but after last season, I realized it was probably time to call it quits. Let me explain why.

Regazzoni's career was... interesting. I played for Anchorage in the juniors (nothing out of the ordinary for me; I love Anchorage, and it's a great place), and didn't do much. Honestly, my juniors career was kind of shit. I peaked in my post-draft season (61 points in 66 games), we unfortunately didn't do much in the playoffs every year I was there, and I just kinda sucked a bit. I was able to be captain, which was awesome, but team success just wasn't there.

The thing for me with Regazzoni was that I was done looking for individual accomplishments for the most part. Mitchell van der Heijden, my previous player, was a 2k club member, first-ballot Hall of Famer (somehow) and won many cups with the Steelhawks, but throughout his early career, I was a selfish bastard. I wanted to focus on being a team player, which I hope I've done to the best of my ability when active in the LR (which hasn't been very often; I'll get to that). So when Hamilton drafted me 4th overall, I was super happy, but a little shocked. Not shocked that I went to Hamilton; van der Heijden had peaked there, and I'll always love my time with the Steelhawks. I was surprised I went that early, which I haven't really done in SHL drafts. Did it place a little bit of pressure on me to earn well? Yeah, sure. But I was super stoked to be back in Hammy, and I was excited to get to work.

The actual SHL career Regazzoni had up to S76 was honestly pretty good looking back at it. I finished every season with Hamilton scoring at least 40 points. That's honestly super cool. van der Heijden was pretty consistent, but Regazzoni was even more so. Hamilton got close to making the cup finals on numerous occasions, but we never really broke through. Even when I was IA, I scored 62 points, which was a career high at the time, but we never seemed to make that breakthrough to the finals.

Not that I was paying any attention. Early in Regazzoni's career, I was glued to the SHL. By now, though, I barely pay any attention. And that has to do with real life (obviously, duh). When I joined the SHL, I was 13 years old and a massive fucking nerd. I was awkward, but pretty into the league, and that was fun. Hell, I was so into it that sometimes I would cry if people were mean to me or treated me like shit. It's something that at this point in my life I'm not scared to admit. But as I've grown up, I've realized that the SHL isn't necessarily everything to me anymore. Part of it is the fact that the league has changed. While this may sound dinosaurish, it just feels different to me, and that difference isn't the greatest. I feel like the league might've gotten a little worse, which made my descent into inactivity a little easier. I wasn't enjoying PTs at all, all of the stupid spats we have on site made me think negatively of a fair amount of people. I simply don't enjoy being around as much as I used to.

The other part is what's been going on for me personally. At this point, I'm 20. I've been on this site for 7 years, which feels surreal. And at this point I've been focusing more on my schooling. I'm about to be a junior in college, which has been awesome. My grades have been great, I'm in a fraternity which is super cool, and I'm involved in extracurriculars which are super fun to me. But around the time I went IA, I went through probably the roughest time I've had mentally. I've never been someone who's struggled with my mental health, so the time from February to March (and a little bit of May) was a major shock for me. It's also the lowest I've ever been. I'm not going to go into it in too much detail so as to reveal personal details, but one of the extracurricular organizations I was in was fun at first but turned into a shitshow. I found myself being the butt of the joke far too often for my liking, and I ended up handling that anger poorly and doing some things that I immensely regretted. It's nothing tremendously bad, but stuff that I wasn't raised to do, and stuff that I should never have done. I grappled with that guilt (and what I felt to be a lack of remorse from the people who made fun of me) for around 2ish months, and ultimately left the organization in May. Since then, I've felt myself again, which is great, but I've learned better coping mechanisms and how to better take control of myself mentally.

That coincided with Regazzoni becoming active again. One of the things I wanted to do was to come back to the SHL and try to make Regazzoni a good player again. S76 was just that. I scored 92 points, which in all honesty I never expected. I know a season like that in today's SHL is pretty commonplace, but I was hoping to get more recognition for it than I ultimately got. I totally understand why, and it's not something I'm mad about, but being in the All-Star Skills competition instead of the All-Star Game itself doesn't really make much sense to me. It's a stupid gripe, I know, but I think the way we split that up is kinda dumb. Anyways, I tested free agency after that season, and while I appreciated the teams that reached out to me, I elected to stay in Hamilton. The decision was twofold. First, I wanted to win a cup with Hamilton again. Second, I knew Regazzoni was basically done at that point. I wanted to recreate within the next couple of seasons, start fresh, and find that spark again. Spending my entire career with the Steelhawks is something pretty special to me. Hamilton's a team that's special to me, and I'd never had a player spend his entire career with one team. Both Joseph Lombardi and Mitchell van der Heijden had incredibly volatile careers, so to have that stability in Hammy meant a lot. Thanks to Hallsy, aleks, and everyone there for being good teammates. I know I don't talk in the LR a lot anymore, but I value you all a lot. Regazzoni is going to finish his career with just under 430 points in 462 career games, which is pretty solid too.

Ultimately, I think it's time for me to start fresh, so Regazzoni's impending retirement at the offseason post just made a lot of sense. It's also weird to me that player number 4 is coming around 7 years after Lombardi did. I've done a lot of growing since then, I'd like to think. There were times when I was just a massive asshole. The way I forced myself out of New England and then celebrated in that discord whenever Hamilton beat them for like a couple seasons was super dickish and immature. I look back at that and get angry for how much of a dick move that was, and I'm glad I've matured out of that bullshit. The whole way I ended up leaving New Orleans is a story in of itself, but I was honestly getting cold feet about playing for them anyways so the trade was for the best. The time I've taken with Regazzoni to kind of step back and not involve myself as much has been great for me to simply grow up. I'm technically still a kid but I'm not the dumbass I was when I was younger. I can't guarantee I'll be super active on forum with my next player, but I'll earn as close to max as I can; it helps that I'm unemployed and on summer break now. A chapter in my SHL book is about to close. I'm excited for the new one.