This Day in Hockey History – September 23, 1992 – First Lady of Hockey

The NHL had existed for 76 years by the time the first female was invited to attend a team’s training camp. Goalie Manon Rheaume did well enough that she then played in an exhibition game on September 23, 1992, as the first woman to play for one of the four major professional sports in North America. These firsts were among quite a few in her resume as Rheaume made history throughout her hockey career.

Rheaume’s historic career launched when, in 1984, the 11-year-old became the first female to participate in the Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament. As part of the events, she had the chance to practice with the Quebec Nordiques and her role-model, Patrick Roy. She wore No. 33 in his honor throughout her professional career. At the time, newspapers already commented that she could play for the NHL someday. This was after she had spent her childhood learning from her father how to toughen up and wearing her helmet into the rinks so that her gender was not obvious.

The next few years were difficult as she was blocked from playing at the highest (and eventually even the second) tier of Quebec peewee and bantam leagues. When she took a year off from hockey to attend school, she ended up playing in a women’s league and attracted the attention of the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. As the third-string goalie, she made her only appearance with them in November 1991, when she backstopped the team for 17 minutes. She had blood dripping down her face after a puck broke her helmet, but she did not stop. Rheaume was the first woman to play in a junior major hockey game.

A tape of that performance was sent to Phil Esposito, then the GM of the new Tampa Bay Lightning. Rheaume described the result saying, “One of the scouts from Tampa Bay he asked Phil what he thought about that goaltender, and he didn’t know at first that it was a girl. So he said, ‘Yeah, you know the goaltender is ok, a little bit small, but doing the same job as any other goaltender that age.’ And the scout said after that, ‘It’s a girl.’ And that’s when Phil said, ‘Oh my god.’ He got kind of a flash. This is neat.” 

In 1992, Esposito invited Rheaume to become the first woman to participate in an NHL training camp. While he did intend to raise publicity for his franchise, he also wanted her to do well. “Her attitude was so good with that camp. She didn’t show a lot of emotion. That’s something I noticed about her. The guys never pulled any punches, and they were told, ‘You shoot the puck wherever you want as hard as you want.’ And in fact, I’ll bet you they tried to shoot it even harder to try to hit her more. You know, it’s just like any other rookie, and you take advantage of her. The fact that she was a woman too, it made it doubly so. … I knew the coach wasn’t gonna talk to her. That’s for sure. … I did it because I thought that she had a chance. And I’ve always thought that if there was any way a woman could make professional hockey, it would have to be in goal.”

Wearing the pads from the peewee tournament that her father had reinforced, Rheaume’s first practice was actually tending goal during the second period of a scrimmage. She had a shutout, blocking all 14 shots that came at her. That led Esposito to tell the press that she would play in one of the exhibition games instead of being cut from the team as she had formerly expected.

On September 23, a crowd of 8,223 came to the Florida State Fairground Expo Hall to see the first female start in an NHL game. As the 20-year-old said at the time, “I don’t think about being the first. I think about coming here to go as high as I can. I come here to try to stop 100 mile-per-hour pucks. I have a lot of pressure on me, so I don’t think about anything except stopping pucks.” Later, Rheaume reflected, “I was thinking about my game, and everything was fine. I was calm. I was not nervous at all. And I was preparing myself.” She felt the pressure once she left the bus and was nervous until she saw flowers sent by a Montreal radio station wishing her well and providing support. Rheaume returned to the moment, “I was back to myself playing a hockey game. And I didn’t really realize but I was in the Tampa Bay jersey, and it was an NHL jersey.”

Esposito, having taken a chance on her, was also nervous. “That night when she got into the game with St. Louis, my biggest fear would be that they would have six shots on net and score five or six goals. And that the guys wouldn’t give her the support. … Cause a lot of the players didn’t like that she was there. The coaching staff thought it was a joke.” However, things really came together after her first save. According to Esposito, “There wasn’t a woman in that building that night that wasn’t cheering her brains off. And I was cheering for her too.”

During her 20-minute session, Rheaume made seven saves and allowed two goals (a bad one by Jeff Brown and a good one by Brendan Shanahan). She left the net with the teams tied at 2-2. The Lightning then sent in their top goalie, Wendell Young, who let in two goals in nine minutes. The crowd called for Rheaume’s return. Young allowed another two goals for a 6-4 loss.

As for Rheaume’s performance, it impressed both Phil and his former-goaltender brother, Tony Esposito. Tony commented, “She’s surprised me like she’s surprised everyone. She has natural concentration. And a couple of times when she let in a bad goal, which all goalies do, she didn’t panic. She stayed poised and focused.” Phil continued, “If I’m rating her, I have to give her a 7 ½. The first goal was a bad goal; she should have stopped it. The second one, Tony said nobody could have blocked it, not even him. And she did have three unbelievable stops on the power play.” Later Esposito admitted, “I breathed a sigh of relief, not only for her but for ourselves and our team and the situation and for myself I guess. It could have backfired. It could have blown up in my face. There’s no doubt about it.”

Rheaume herself was proud of her accomplishment. “That was the greatest feeling because I knew how important it was for me to play well. It was not enough for me to have done good during training camp. It was not enough for the media.” No one could say she didn’t deserve to be there. She had done over 100 interviews in the 11 days she was with the Lightning and had proved herself to the naysayers. 

Phil Esposito summed up his resulting opinion, “I think some day she can play in the NHL. She’s earned a chance to try. We really want her in our organization.” Thus, he sent her to their farm team, the Atlanta Knights of the International Hockey League (IHL). When she signed the three-year contract with them, Rheaume was the first female to sign a professional contract. She debuted on December 13 (against the Salt Lake Golden Eagles) as the first woman to play a professional regular-season game.

Unfortunately, Rheaume’s season with the Knights involved many promotions and very little playing. She requested a trade down a level so she could play more frequently and cut back on promotions. Up through 1997, she played 24 games with the Knoxville Cherokees, Nashville Knights, the Las Vegas Aces, the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks, Las Vegas Thunder, and the Reno Renegades.

Meanwhile, Rheaume also made a name for herself internationally. She backstopped Team Canada to gold medals in the 1992 and 1994 IIHF Women’s World Championships, making the All-Star team for both. After being cut from the Canadian team in 1997 for inconsistent playing, she came back stronger than ever to earn her spot in 1998, when women’s hockey first appeared in the Olympics. With Rheaume in net, Team Canada earned the silver medal in the finale at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

Additional Sources:

• Mike Commito, Hockey 365: Daily Stories from the Ice (Toronto: Dundurn, 2018), kindle edition.
• “Manon Rhéaume: Woman Behind the Mask,” documentary, 2000, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqSiIjMaeZM.
• Cammy Clark, “Now in goal for Tampa Bay, a bit of history,” Tampa Bay Times, 24 Sept. 1992, pp. 1A and 3A.
• Hubert Mizell, “Rheaume’s 20 minutes of fame,” Tampa Bay Times, 24 Sept. 1992, pp. 1C and 10C.
• Brian Landman, “Rheaume steals thunder in Lightning loss,” Tampa Bay Times, 24 Sept. 1992, pp. 1C and 10C.
• Mick Elliot, “Gawkers see saving grace from Rheaume,” Tampa Tribune, 24 Sept. 1992, sports, p. 1.