NEED TO KNOW
Manon Rhéaume made history on this day in 1992
The hockey goalie became the first woman to ever play for any of the four of the major professional sports leagues
Rhéaume, then 20, played in a preseason game for the Tampa Bay Lightning
On this day in 1992, Manon Rhéaume entered the record books and broke barriers with an accomplishment that still stands today.
With her appearance in a Tampa Bay Lightning preseason game, the hockey goalie became the first woman to play in any four of the major North American professional sports leagues (the NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB).
Thirty-four years later, Rhéaume’s accomplishment still stands alone.
In the first quarter of the exhibition game on Sept. 23, 1992, Rhéaume, then 20, stopped seven of nine shots on goal.
“All the eyes were on me, I had to be perfect,” Rhéaume, now 54, said at the time.
Follow your favorite athletes on and off the field with PEOPLE’s free sports newsletter — sign up now!
Yet her appearance in that game and another preseason game one year later also stands out for another reason.
Lightning founder and NHL Hall of Famer Phil Esposito met Rhéaume just ahead of the Tampa Bay team’s debut at one of her games in Montreal for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, a step below the NHL.
Esposito was gearing up for the team’s inaugural season in Florida and was not against finding a way to publicize its launch.
“My brain went click, click, click,” Esposito said in an interview with ESPN. “And I said, ‘How’d you like to come to the Tampa Bay Lightning training camp?’ “
Even Rhéaume acknowledged that the invitation was partly a publicity stunt.
Manon Rheáume
Credit: Gary A. Vasquez/NHLI via Getty
“Right away, I wanted to say yes,” she recalled to ESPN. “But it was a little scary because people were saying to me, “Are you not afraid to embarrass yourself? They’re only inviting you because you’re a girl.’ “
She added, “So many times people said no to me because I was a girl, [but] it changed my life.”
Signing as a free agent with the team meant she became the first woman ever to get a professional contract, per ESPN.
Later that year, Rhéaume was selected for the Canada national women’s ice hockey team, and she won a silver medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.
In May of this year, Rhéaume joined the newly formed Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) Detroit team as its general manager.
Through it all, the athlete has been guided by a quiet determination — and a mantra.
“If you want something really bad in life, it’s not gonna be easy,” she told ESPN. “You just have to keep going, and that message stuck with me.”
Read the original article on People