Brendan Shanahan was one of the best players in the NHL for over 20 years. And thanks to his physical style of play, he became a favorite for many fans in the league.
Shanahan never backed down from anyone, and during his career he racked up 90 career fights. But he also had some amazing goal scoring abilities, putting up 656 goals in 1,524 NHL games.
Shanahan is still the only player in the history of the NHL with over 600 goals and 2,000 penalty minutes. The Hall of Famer only played four pre-season games of the 2009-2010 season before ending his successful career.
After his retirement, Shanahan didn’t waste no time going straight to work, and right away started working at the NHL headquarters, becoming the leagues vice president of hockey and business development.
He eventually became very good at it, as he later on became NHL’s Senior Vice President, but on the first day, it was different.
”I remember having a couple of different ideas what I wanted to do. The easiest thing for me though, as I lived in Manhattan and my kids were going to school in Manhattan, to go work in an NHL office. And I really was such a newbie. I was a 40-year-old, like… total newbie,” Shanahan reveals on the podcast ”SmartLess”, hosted by actors Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett. “I remember when… it makes me sound like an idiot, but it’s actually true. In my first day, I was sitting at this cubicle and around 4.45, 4.50, I see some people are standing and some people are leaving, and I say to the women in the cubicle next to me like: ‘Excuse me, how do we now when it’s time to leave? Is there a horn, or a siren?’. And she’s probably like 26 years old, and I’m 40 and I was that green.”
Brendan Shanahan currently serves as the president and alternate governor for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
