On December 19, 2022, Kendall Coyne Schofield played what could have been the last match of his American national hockey career.
“I remember putting my jersey on the clothes cart, and I remember saying it and saying,” You know, that’s it. It could be the end “”, she recalls in a recent interview.
She played this match when almost three months pregnant, a fact that few knew it at the time (the few included doctors who erased her).
Coyne Schofield, the captain of the 2022 Olympic team, knew that she wanted to return to sport after childbirth. But she could not predict how would take place this next year.
“You look at the trip, you look at those who came before you,” she said. “Unfortunately, there haven’t been many who have never returned (to the national team) of childbirth. And so I had to be realistic with this spirit, knowing, guy, it would really be zero, but it could Being the last time, I have the opportunity to put this jersey.
Coyne Schofield and her husband Michael, an NFL offensive line who retired last year, welcomed his son Drew on July 1, 2023.
On January 3, 2024, Coyne Schofield capitalized on his Minnesota team for the first regular season game of the professional women’s hockey club during the inaugural year of the League.
A baby-sitter attracted locker room after the match. Coyne Schofield took him to the ice for a photo, then back to his Boston hotel room, nourished it and put it in bed in a pack game. (Michael was still ending his season with the Detroit lions.)
Then on February 7, 2024, Coyne Schofield adapted to the national team for the first time as a mother, playing in a match of the series of rivalries against Canada.
“To be able to put this jersey,” she said, “was very inspiring.”
Now, one year before the Milan Cortina Games, Coyne Schofield offers an offer to make its fourth Olympic team and help the United States recover hockey gold after a final defeat against Canada in 2022.
It is believed that she would be the second mother to play for an American Olympic hockey team after Jenny Potter, who did it in 2002, 2006 and 2010.
In 2017, Coyne Schofield and other national teams successfully fought for a more equitable contract in American hockey. It now includes six months of maternity leave.
Since 2017, several players have put on red, white and blue after childbirth for camps and matches outside the Olympic Games.
However, when Coyne Schofield announced her pregnancy, a current response was a congratulations on a great career. Many thought she was retiring.
“I’m like no, it’s just the start, the start of a new road, a new trip,” she said.
She never wanted Drew to think he was the reason why she stopped playing hockey. It is rather the reason she continues to play.
“There is a perception that when you have a baby, your body is completely different and changed and you cannot be the same hockey player you were,” she said. “I think the exact opposite. It only allowed me to be a better hockey player than I was in the past.”
Coyne Schofield made the team for the world championship last April and was put online with Hilary Knight and Alex Carpenter. These three are the only American women active to score 20 or more goals in the history of the world championship, Knight holding the 65 -year -old record.
The nine points of Coyne Schofield in seven games were one of the advances in the tournament. She played the third most useful minutes of all the United States. A month after the worlds, Coyne Schofield led Minnesota to the first PWHL championship.
During pregnancy, Coyne Schofield patinated for 30 weeks. She never stopped training.
“I wanted to make sure I continued to feel the game as long as I could, get on the ice, feel my edges, pull rings, miss cones,” she said. “Obviously, there was no contact. I was on the ice by myself. But I really wanted to do my best to stay on the ice because I had the goal of going back to play.”
Coyne Schofield was motivated by Allyson Felix, who returned from childbirth to win Olympic gold and bronze medals in 2021, and Alex Morgan, who played the Tokyo Olympic Games and in the World Cup in 2023 as that mom.
She is also grateful for her own teammates, who not only kiss Drew but also offer to wear the stroller and the diaper bag.
“Everyone assumes that a hockey mother is a mother who helps her child to attach her skates or something else, but I am a hockey mother who plays,” she said. “The inspiration he provided to me, and the prospect he provided to me, in the end, he made me a better hockey player. There is nothing bigger in the world only after a match, returning home. “
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