New England Hockey Journal - December 2015 - 18

OVER THE BORDERS

SwiSS FAMiLy

SHANNON
n After hoisting trophies

on two continents, ex-BC
standout has found the
perfect work-family balance

hen I first contacted Ryan Shannon,
he requested that
I call him back another time. That
night, at that moment, he was busy trying to prepare his daughter, Emma, and
son, Owen, for some Halloween festivities. This is not a particular oddity during the month of October, but it is not
exactly a Swiss custom.
Nonetheless, coming from a large,
closely connected family (he is the oldest brother to Michael and Kate, and one
of about 40 cousins), one that looked
forward to the major holidays and the
chances to gather together, Ryan is not
about to let where he lives change how
he is accustomed to living.
For a large chunk of his early professional career, how Ryan lived was game
to game. For seven years, the Darien,
Conn., native and Taft School product
counted himself among the many who
grind out a hockey career for as long as possible. He found initial
success. He had a stellar first professional
season, leading the
Portland Pirates with
86 points. His 22 playoff points helped carry
them to the conference
finals, where they lost
in the seventh game to
the eventual champion
Hershey Bears.
The next season, he
earned a spot on the Anaheim Ducks roster. The
sting of the previous season's gut-punch
ending was to be eradicated. That rookie
season, he achieved what a future Hall of
Famer had to wait over two decades for.
"Teemu Selanne was on that team," Shan-

Ryan Shannon
celebrates the Zurich
Lions' Swiss National
League 2013-14 title.

non said, "and he had played an entire career. As successful as he was, as dominant a
player, he really had never gotten a chance
until then. He was a 40-year-old guy, and
there I was, 23, and getting the ability to
raise it (the Stanley Cup) after one season."

18 NEw ENGLAND HOCKEY JOURNAL December 2015

Walo da Rin/ ZSC Lions (this page, far right); courtesy Ryan Shannon; Dave Sandford/Getty Images (Anaheim)

By Paul Noonan

While he enjoyed team success, Shannon, on a personal level, became one of
those depth guys who required a healthy
dose of fortune to secure a steady spot on
an NHL roster. As his father, Pat, put it,
"He, obviously, had to fight for every shift
he took, and if he made a mistake, he didn't
get the rope that other guys have." After
another handful of seasons which saw him
struggle to maintain a full-time role, Shannon reached that point where his career required the sort of levelheadedness he was

known for. As he began his recovery from
shoulder surgery in the spring of 2012,
Shannon took a hard look at his career. "I'd
expressed my desire to try something else.
Being bounced around, now with a daughter, in the NHL and the AHL, I know a lot
a guys do it, and it's amazing to me. I was
looking for a little bit more stability, and
my agent brought up the option of going
to Switzerland."
The relief in Shannon's voice as he
mused about this decision is enough to
confirm the correctness of the choice.
The three-year deal offered by the Zurich Lions was the first long-term deal
of his professional life, and the comfort
that he had long desired, and now felt he
needed, could not be passed up. "It was
an unbelievable feeling to know that I
was going to be in the same place. This
isn't an environment where you can get
cut or called up or sent down. When you
sign a three-year contract, that's where
you're going to be unless you screw up."
Shannon quickly pulled the trigger on
the deal and prepared for a new life in
the land of peaks and valleys.
Yet, it has been mostly peaks for him in
Europe. About winning the Stanley Cup,
Shannon shamelessly admitted, "I was
just wide-eyed, overwhelmed, just trying
to do anything possible to stay on the roster in Anaheim." In his second season in
Zurich, he was now the poised leader who
was instrumental in taking the team all
the way to the top, as the ZSC Lions won
the Swiss Cup. Coach Marc Crawford recounted, "We had the two Ryans (Shannon
and Keller). Keller was our leading scorer,
and Ryan Shannon was the number one
center in that drive to the championship.
We don't win it without them. They were
counted on in every situation, and they
came through in every situation."
With a lot of the same players back
from that championship team, the Lions
sit atop the league and certainly have the
tools and expectation to repeat the feat.
Crawford's reliance on Shannon hasn't
diminished, either. "He's got the versatility that can play different positions. He
plays the points on the power play for
us. He can play the half-boards. We play
him against other teams' top line."
In their fourth year together in Zurich,
Continued on Page 61

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