At the end of this past season, Antonio Rizzello hung up his skates. His last year of professional hockey was spent with the GCK Lions, but the now 35-year-old played most of his 917 games in the National and the Swiss League for the SC Rapperswil-Jona Lakers.
He was part of two name-changes (from SC Rapperswil-Jona to Rapperswil-Jona Lakers to the current name), experienced relegation from National to Swiss League in 2015 and was able to lift both the Swiss Ice Hockey Cup trophy as well as the Swiss League trophy in 2018. The same year, the Lakers were promoted back to the National League. He recently started working in private business.
Asked by the Südostschweiz about his motive for retiring, Rizzello says: "There are two main reasons. For one thing, I increasingly noticed that my body does not completely play along anymore. I was unable to bring the performance I was used to on the ice. Apart from that, there was this great job offer. I was given the chance to start off on a higher level than would have been normal for me."
As his favorite moments, he names the 2017-18 season with the two titles as well as the promotion, making the playoffs and eliminating SC Bern when he was with HC Fribourg-Gottéron in 2008, and reaching the semi-finals with the Lakers in 2006. "Besides the sport in itself, the locker room life. I miss it already", Rizzello states when asked what he will miss the most.
Regarding the planned honoring by the Lakers, the Südostschweiz speculates that Rizzello's jersey will be raised to the rafters of the St. Galler Kantonalbank Arena in Rapperswil, as was done with those of Cyrill Geyer and Sven Berger.
