Shanahan reflects on parents, brothers during HHOF speech

By Michael Caples –

During the segment of the Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremony dedicated to Brendan Shanahan, many of the attributes that made the former Red Wings great a fan favorite were brought to light.

Ceremony host James Duthie made jokes about Shanahan kissing a teammate after his first NHL goal. Steve Yzerman mentioned how tough Shanahan was, and how confident he was in any situation.

Yet Shanahan himself reflected on his family more than anything else during his speech, talking about his Irish household and how it made him the person he is today.

“Like most players, the beginning for me started like a lot of guys – your mom and dad,” Shanahan said during his induction speech as part of the Class of 2013. “I’m no different. I was a bit of a rink rat, I had three older brothers, and while they were playing I had a little broken stick and I was running around the side of the rink and finding a corner to shoot a rolled up piece of tape. Somebody asked my father if he was going to sign me up, so he did, even if I was a little bit younger than the other kids. I was not only the worst player on my team, but I was the worst player in the entire league. But I still loved it. And I was completely unaware of this fact.”

Shanahan eventually became the best player in his league, and would be one of the best on the ice for the rest of his career. After all, he recorded 656 goals and 698 points over 1,524 NHL games. Oh yes, and he won three Stanley Cups and gold at the Olympics.

“My dad and my mom really did support me, specifically my father, because of the early mornings, my mom liked to sleep in a bit, my dad used to drive me to the rinks and drive me to practice and drive me to games and we developed a really close bond,” Shanahan said. “When I was turning 16, and my father was having trouble driving his car, and he gave me the keys, to forever drive to the games myself now with him as a passenger, there were two things that I didn’t know. The first, I had no idea that two years later I would be in the NHL. No idea. And the other was that five years later, my father was going to die of Alzheimer’s. I didn’t know that. Mom, Dad was only about 54 when he got sick, and you went out and got your driver’s license, and when I moved away from home later that year to play hockey in London, you drove to London every weekend to watch me play. You would spend the weekend, and we had some really good times. So Mom, you’re a hero to me, for doing that.”

Shanahan also pointed out that he benefited greatly from being the youngest in the family.

“My brothers, I was the youngest of four boys,” Shanahan said. “My mother and father were both immigrants from Ireland, so we were a rough and tumble house. My dad was a fireman, so we were a bunch of rough kids, and Brian, Danny, Shaun, you guys did the kindest thing that older brothers can do for the youngest boy. When you guys were going out the door with a lacrosse stick in your hand or a hockey stick in your hand, to play a little road hockey, and I said can I come, you said yes. It’s as simple as that. What doesn’t escape me now is, you were six, eight and 11 years older than me. That’s not always the coolest thing to do, to bring your little brother with your friends. I will say this, I’m convinced, and I’ve had time to reflect and I’ve tried to reflect on my career…I tried to reflect on how it happened, it was a big surprise to me. It was a big surprise that any of this happened. I would say those afternoons or those evenings with you guys, I was so much younger and so much smaller and so much weaker that I always had to go back home and hatch a plan on how I was going to be better next time, and how I was going to compete.

“That’s something I carried with me in the NHL. I wasn’t always the most talented player, but I always tried to find the will to figure out what I needed to do next and where I could improve and how I could help my team and what kind of a role could make me unique and helpful to my team. I wanted to thank you guys for doing that. You’re good big brothers.”

And at the end of his speech, the NHL’s senior vice president in charge of player safety returned to talking about his father.

“ When I was about eight or nine years old, he caught me with a piece of chalk that I had taken from school, and I was writing my name on the wall. He said, ‘A man’s ambitions must be small to write his name upon a wall.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘How long have you been carrying that one around? What are the odds you get to use that one in life?’ But on a day like today, when he never really ever got to see me play hockey, although I feel like he is watching, he definitely deserves to be here. This is certainly a name, my name, the name that he gave me, and he deserves to see it up on this wall. So I dedicate this to my father, Donal Shanahan. Thank you.”