Kendall Coyne Schofield became the first woman to compete in the NHL All-Stars Skills Competition this past week. She subbed in for Nathan MacKinnon who couldn’t compete because of a bruised foot.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

It all began with a tweet. Colorado Avalanche Center Nathan MacKinnon was all set to compete in the National Hockey League’s All-Star Skills Competition, but he got a bruised foot. So he had to pull out. But McKinnon had another player in mind to fill in. And his team tweeted out an invitation to Kendall Coyne Schofield. She’s a forward for the U.S. women’s national team, which took the gold medal at last year’s Olympics. Her first thought, she said, was, I can do this. And so she did. In the fastest skater event, she posted a time of 14.346 seconds, which placed seventh among some of the NHL’s top players. And it made her the first woman to ever compete in the NHL All-Stars Skills Competition. Obviously, I was a little nervous, Coyne Schofield told ESPN. But she said, I knew it was a moment that was going to break a lot of barriers and a moment that would change the perception of our game.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.