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Who exactly is Shannon Lynn Szabados? She played in her first Winter Olympics in 2010, as the third goaltender on Team Canada, and then went on to clinch the top position of Starter in the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. She backstopped her side to a gold medal back then, but it’s no guarantee that she’ll get to start in Pyeongchang in South Korea’s Games next year. The talented 31-year-old knows it too.
In 2014 Szabados beat seasoned veterans now-retired Kim St-Pierre and Charline Labonté to become starter, thanks to her performance in the games leading up to the Olympics themselves. That means that she knows fellow goalies Geneviève Lacasse and Ann-Renée Desbiens may well be selected, and is taking nothing for granted now. She has said herself that her awareness that anything is possible makes her prepare even harder. Whether this results in her being chosen as the starter for 2018 or not, she should treat us to some exceptional Ice Hockey.
A lot of the women on Team Canada played with and against male Hockey players in their early days, but Szabados took things further than most. Not only did she participate in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, she has the distinct honour of being the first female player in several different tournaments and leagues at the minor, junior and professional levels. This not nearly as simple as playing mobile real money slots has become on any handset today, though Szabados would surely say it was worth every sacrifice and moment of practice, blood, sweat and tears!
Playing exhibition matches for the Tri-City Americans, she became the first woman to play in the Western Hockey League. Among many other such honours, Szabados was also the first female player to sign and play in the Southern Professional Hockey League. She may have been the third goalie in the 2010 Olympics, but she was also the youngest. In those Games she also proved herself with 2 recorded shutouts, and a very impressive 0.33 goals-against average. From there she just kept going and got the starter job for 2014, and it’s not something she’s prepared to give up without a fight.
Talented and accomplished as Szabados is, in some ways she has had a tough time over the past few years and she’ had to rely on a lot more than luck and superstition to get her through. She has spent a lot of time moving around, saying in April that she had been living out of a suitcase for about a year, and she spent the 2016-2017 season recovering from the wear and tear of the preceding years. This damage included a torn medial collateral ligament, and the emotional damage of being let go by the Peoria Rivermen and being badmouthed by Rivermen coach Jean-Guy Trudel.
Far from being knocked down by her challenges, however, Szabados is willing to work and understands that it is a marathon and not a sprint. Rather than a race, she describes it as a building process, and has said in the past that there is time to think before February. A strong teamwork ethic seems to be in the women’s team too; Lacasse, her rival for starter position, has said that as they both work for that she will be trying to push Szabados and the team as a whole. February promises to be thrilling!
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