Callie Shanahan always had an itch to play goalie.
Shanahan’s dad, Dan, put her in skates when she was three years old, around the same age that his dad did the same for him. Dan Shanahan spent his childhood running around the ice on the pond in his grandparents’ backyard with a stick that was too big for him. He became addicted to hockey from there, playing goalie. He still plays today.
Callie Shanahan grew up on the lake in her own backyard in Commerce, Michigan, learning to skate in the winters when it froze over. That’s where she fell in love with hockey.
She started playing hockey when she was seven, playing as a skater before that itch to play goalie started to act up.
“After a game, I was like, ‘Hey, Dad, can I just try out goalie?’ And he was floored that I said that, so excited,” Callie Shanahan said.
Dan Shanahan set her up with pads, and she never looked back.
Callie Shanahan’s parents never pressured her to pursue hockey, and they never pressured her to do well, either, even though Dan Shanahan was also his daughter’s childhood coach.
Penny Shanahan is a retired fourth grade teacher, and Dan Shanahan is a podiatrist when he’s not coaching his daughter and her teams. They made the time to attend every single game as their daughter was growing up and continue to do so, even while she lives halfway across the country.
“They are two of the most supportive people in my life,” Callie Shanahan said. “They have literally gone through everything with me and just have always wanted the best for me.”
They only ever wanted her to have fun, and that was a key factor in her development.
“There’s nothing more important for a kid to grow up in something cultural like [hockey],” Dan Shanahan said. “There’s a team involved. Traveling teaches [kids] lessons. It makes the family bond better, and it’s simply fun.”
Callie Shanahan was playing because she loved to, and that’s what kept her going.
Winning also kept Callie Shanahan going.
She won her first state championship with her 10U team, and she learned how it felt to be a champion.
“I was like, ‘This winning thing is kind of fun,’ and it’s almost like an addiction because you want to keep getting better and better and just transform your game,” Callie Shanahan said.
She was not only committed to winning in hockey. She played soccer growing up in addition to running track and cross-country and playing volleyball. Soccer stuck around for the longest, though.
She started playing soccer soon after she started skating, when she was five. She became a dual-sport athlete for two separate teams in two completely different sports, leaving soccer practice at 7 p.m. every day just to go to hockey practice later that night at 8:30 p.m.
Shanahan attributes much of her athletic ability and mental fortitude to juggling these different sports.
“A lot of kids, when they specialize in a sport really young, they can burn out and lose their passion for a sport,” she said. “I could bounce around all these different sports, and it made me into the athlete I am today.”
Despite starting soccer at a young age, Shanahan faced adversity in her soccer career. She sat a lot, until she took the leap to take private lessons. She ended her high school career as the captain of her soccer team.
She almost went to college for soccer instead of hockey.
In Shanahan’s sophomore year of high school, she almost chose soccer over hockey. She hadn’t been playing her best hockey, and she contemplated quitting the sport altogether to be able to dedicate herself to soccer full-time. She had lost some of the love of hockey that drove her to play the sport in the first place.
“The season ended, and I kind of had a switch in mentality for some reason,” Callie Shanahan said.
She was invited to a couple USA Hockey camps, and those were her first exposure to hockey at that level. She had been invited to the national festival for the U18 Select Team in Lake Placid, New York, the same backdrop as some of the most iconic teams in hockey.
She was cut from the Select Team.
But a couple months later, she got a call from USA Hockey, and they wanted her on their U18 World Championship team.
Even though she didn’t see any game action, making the team alone was a turning point.
The team won gold, too.
“Just being there and part of the team was an absolute honor, and winning a gold medal, and overtime versus Team Canada, literally being part of that was an amazing experience,” Callie Shahanan said.
She committed to Boston University the next year.
Coming from a small town in Michigan to play tournaments in Boston while growing up, Shanahan loved the city. Going to school in Boston had been a dream of hers.
“I was always told that I would get a gut feeling on the right campus, and I was like, ‘That’s baloney,’” she said. “Seventeen campuses later… I toured BU, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It felt like home.”
BU had everything she was looking for: hockey, academics, Boston.
Callie Shanahan has found her place in Boston.
She started off her hockey career at BU with a strong freshman year, posting a .925 save percentage and making the Hockey East All-Rookie Team in the process.
Sophomore year was tough for her, too, losing her starting job, and junior year got off to another heartbreaking start with a knee injury.
“Ups and downs are part of [the sport], and the downs make you more grateful for the ups, and it builds your character,” Callie Shanahan said.
She has always strived for success. Even though she played sports because they were fun, winning is what helped her keep going. She has always looked to get better.
From managing her time around four different sports to getting cut from a team or losing her position to someone else to facing an injury, Shanahan has always come back to be better than before.
“She’s intense because she’s really driven,” Dan Shanahan said. “She really tries, really wants to do well. She really wants to have her teammates and coaches look up to her.”
Shanahan has been named an assistant captain for the upcoming 2024-25 season. Her hard work on the ice has proven to have an effect on those around her, and she’s been rewarded by head coach Tara Watchorn with an “A” to wear on her jersey.
Outside of the locker room, she is loud and outgoing, constantly smiling and cracking jokes to make other people smile along with her. In the locker room, however, she’s more reserved. She knows the time and place to present the different sides of her personality. When she’s in uniform, her work ethic comes first.
“At practice, she’s not the one talking all the time,” BU forward Liv Haag, Callie Shanahan’s best friend on the team, said. “She’s the one that’s doing the work and showing everyone what it’s like to be a leader and to be someone that works hard and does well.”
This season will be Callie Shanahan’s last. She has endured both coaching and roster turnover in her tenure in the Boston University ice hockey program, and despite the uncertainty coming into the 2024-25 season with key pieces from last season leaving and a lot of fresh faces making their BU debuts, Callie Shanahan is excited.
“I’m honestly looking forward to having a redemption season and for our team to have a redemption season,” Callie Shanahan said.
This story is part of the Daily Free Press’ annual Hockey Issue. Copies are available around campus and at the women’s (Oct. 1) and men’s (Oct. 5) home openers.
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