Breaking Barriers: Manon Rhéaume

In today’s day and age, there is a clear distinction between the top professional ice hockey league for men (the NHL) and for women (the PWHL). The rise of the PWHL and the growth of the women’s game is one of the best feel-good stories we’ve seen in the game of hockey recently (a PWHL game between Toronto and Montreal in Vancouver this week had a higher attendance than any Canucks home game this season!). This distinction between the two leagues is something that has always been in place, but did you know that there is one (and the only) woman who actually played in an NHL game? Today in The Puck Chronicles, we’ll tell the story of Manon Rhéaume, the first and only woman to play in an NHL game on September 23 1992.

The statement “first and only women to play in an NHL game” alone holds so much significance, but in order to really understand that game and what it meant to the history of hockey, let’s first look back at Rhéaume’s upbringing, career, and what brought her to this moment.

Author Note: Women’s hockey has so many feel-good stories that sometimes go unappreciated. I would love to know any stories or memories you have relating to women’s hockey! You can let me know here, or email me at [email protected]! Also, this is the second edition of The Puck Chronicles, and I’d love to hear from you! Are you enjoying the content so far? What would you change about it? It would mean a lot if you let me know by filling out this form: The Puck Chronicles Feedback. Thank you so much!!

The Early Days

Born in 1972 in Lac-Beauport, Quebec, Rhéaume was born to play hockey. Her father, Pierre, was the coach of a local youth team in Quebec, and all her brothers played the sport, including her younger brother Pascal Rhéaume, who played 13 seasons in the NHL and won the Stanley Cup with the 2002-03 New Jersey Devils. With all of her brothers aspiring to be players, Manon began playing goaltender in their driveway shootarounds, having told Sports Illustrated “If I wanted to play with them, I had to get in net”. Rhéaume, encouraged by her father, began to play for the boys team her father coached. Her father knew of the difficulty that would come with this, so he brought her to the rink with her hat worn low, and she would keep her goalie mask on at all times on and off the ice, until she got in the car for the ride home. This way, she was able to play, without it being discovered that she was a girl playing on a boys team. But even with her father’s protection, the doubters came. Upon being discovered, parents came to Rhéaume’s father and attempted to convince him that their son would be a better goalie for the team than Rhéaume. And one day, he listened, "The other parent had told him ‘My kid is so good. I think he should play goalie.’ So my dad started him. We lost the game 13–3. After the game, all the other parents went to my dad and said, ‘We want your daughter back.’”. This started Rhéaume on her path to a career in hockey.

One thing you’ll notice throughout this story is that Rhéaume is no stranger to firsts. Her first first occurred in 1984, when she became the first girl to play in the Quebec International PeeWee Hockey Tournament. This tournament is one of, if not the most prestigious youth hockey tournament in Canada, with tons of NHL legends playing in it as children, including Guy Lafleur, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and Patrick Roy to name a few. As were most youth hockey tournaments at that time, it was a boys-only tournament, with no girl having ever participated. At the age of 12, Manon Rhéaume broke that barrier, and became the first female participant in the 25-year history of that tournament, playing goal for her father’s team. This was a significant milestone in Quebec youth hockey, and something that is honoured by the organizers of that tournament to this day.

Out of Options

After the success of the peewee tournament, Rhéaume continued with her schooling and continued playing hockey wherever she could. She knew hockey was something that she wanted to pursue. However, in those days, opportunities in professional hockey for women were not nearly as abundant as they are today. Rhéaume had little to no options to pursue professional hockey, at least not if she wanted to make a living. So, with no other options, she turned to breaking into professional men’s hockey, an extremely bold and risky decision, but one that changed the course of hockey forever. The way she would do that was through the QMJHL and a no-longer existing team, the Trois-Rivières Draveurs.

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) is the number one junior hockey league in Quebec, and one of the 3 major leagues that make up the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). During the 20th century, the Trois-Rivières Draveurs were one of the best teams in the QMJHL, with tons of NHL talent coming from them, including Claude Lemieux, Ray Bourque, and coach Alain Vigneault. The team was relocated to Sherbrooke in 1992 before ultimately folding in 2011. However, they will always be in the history books because of one specific player.

In 1991, the Draveurs had an exceptional young forward leading their team, and that player was none other than Pascal Rhéaume, the younger brother of Manon. Through the connection of her brother, Draveurs general manager Gaston Drapeau spotted Manon’s talent and invited her to the team’s training camp, marking the first time a woman had ever been involved with any junior team in history. Manon impressed at training camp, having the 3rd best save percentage out of the 6 goalies in attendance, which led to her second first.

