Stonehill Hockey Sophomore Goes Beyond the Game: A Life-Saving Journey with 'Be the Match'

BY OLIVIA ROTONDO

Hannah Squires, a sophomore on the Women's Ice Hockey team joined the “Be the Match” registry three years ago. In June 2023 she was matched at 18 years old with a 70-year-old man who was struggling with blood cancer and courageously donated her cells to save his life.  

“I started getting a bunch of phone calls and emails and I had to start getting blood work done, doctors’ appointments, physicals, everything to make sure I could still match with this person,” said Squires.  

“Be the Match” connects patients with a matching donor for a blood stem cell or bone marrow transplant. Squires said it is rare to get matched but when she got the phone call in early June, she knew she would help.  

 Squires said she was not told much about the match except that he was a 70-year-old man fighting a battle with blood cancer and needed a peripheral blood stem cell donation. She said they cannot communicate with each other until after a year. Squires said she plans to then.  

“This donor process was not easy,” she said. 

“Five days before the procedure I got these shots and what it did was make my bones expand so all the stem cells would go into my blood stem, it caused bone aches, and I did not feel that good. Then on the day of the donation, I sat in the hospital bed and could not move my arms because they had huge needles in both for about 5 hours while they just extracted the stem cells.”  

Squires said that this process was not that bad because she has a high pain tolerance. She said she wants to be a doctor, so the needles and blood did not bother her. She said it was a cool experience.  

 Squires is a D1 athlete on the Stonehill Women’s Ice Hockey Team. The procedure made her miss about two weeks of games and practices. After the procedure, her spleen was enlarged. While it caused her no symptoms, she risked the possibility of her spleen rupturing if she got hit while playing.  

The biggest question was why did she want to do this? What made her join the registry?  

“My dad was on the registry, and I try to get everyone to join because the more people that are on it the more people can be helped and saved, so my dad got me and all my cousins to join it,” said Squires.