‘Skate for Sully’ is happening tomorrow at 2pm at Smithfield Municipal Hockey Rink.
I want to make a last minute push for more contributions. We have received $205 dollars in contributions (thanks so much!!) so far.
Here is a news article in the Valley Breeze that tells Shannon’s story. (Excerpt below):
SMITHFIELD – When 5-foot, 1-inch Shannon Sullivan became the first girl to play varsity hockey here, in 1991, she despaired of looking dainty – so before each game she would tuck her flowing, flame-red hair into her helmet.
Her opponents cut her no slack on the ice; she remembers once being checked so hard that “I had to crawl back to the bench – I could barely catch my breath.”
Now, the glory of two high school championships is long past, and at 32, she concedes with characteristic understatement that “I’m kind of in a pickle.”
A fighter by nature, Sullivan is confronting hard times. And once again on her mind are those trademark, shoulder-length curls.
She pauses for a moment in a conversation laced with humor and composure, and then confides, “The first time I cried was last Thursday, when my hair was falling out in my hands.”
That was the private Shannon Sullivan few see as she confronts her second bout with cancer in four years – but true to form that day, she quickly reached for the positive. Her tears dried, she says, and she took control.
“I told myself, ‘Get the razor and shave it all off’ – then I was fine.”
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