TAMPA, Fla. — Manon Rheaume is known for breaking the ice and breaking barriers.
"That walk from the locker room to the ice, never in my life have I been so nervous,” Rheaume recounted.
In 1992, she became the first woman to play in the NHL, as the Lightning’s starting goaltender in a preseason game against the Blues.
"My heart was beating so hard, I felt like it was coming out of my chest,” Rheaume said. "But the coolest thing was, as soon as I got on the ice, the butterflies went away and I was just playing a hockey game.”
But it wasn’t just a hockey game, it was a moment that would become a part of history.
"I think it took me years to realize how big of a deal it was,” she said.
The idea came from Hall of Fame Phil Esposito, who brought Rheaume to the Lightning’s first-ever training camp to gain publicity for the new team.
"I’m so grateful, not just to Phil, but to the Tampa Bay Lightning, to give me that opportunity to play at the highest level possible,” Rheaume said. "So many people when I was younger said no to me because I was a girl. They didn’t want me to play the highest level.”
The 5-foot-7, 130-pound Rheaume had the third-best goals-against average of any Lightning goalie during camp. But at the time many said she didn’t belong.
"I never saw myself as being different. I was just doing what I loved to do and it’s more like, along the way, when people start saying no to you, you realize, okay, now my gender makes a difference, this is why they don’t want me, not because I’m not good enough,” she said. "When you realize that, it becomes more motivation, like, I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m going to keep working hard and eventually, I’m going to make it to the next level.”
Her love for hockey began in Quebec when she asked her brothers if she could play with them.
"They would dress me up as a goalie, and they would use me as a target, my dad used to make an ice rink in the backyard,” Rheaume said. "One day, my dad at the dinner table told my mom, we’re going to a tournament, no-one has shown interest to play goalie, I don’t know who to choose and I said, why not me? And that’s how I got started.”
Why not me — that became Rheaume’s approach to hockey and life.
"You don’t need to fit a mold of what you should look like to do what you want to do,” she said. "I was the total opposite of what a goaltender in the NHL should look like. My size, my gender, I barely speak English. But it didn’t stop me to go after my dream and the highest level possible.”
"You can dream big. You can dream anything you want to dream.”