The Unexpected Grace in the Kendall Coyne Moment

I was nine years old when I heard about Manon Rheaume playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning. It didn’t feel like a profound moment, although I suspect it played a huge role in normalizing my experience, especially as I got older. At the time, I was the only girl hockey player I knew of in real life. There was also Amber, a girl people told me about but who I had never met. She apparently played local minor hockey before I came along. So there was me, Amber, and Manon. I was protected by a love of the game, innocence, obliviousness, and lots of good people who made sure I had a good experience.

The most tangible things I got out of the Manon Rheaume experience was a book about her. I had written multiple book reports about NHLers, finally I had a book to read about a young woman. After that, I never really thought about Manon again, until the ’98 Olympics, when hers was the only name I knew. The main reason I didn’t think of Manon again, is because the visibility came and went, just like that (hopefully Kendall’s moment is different in this regard). But every girl who played hockey knew about Manon. There aren’t a lot of biographies about women hockey players; Manon’s is one of two that I know of.

The innocence of childhood wears off. I choose to remember minor hockey very positively, because overall it was. But society at large sent messages that girls were terrible at sports, that sports were for boys. It’s a tough thing for a kid to reconcile. In my case, I knew I was good at sports, and I liked them, and this was how I spent my time. I settled on believing I was somehow different from other girls, and as an adult I can say this hurt. As a child though, you just cope. As I went through this, I am sure on some level, the knowledge of the existence of Amber and Manon helped.

Times have changed, but girls still encounter this stuff today. Tatiana Rafter, a former NW player who now plays in Russia, has a youtube video out there from last year where she offers a supportive message to a young girl in Winnipeg who plays hockey, and is told at school she can’t play with the girls at a recess as a result. I watched the video, and it brought tears to my eyes, that this is what boys and girls deal with for not following the narrowly defined templates of acceptable behavior.

Eventually, I played hockey on girls and women’s team, making the switch at age 14. It deepened my enjoyment of hockey, and more than anything helped reinforce that girls play hockey, girls can be good at hockey, and no one is less than for playing hockey. I can’t even explain how much fun it was. It was the best.

There is no doubt that the knowledge of Manon’s existence touched tens of thousands of girl hockey players lives, and inspired hundreds if not thousands of girls to join hockey. Some kids may felt the profoundness of the moment, but I didn’t, and in some ways that’s what was so great about it, just a subtle little normalization that I needed.

Fast forward 26 years, to Kendall Coyne competing in the NHL All Star Skills. Things have changed a lot. There are pro leagues, Olympics, NCAA and USports Hockey. Almost 200,000 girls and women play  hockey in the US in and Canada. Attitudes are imperfect, but more accepting than ever. There’s this thing called the internet and if you are tuned in to women’s hockey you know how to find it online. Women’s hockey and sports in general though, are still not often on tv.

And so, with Kendall Coyne about to be on live television, it’s this that prompted me to call my five year old in to watch. Coyne’s moment is a big deal to me. I understand the significance and I was nervous for her but I wasn’t going to miss it. And in a house where men’s sports blare from the tv almost 365 days a year, I wanted my daughter to see this. She used to ask “are these boys or girls” when we watched tv. She doesn’t ask anymore, in part I think because she knows it’s boys 99% of the time.

So I called her in. Boys (men) on the screen. Then Kendall Coyne. “Wait, is that a girl?” “Yes.” “Does she play with boys?” “Tonight she does.  She plays for Team USA, with Hilary Knight.” (Hilary Knight is our number 1). And then we watched Coyne skate. She did great. I exhaled. My daughter went back to whatever she was doing. We didn’t make a big deal of it. I don’t want her to know it was a big deal. I just want it to be there for her if she ever needs it.

A few days later it hit me. I show my daughter women in sport as much as possible. Try to create a world for her where she is represented, try to protect her from the realities of the world. There’s no need to talk about inequalities, glass ceilings or the hate in some people’s hearts, with a child. I can barely handle dealing with those things myself, to be honest.

I let her watch the National Teams when they are rarely on tv, we watch highlights on the amazing twitter handle @wsporthilites , we’ve gone to college games and an NWHL game. The teams are all women. My daughter hadn’t seen the “one girl on a team of boys” scenario, other than in the Mighty Ducks movie which also contains the terrible storyline about a girl who plays hockey and therefore must be bad at hockey.

Nonetheless, when it came time for my daughter to start organized hockey, she was still one of just two girls in the group. And she noticed. She announced it at dinner one night, the day before hockey started. She had been to a drop in session, and was the only girl. She was still excited to play hockey. At dinner, the day before her real hockey started she announced “I’m going to be the only girl on my hockey team.” We weren’t expecting it, and we did as you’d expect, fumble it along, try not to make a big deal out of it. It’s hard for me to know exactly how she feels about it, and I don’t want to plant seeds of trouble where there is none. I told her I was the only girl on my hockey team for a long time too. It won’t be like that forever I said. She seemed satisfied and we carried on. Hockey is going great, and yes there’s even another girl.

And then there’s that other girl, Kendall Coyne. The one she saw race against the boys, on tv. For me and thousands of other girls, the image was of Manon Rheaume, alone in front of the net. Black Cooper pads, and a white Tampa Bay Lightning jersey. For a new generation of girls, the image is Kendall Coyne. A navy blue Team USA jersey, blond pony tail flying, crossing the finish line, surrounded by NHL players and an arena full of people ready to celebrate and respect.

I doubt my daughter will think of it often, but the image of the girl on a boys team is there if she needs it. She is not the only one. For me, this was the unexpected grace in Kendall Coyne’s moment. It’s a moment that will have a tremendous legacy, in ways more numerous than this, just like Manon Rheaume’s.