Welcome to OG: Approved—where rule-breaking creators shape the future. Hand-picked by Open Gardens, they’re not following the playbook—they’re writing the next one.
Name: Pat Shea
Instagram: 174K Followers
Youtube: 16.5K Subscribers
Who is Pat Shea?
Pat Shea spent most of his life chasing a career in professional hockey before discovering that making people laugh about the sport might be more enjoyable than playing it.
Originally from Marshfield, Massachusetts, Shea played Division I hockey at the University of Maine before moving into the professional ranks. While still playing, he began documenting his experiences on YouTube, giving viewers a look inside college hockey, locker room culture, and the personalities that make the sport entertaining beyond what happens on the ice.
Those videos turned into comedy sketches, with Shea playing exaggerated versions of hockey players, coaches, parents, and just about anyone who’s spent too much time around a rink.
After stepping away from professional hockey, Shea began putting more energy into writing, acting, and filmmaking. He’s since moved well beyond individual sketches, developing a slate of episodic comedies featuring original characters and stories.
In May 2025, he released Full Ride, a five-episode comedy series following three freshman hockey players, Paddy, GSon, and Wheels, as they arrive at the fictional White Pine University. Drawing from his own college experience, the show follows the guys through the partying, friendships, and poor decisions that come with being young athletes suddenly living on their own.
Then there’s Jake and Zoey, a comedy featuring actress Hannah Kelly, and Small Town Cops, which pairs Shea with fellow creator FknBenji as officers Trent and Marty. .
What’s fun about Shea’s work is that he seems to have a growing collection of characters and ideas he wants to explore. He’s not just stretching one successful joke into a dozen videos. He’s trying different premises, working with other performers, and figuring out what can sustain an actual series.
And he’s doing much of it independently.
Three Things We Love About Pat Shea
He’s got a whole cast of characters living in his head: From clueless college hockey players to small-town cops who probably shouldn’t have badges, Shea has a knack for finding comedy in people who take themselves far more seriously than anyone else does. You get the sense he’s encountered some version of every one of them in real life.
He’s treating YouTube like his own television network: Full Ride, Jake and Zoey, and Small Town Cops are separate shows with their own characters and premises. Rather than developing everything around one recognizable persona, Shea is giving audiences different comedies to follow, all under his own creative umbrella.
He turned a hockey career into a comedy career: Most athletes leave their playing days behind when they move into entertainment. Shea has found a way to put those years to use, drawing on the people, experiences, and relationships he picked up along the way. It’s a pretty good second act for someone who once expected to spend his career on the ice..