On November 26th 1991, Manon Rhéaume became the first woman to play in a game in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Rhéaume started the game as the backup to Jocelyn Thibault, and the Draveurs’ plan was to build up a solid lead in the game and then send her in. It didn’t quite work out that way, as the game was closer than anticipated, and Rhéaume entered the game with the score tied 5-5. Rhéaume ended up allowing 3 goals on 17 shots before a shot shattered her mask and she was forced to exit the game. The Draveurs ended up losing the game 10-6, but Rhéaume was named the third star of the night. Rhéaume, always grateful for every opportunity she received, had made history and changed the junior hockey game forever. That would be the only game she would appear in for the Draveurs. But the question was, where to next? At this point Rhéaume was 19 years old, she’d already broken tons of barriers, but she didn’t really have many options when it came to pursuing hockey as a career. Does she give up the dream?

I Liked The Way “He” Played

The early 1990’s was a period of rapid expansion for the NHL. In 1990, the NHL owners set into motion a plan to expand the league from 22 teams to 28 within 10 years. The 1992-93 season brought with it the first ever NHL team in Florida, the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning’s GM at the time, Phil Esposito, knew he would have to do some non-conventional things to grow the game of hockey in a warm state where hockey had not yet become a tradition.

In September 1992, a few weeks before the Lightning were set to make their NHL debut, Esposito was doing some regular scouting at a Junior A game in Quebec. The goaltender on one of the teams caught his eye, and he requested to speak with them because “I liked the way ‘he’ played.”. Esposito was in utter shock when the player he requested to speak with was Manon Rhéaume, “When they brought her out I said ‘Are you kidding me?’ This beautiful young woman comes out and I said ‘How would you like to come to training camp for the Tampa Bay Lightning?’”. Rhéaume accepted his invitation to camp, on the one condition that she be treated like any other player while there.

Seeing how this was Rhéaume first professional-level hockey camp, you might think that she would be eased into it, maybe start with some small drills or something like that, but instead, she was thrown straight into the fire. Her first day at training camp was a full-team competitive scrimmage, with each goalie receiving one period of play. Talk about a way to introduce a new player to pro hockey! However, here was Rhéaume’s chance to prove herself, and to prove that she wasn’t just there as a publicity stunt.

Rhéaume’s team ended up winning the scrimmage 5-1, with Rhéaume being the only goalie to not let in a goal. That performance earned her the trust and merit of the Lightning, with Esposito saying “I don’t know how they’re gonna do it, but yeah, she’s going to play.”. At the time, Rhéaume wasn’t aware of the history she was making or the inspiration she would become for girls all over North America. She just wanted the chance to play hockey. Following Esposito’s reveal that Rhéaume would play, the media went into a frenzy. Everyone wanted to talk to Rhéaume and be a part of history. She even made an appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman”. But, was she actually going to get a chance to play, or was her invite to training camp just for publicity to gain fans interest in this new team?

Making History

On September 23rd 1992, the new expansion Tampa Bay Lightning played a pre-season game against the St. Louis Blues. Usually, there’s nothing special about a pre-season game, and attendance is generally lower than a regular season game. But not for this one. This was the one everyone wanted to see, because Manon Rhéaume was going to achieve her third first, and become the first ever woman to play in a National Hockey League game. The game had an attendance of over 8000 people, all there to witness history.

Rhéaume was the starting goalie that game, and one can only wonder the emotions she was feeling. Nervous? Proud? Scared? As it turns out, it was all 3. The game started with the Blues taking a penalty immediately, putting the Lightning on the power play, something that helped calm her down. Rhéaume’s first shot was a slap shot taken by now Hall-of-Famer Brendan Shanahan, and she gloved it. The crowd went wild.

Rhéaume ended up playing one period, allowing 2 goals on 9 shots, one from Jeff Brown and another from Shanahan. The Lightning would go on to lose the game, but it didn’t matter. History had been made and barriers had been broken. A woman had played in a game in one of the four major professional sports leagues in North America for the first time ever. The Lightning coach at the time, Terry Crisp, was impressed with Rhéaume’s ability and commented that she “earned everything and earned the right to be there because of her hockey skill”. Esposito, equally as impressed, re-iterated his desire to keep Rhéaume in the organization and praised her ability, saying “I think some day she can play in the NHL”.

