in 18 playoff games. He started his last season of junior eligibility with the Olympiques, but again switched mid-season, this time to join the Shawinigan Cataractes. During this 1996–97 season, he was able to secure a five-game tryout with the Kentucky Thoroughblades of the American Hockey League (AHL). Given only limited ice time, the 21-year-old made the most of it by scoring three points. However, with no shots on goal, it was not enough to convince the AHL team to give a professional contract to a player with just one eye. At the end of the 1996–97 season, his junior career was over, and the Sharks had by now dropped him from their protected list - but Beauregard continued to pursue a professional career in hockey. Professional career For the 1997–98 season, he signed a contract with the Wichita Thunder of the Central Hockey League. Several times during this season he was called up to the Kansas City Blades of the higher-level International Hockey League where he played in 15 games, but for most of the season he remained with the Thunder where he scored 42 goals and 29 assist for 71 points and the CHL Rookie of the Year award. Beauregard's stint with the Blades marked the end of his playing time in the higher minor leagues, but he has never given up on professional hockey. Bouncing around the minor leagues for the next several years, Beauregard skated in the United Hockey League (UHL) with the Muskegon Fury and Flint Generals during the 1998–99 season; and in the ECHL with the Greensboro Generals and the Charlotte Checkers during the 1999–2000 season. In the 2000–01 season he returned to the UHL, where he played two seasons with the Port Huron Border Cats, before joining the Fort Wayne Komets for the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons. It was during the 2003–04 season that Beauregard made a brief return to his native Quebec where he played 18 games in the short-lived QSMHL with the Saint-Jean Mission. For the 2004–05 season, Beauregard continued his tour of the UHL, icing for the Port Huron Beacons until the end of the season (when, after failing to make the playoffs, they would move to become the Roanoke Valley Vipers). Beauregard made another brief return to Quebec with the Sorel-Tracy Mission, suiting up just once during the 2004–05 season before following the Beacons' franchise to Roanoake for the