Goalie Has Her Shot Rheaume Joins Canadian Team In Inaugural Women’s Hockey Tournament

If she was perceived as more cover girl than athlete, splash over substance, it was understandable. She played all of one period in an NHL game - an exhibition in 1992 - and allowed two goals on seven shots. Not quite Jacques Plante reincarnate, yet it was as if Manon Rheaume had invented the Zamboni.

Network news. Magazine covers. Endorsements.

Rheaume, then a little-known 20-year-old from Lac Beauport, Quebec, had broken a barrier in men’s sports, but the resulting spotlight melted her.

“I did not ask for the attention, but it came to me, and it was very uncomfortable,” she said. “I was there because I wanted to play hockey and make a living. But I felt a lot of pressure. It was very difficult.”

As a female goalie in men’s hockey, Rheaume has gone from pioneer to afterthought. Following her cameo with the Tampa Bay Lightning and ensuing games with the International Hockey League’s Atlanta Knights (who now play in her native province), Rheaume bounced around the minors not only on ice skates (Charlotte, Las Vegas, Nashville, Knoxville and Reno). She also played for Sacramento in a pro roller-hockey league.

Now, as a female goalie back on a woman’s team, she is a pioneer again, this time as a Canadian player in the first Olympic hockey tournament for women.

“This is my biggest thrill,” she said.

Rheaume suffered from ulcers in Atlanta.

“I was trying to learn to speak English at the same time I was trying to play hockey, and I had left my family and was living by myself, and I was the only player getting all of the attention,” she said. “It wasn’t comfortable having all that placed on you. But I think I learned from it, and it made me stronger.”

Not their games

Not all of Nagano is wild about the Olympics. For many, trips to beaches and boutiques are far more appealing than tickets to hockey or speedskating.

“It’s not something that’s a mustsee,” said Tamotsu Chino, a 60-yearold clothing store owner. “It’s too much trouble.”

Compared with last year, bookings for travel in February have nearly doubled at Kintetsu International Express in downtown Nagano, especially to sunny spots like Hawaii, Guam and Okinawa.

Overnight trips to Tokyo Disneyland are another favorite.

“I’d like a Gucci bag,” said 22-year-old Kaori Shiraishi, who plans to take a week off from the auto dealership where she works to go bargain-hunting in Hong Kong. “There are crowds at the Olympics. It’s better to watch it on TV.”

Weighting his turn

Musashimaru, the Hawaiian-born sumo wrestler who escorted the U.S. team into the Opening Ceremonies, is at age 26 near the pinnacle of his sport, having attained the second-highest level in the sumo world. He believes he will be promoted soon, but his real dream of an athletic pursuit lies far from Japan.

“That’s my dream, to play nose tackle in the NFL,” he said. “I want to play for the Green Bay Packers.”

The wrestler whose name means “Big Ship on the Ocean” weighs in at about 450 pounds, making Green Bay’s Gilbert Brown seem like a lightweight.

Not a cab in sight

Transportation snarled at Nagano station as hundreds of chilled spectators stood in line for more than an hour to board a single, once-an-hour bus to Hakuba, where the men’s downhill ski race was scheduled.

Foreign tourists complained of a lack of signs in English, directions to events in English, or English speakers who could tell them when - and if - more buses would arrive.

Frantic officials could be heard on their cellular telephones begging for more buses, but the fresh buses that appeared were immediately swamped by fresh waves of spectators.

Said Don Rokop of Los Alamos, N.M.: “We all got lost.”