Taschen Messer takes his money very seriously. Hockey careers don't last forever, and disaster could strike on or off the ice and end a career in an instant. He's been diligent about saving for the future since the moment he got out of junior and started getting paid to play hockey. Being a Swiss citizen, he has access to some of the world's finest and most stable banks, which he makes sure to take advantage of. Besides taking his money seriously, he also takes control of his money very seriously. He doesn't want to hand over responsibility for his financial future to a random financial advisor or faceless corporation; he does a lot of research to identify healthy long-term investments and checks their performance on regular basis. He does employ an agent for contract negotiations, because he doesn't need to deal with the stress of trying to negotiate directly with the front office himself. An agent can negotiate more effectively, and even though he takes 3% off the top, if using an agent gets him paid 10% more than he would otherwise, Taschen knows he's coming out ahead. Taschen wants to be comfortable for the rest of his life after hockey, plus have enough left when he's gone to get any future children off to a good start in life. To that end he negotiates the unusual step of having all his performance bonuses and 80% of his base salary paid directly into a long-term investment account, only taking 20% in cash. Between that 20%, league revenue-sharing, and various endorsement deals, he can live well even while most of his money goes to work making him more money. It means he drives a hybrid Subaru Outback instead of a 2023 Range Rover, but he'd rather live like a regular person anyway. Now is the time to focus on hockey so he can live large later.