The crowd that night in 1992 cheered and roared with every save. Girls across the world watched on in awe, and thought to themselves, “if she can do it, why can’t I?”. It was a magical moment, and to this day she is still the only woman to ever play in an NHL game. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she paved the way for women attempting to compete in men’s sports, and helped to accelerate the growth of the women’s game when it comes to hockey.

Paving The Way

Following her pre-season debut, Rhéaume was sent down to the Lightning’s minor-league affiliate, the Atlanta Knights of the IHL. There, she made more history by becoming the first ever woman to sign a professional hockey contract. She made her debut for the Knights on December 13 1992 against the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, becoming the first woman to play in a professional regular-season game. However, Rhéaume only made one more appearance for the Knights before she was sent down to the level below the minors, the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL). Over the next 5 years she played 24 games between the ECHL and Pacific Southwest Hockey League (PSHL), with stops on the Knoxville Cherokees, Nashville Knights, Las Vegas Aces, Tallahassee Tiger Sharks, Las Vegas Thunder, and the Reno Renegades.

Rhéaume’s real success following her NHL debut came on the international stage, where she backstopped Canada to gold medals in the 1992 and 1994 IIHF Women’s World Championships, and to a silver medal in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. She would play a few more games in various low-level professional leagues across the continent, with her final appearance being in the IHL in 2009 for the Flint Generals, 8 years after her second-final game with the Montreal Wingstar of the NWHL in 2001.

To this day, Rhéaume has stayed involved in the game of hockey, continuing to play in recreation leagues and work around the NHL. In 2021, she became a reporter for the Detroit Red Wings with Bally Sports, and continues to run the girls hockey program for Little Caesars, an associate of the Red Wings. In July 2022, she was hired by the Los Angeles Kings as a hockey operations and prospects advisor, allowing her to continue to live out her passion for this wonderful sport.

Rhéaume’s impact on the sport is hard to measure in words. Nowadays, we have the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), an officially sanctioned professional women’s league where the players earn salaries and play full-time. We also have a female coach in the NHL for the first time in history, with the Seattle Kraken’s Jessica Campbell. Some of today’s biggest stars in the women’s game credit Rhéaume for the impact she had on them and the sport, including USA star Hillary Knight, who said that Rhéaume gave her the glimmer of hope she needed to pursue a career in hockey. In 2021, more history was made as Taya Currie became the first woman to be drafted into the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). Rhéaume had a huge impact on Currie, as Currie had an opportunity to meet and speak with Rhéaume at a youth hockey tournament as a child.

Although we have yet to see a woman play in the NHL since Rhéaume, she paved the way for professional women’s hockey in North America. Few may say that her appearance for the Lightning in 1992 was just for publicity, while most others argue she was there on merit. That appearance, and her story, has had a profound impact on the game we all love, showing once again that hockey is not about wins and losses, but about legacy and opportunity.

The Inspiration Behind This Story

Thank you for reading this story of The Puck Chronicles! The Manon Rhéaume story was one that has always been interesting to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about it and writing about it! It’s a true once-in-a-lifetime story, and it’s kinda hard to even believe it happened.

In these stories I try to paint the picture as large as possible and give as many details as I can without droning on, but often there’s no better way to really get into the story than reading it direct from the source. Manon Rhéaume’s biography is a great read, and goes into a lot more depth about her story, directly from her. A lot of the research I did for this story came from her book. I highly recommend checking it out if you enjoyed this story: Manon: Alone in Front of the Net. She’s also got an illustrated book that’s a much easier read for a younger audience: Breaking the Ice.

Also, feedback is really, really important to me, and I want to know your thoughts. I would again, really appreciate it if you could take 2 minutes to fill out this feedback form: The Puck Chronicles Feedback. It will go a long way in making this newsletter the best it can be!

Do you have any ideas for a hockey history story you’d like to see written? Submit them here: Puck Chronicles Story Ideas. If you want to talk about Manon Rhéaume’s story, anything hockey related or anything in general, reach out anytime at [email protected]! If you enjoyed this story, I’d love for you to consider subscribing: https://puckchronicles.com/subscribe to not miss the next one!

I’ll leave you with this fantastic feature the LA Kings did a few weeks ago on Rhéaume that includes videos of her time at Lightning training camp, and some highlights from her NHL game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRuDnKT453Q

I hope you are having a great start to the new year and see you in our next edition!

Areez