When I recreated after retiring my first player, this one was supposed to be a sort of intermediate player - a bridge between my first player (who I was very attached to and had developed extensive narrative for) and the next generation in his family. I could never have imagined that Lias would go on to have the career he did, or that I would have so much fun with him.

This ride (both player-wise and the trajectory my own involvement with the site have taken since he was created) has been a hell of a thing. I’ve made so many new friends, and pissed off a lot of people as I progressively learned to stick up for myself in ways I wasn’t ready to do before, I’ve been through a lengthy J GMing stint, gotten way more involved with site leadership, added some jobs, left a couple of others, but most of all I’ve had a blast. I cannot possibly thank everybody who has made this career so much fun, but I have a few people I want to shout out.

@Ace and @RashfordU - you guys gave me the most amazing draft experience I could have wanted back in S63. You made me feel special and valued and like you really, really wanted me on the team, and I am so grateful for the time I spent in Winnipeg, and for the faith y'all had in my coaching even when we couldn't seem to win in the finals for love or money. You guys were some of the first people to validate my coaching strategies and I can't even express how much fun I had during all those sessions of screeching about FHM together and cooking up ideas. Lias wouldn't have had the career he did without y'all, and I'm so glad he got to play his whole career alongside Mikko Rashford (who is largely the reason for a ton of Lias' success). 

@Aleris and @hhh81 for indulging me in our insane narrative over the years - I had so much more writing I wanted to do, and life just got crazy and I never got to most of it, but I love the little story we got to put together anyway. 

To @Whitecap for trading for me even when I was an aging corpse, and trusting me with coaching your amazing team (you too @FuzzSHL). 

And @SDCore, @SchwarzNarr, @Frenchie, @sve7en, @WithTheMoose, @Fluw, and @JURT for no particular reason at all, just for being the best friends a girl could ask for. 

There are a lot more people I could thank but this is more a "thanks for this career" type thing than a "thanks for being the reason I'm still on this site" thing, and I'm typing this from a hospital room (long story, most of you know it already, everything is fine) so my focus is a little all over. But even if I didn't mention you here - if we've talked and you've contributed to the joy I've found on this site over the past couple of years, I appreciate you and you're amazing! 

Lias might not have been a top 75 player, but I think he turned out alright:

2x Challenge Cup champion (and who knows what could happen this corpse season)
6x IIHF medalist (three gold, two silver, one bronze)
1 IIHF Top Forward award
4x All-Star
1 Jay McDonald
1 Sarmad Khan
1 Sergei Karpotsov
1 Aidan Richan
1 Anton Razov (2 nominations)
1 Ron Mexico nomination

At the end of this season, Lias will have played exactly 1000 games in this league (thanks to the ten games he played in WPG to cover for a trade in S65), and he currently sits at:

Regular Season:
1089 points (468g, 620a), 58 GWG, 992 hits, and a bunch of other stuff I don't feel like typing up.

Playoffs:
228 points (97g 131a), 16 GWG, 227 hits

I'll probably tally up the stats again after this final season, but being as he's switched to defense and is riding out the corpse season, they're likely to remain pretty similar on the points front, but I'll crack that 1000 hits unless @Whitecap and @RashfordU decide to bench me. 

Thank you for everything - now, onward!
xoxo 
Jess