Thank You Legion by Scotty Kaberle- Player's Tribune

[fromtheinside 1,289]

Wow! What a 24 hours it has been!

 

As this long and tenuous Season 79 has rolled on, I've recently felt very down and mildly depressed about my career in Toronto. To understand it, you need to go all the way back to the beginning. I hit the ground running as a rookie in the VHLM and was astounded when I saw the Toronto Legion trade up in the draft to take me 11th overall in the Season 75 VHL Entry Draft. After taking one more season to develop, I joined the club in Season 76 eager and excited to get the ball rolling. The team dynamic was okay, but there was definitely some animosity from some of the veterans on the squad. We were building something solid towards the future but not everyone was on board, so changes got made. When the dust settled though, we had a roster I was genuinely excited about. We had an amazing young core. I was happy to be part of a young crew with Jolly Greene Giant, Kristof Welch, Gunnar Odinsson, Ray Funk Jr and Sirkants Klamasteris. This young group mixed in with guys like Lester Green and Jaxx Hextall, Oh Sens, Nicholas Sunderbruch and Zairie Anigbogu really showed some promise. 

 

We were seeing improvement and our young players were all developing at a very healthy rate. Things were going great until we arrived at a fork in the road. #WinItForRookie. Our longtime goaltender Jaxx Hextall only had a couple seasons left  before retirement and we started a mantra to get on a Cup run to get him a title that he most definitely deserved. Unforunately, in my opinion, we tried to fast track our development and made some aggressive moves to go all in for Hextall's remaining seasons. In my mind we went from a fun mantra of getting a Cup for Rookie to just going all-in, and in doing that we sacrificed some of our future. And to make matter's worse, things didn't go our way anyhow. We achieved a bit of regular season success but overall we didn't really accomplish much. The end result was more tinkering and trading. 

 

Eventually over time, the core I was once super excited about growing up with had evaporated. In the midst of all this, I signed a max term contract to be a lifelong member of the Legion. This came as a shock to many of my fellow players as many warn that it's never a good idea to commit that far into the future. I signed this contract for two reasons. First and foremost, I believed in the core we had and I thought if we banked on that then we would be a team to be reckoned with down the road. And secondly, I thought it would be cool to be a lifelong player for one team and just be a super low-maintenance type of guy who just committed to one club. That is really how I wanted it to play out. Unfortunately, heading into this season I took a look at our current team and realized I was the only piece left of that young core. Though we had some great new players around, it wasn't the same group that I came up with. I decided to at least try to be open-minded and see how the season went. Much like last season, we started red-hot, but also just like last season, we came spiraling back down to the bottom of the standings. I could feel myself growing  unhappier and disinterested. So I decided it was time to ask for a change.

 

To the Legion's credit, they made accommodations incredibly quickly for me. I wasn't sure how they would feel about me requesting to go in a new direction as I will admit I was kind of reneging  on my pledge to be a lifelong member of the Legion. Thankfully, in less than 12 hours after requesting a trade, I woke up to find I was headed to Sweden! Malmo is a team chalk full of promise and potential and I am stoked to be headed there. Playing under captain Muffbeav will be a ton of fun, and ironically I am reunited with my old friend Gunnar Odinsson from Toronto! I am also very excited to play for GM Chris Hylands as I know first hand from my time as an AGM in the M that he is a crafty and critical thinker and I trust in his process! I can't wait to see what I can do to help out the Nighthawks in any way I can!

 

To Toronto management and Legion fans everywhere, thank you for taking a chance on me. I'm sorry we couldn't get better results. The team still has incredible assets like Addison McLaren and Phoenix Dawson and Lester Green. I wish all the players there the very best, I hope you guys can rebound and turn things around. I'll see you guys down the road, but for now I am excited to don the blue and green and be the newest member of the Malmo Nighthawks!

[CowboyinAmerica 2,878]

Review: 10/10

 

Congrats on the new team! I know from experience that it can be a jarring time going from one team you've been on long-term to a whole new experience. Hopefully though it serves to re-energize you and brings joy in the prime of Kaberle's career. The article itself was a nice retrospective and send off to your Legion career, and I really appreciated the look inside your thought process as things progressed through time. My only grammar nitpick is a few random double spaces in there, but that's not something I would have caught anyway if I hadn't thrown the article into Word. The article flowed well by me, and think the paragraph spacing and readability were top-notch. All in all a great read, and best of luck in your Malmo career!

[mattyIceman 1,207]

Good luck Scotty!

 

MALMOOOOO

[fromtheinside 1,289]

10 hours ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

Review: 10/10

 

Congrats on the new team! I know from experience that it can be a jarring time going from one team you've been on long-term to a whole new experience. Hopefully though it serves to re-energize you and brings joy in the prime of Kaberle's career. The article itself was a nice retrospective and send off to your Legion career, and I really appreciated the look inside your thought process as things progressed through time. My only grammar nitpick is a few random double spaces in there, but that's not something I would have caught anyway if I hadn't thrown the article into Word. The article flowed well by me, and think the paragraph spacing and readability were top-notch. All in all a great read, and best of luck in your Malmo career!

 

Thank you for the kind words, and it's awesome to see one of the all-time greats back in the league by the way! Hope you find your time back here enjoyable

[ROOKIE745 602]

review: Great MS post and nice to hear the story from you. I was lucky enough to be there and get to play with you. Anyway it does sound like a very busy 24 hours, reminds me of how hectic the draft was for me. Lots of content to read here that's all spaced out well, your writing is very good to. The insight of what you went through is great and I'm glad things have worked out. Wish you in Malmo and the Legion the best. 9.5/10

[Renomitsu 934]

Review

Player's Tribune-style articles are some of my favorite in the league; they're always helpful in demonstrating how invested some players are in a situation where there's no real obligation to be truly engaged in a story. At times, the informal nature of sim league LRs and posting of box scores without the emotions of winning or losing a game in real-time can make pieces like this more difficult to compose, so I applaud you for writing in a heartfelt and genuine manner. This makes me want to believe you were thoughtful and deliberate in your choice to leave Toronto, which is hard to communicate in a league run via text!

On the more nitpicky side of things, there are a couple of random double spaces that CIA has already mentioned and a missing t (unfortunately); it's otherwise a lovely read.