2008 was an interesting year for the smash community. The beginning of the year saw the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which introduced many new players to the competitive scene. At the same time, it created a sort of divide: many Super Smash Bros. Melee players didn’t enjoy the new entry in the series, and stuck with what they were familiar with. Of course, there were still Melee players who moved on to the new game. One such player was Chris “Icylight” Fauteux.

Icylight had played Mario and Donkey Kong in Melee, two less-than-stellar characters on the tier list. With Brawl, he had an opportunity to find a new character he enjoyed. He settled on Olimar, who was considered fairly weak at the time of release, and had little representation. However, after his experience with playing lower tier characters in Melee, Icylight wasn’t going to let this stop him.

He began to talk to other Olimar players on forums like Smashboards, helping pioneer the character’s playstyle. All the while, Icylight was competing in tournaments in Connecticut, solidifying himself as the best Olimar in the state. While he didn’t have many wins over notable players, he was consistently placing within top 3 at his local events, and made a name for himself in doubles with his partner Bizkit.

Icylight’s performance and presence in the smash scene came from his familiarity with competitive games. Starting from a young age, he and his brother competed against each other in whatever games they could: Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., and eventually, PC games. Specifically, the Half Life mod known as Counter-Strike 1.0, where he would make his tournament debut at a young age.

After several years of Counter-Strike 1.0 tournaments, Icylight moved on to new games. One of these games was Warcraft III. This was the first game he saw real success in, reaching the ranks of top 5 in the United States when the game’s popularity was near its peak.

While he continued his dominance in Warcraft III, he came up with the tag Icylight. He continues to use this tag to this day, even outside of Warcraft, which he retired from after several new expansions made the game harder for him to enjoy.

During his period of dominance in World of Warcraft, Icylight would often spend his weekends at Smash Bros. tournaments, starting with Melee in 2007. However, he didn’t gain a name for himself until he began playing Brawl, where he managed to become a top player in Connecticut from 2008 to 2010.

While playing Brawl, Icylight had several notable achievements. The largest ones being a win over Dabuz in an Olimar ditto money match, and a 5th place finish in the doubles event at S.N.E.S. in 2009 with his partner Bizkit.

As he rose to the top of his local scene in Brawl, Icylight was still playing Melee competitively. He found it harder to switch from Brawl to Melee so frequently, so he decided to switch his Melee main from Mario to Sheik, a character he felt was much easier to play consistently.

After Brawl’s release, several community members in Connecticut and Massachusetts noticed a lack of dedicated weekly tournaments, resulting in sparse monthly and biweekly events. These community members, Icylight included, began to organize new monthly and biweekly events, and aimed to schedule them in such a way that there would be at least one tournament every week. Icylight ran his own series, aptly named “Icy’s Monthly,” within this schedule. In his time as a tournament organizer, Icylight hosted over 100 events.

Despite his devotion to the scene, Icylight began to lose interest in Smash Bros. after 2010 and quit. During this hiatus, he explored more PC games, like League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm, both of which he performed well in. At one point, he went back to Brawl, but this return did not last long.

One fateful day in 2015, Icylight’s roommate introduced him to Project M, a mod for Brawl that balanced the cast and introduced new stages, characters, and mechanics. He found that one of the characters he enjoyed the most in Melee, Donkey Kong, was significantly better in Project M compared to both Melee and Brawl, and was instantly hooked.

Soon after this introduction, Icylight attended his first tournament for the game. He was happy to see many of his friends from his Melee and Brawl days, and he placed fairly well with his DK. He continued to attend PM tournaments, eventually picking up his Melee main Sheik and making a rivalry with two local players: Joe “JoeST” Estey, and Thomas “Silver” Manning. Although JoeST has mostly retired, Icylight and Silver still have a fierce rivalry. “He’s one of the few smash players I play against who played Brawl as extensively as me,” Icylight said. “He can see through my entire style and I can’t let up against him or I pay for it severely.”

Icylight closes out a stock against Silver. Footage via Great Value Smash

As he became active in the Connecticut PM scene, an organization known as Great Value Smash was made. They announced that they were looking for players to sponsor, and Icylight offered his skillset. Since then, Icylight, while sponsored by GVS, has remained dominant in his local scene. The first time out of state players came to Connecticut in force, Icylight did his best to defend his region, beating top Wolf player Kyle “Switch” Carlon in bracket with his ROB.

Currently, Silver remains to be one of Icylight’s biggest rivals, along with Kyle “Kycse” Carrero, who began to take sets over him after version 3.5 of Project M was released. Despite his rivalry with the two players, he views both of them as friends within their tightly knit community.

Icylight is currently on hiatus due to health issues. The cold weather of Winter has caused him to have numbing problems in his hands, making it impossible to play smash. While he hasn’t been able to play smash, he’s been exploring other games again. “I play the most popular competitive games as they come and go, and try my best to get to the top 1% of the top 1% in all of them,” he said. As of right now, he’s been playing Fortnite and other PC games.