Sport: Hockey
Born: July 29, 1988
Town: Voorhees, New Jersey
Molly Patricia Schaus was born July 29, 1988 in Voorhees, NJ. The Schauses moved to Minneapolis when Molly was a girl. There she learned to skate on a pond in their backyard. In 1995, the family moved again, to the Chicago bedroom community of Naperville. That is where Molly stopped figure skating and began playing hockey, becoming one of the area’s top goalies in her teen years. She had her older brothers to thank for her advanced puck-stopping skills—they regularly used her for target practice. She was further inspired by the US Women’s team, which won Olympic gold medal at Nagano in 1998. It was in Naperville that she also struck up a friendship with Cammi Granato, star of Team USA.
The Schauses moved again, this time to Natick, MA, when Molly was a 10th grader. She played goalie for Deerfield Academy (where she was team MVP twice) and the Assabet Valley Under-19 club, winning five separate state championships. She also had two third-place finishes and a runner-up in the USA Hockey Girls National Championships.
Not surprisingly, Molly was recruited to play for Boston College—by Granato’s former teammate, Katie King. She led BC to its first-ever Frozen Four appearance as a freshman in 2006–07. As a junior, Molly was a finalist for the Kazmaier Award and was a second-team All-American. She was named top goaltender in three Beanpot Tournaments during her four varsity seasons. In her senior year, Molly was 24–5–4 and earned first-team All-America honors. She graduated with the school record for saves, goals-against average and wins, with 80. During Molly’s college career, she also played for two gold medal-winning US teams in the World Championships.
Molly was a member of silver-medal Team USA at the 2010 Olympics, seeing ice time behind starter Jessie Vetter. At the Four Nations Tournament in 2010, she was spectacular in turning back 49 of 52 shots during a 3–2 OT loss to Canada in the gold-medal game. One year later, Molly shut out the Canadians 4–0 in the first 12 Nations Tournament.
In 2011, Molly was the #2 pick in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League draft, by the Boston Blades, and played two seasons. That fall, she also began her coaching career as the goalies coach for UMass-Boston. Molly made the Olympic team again in 2014, and once again the Americans fell in the gold-medal final to Canada.
In 2015, Molly retired and began looking for something fulfilling to do in the sport. She attended the Youth Olympics in Norway in 2016 and decided that player development is where she wanted to be. She took a job with the Anaheim Ducks and got involved with their SCORE (Scholastic Curriculum of Recreation and Education) program, which encourages health and fitness and builds confidence at the elementary-school level through street hockey. The program soon grew to 60,000 children and also focused on a STEM curriculum, using hockey to challenge kids’ minds.