TAMPA — It’s been 23 years since Manon Rheaume made NHL history by suiting up for one period in goal for the Tampa Bay Lightning during an exhibition game. People still remind her of the impact she made in that brief NHL career.

“When I did this experience, I didn’t realize how much I was impacting people, and it’s now later in life and every time people meet me [they ask] ‘You’re the goalie?’ because that name is so familiar to them,” she said.

“My son comes back home with a book from the library and it’s got a picture of me and it’s like ‘Oh, look what I saw!’ I think now I realize more that what I did back then was a big deal.”

Rheaume was inside Amalie Arena on Friday afternoon doing promotion for an upcoming movie about her time with the Lightning entitled, “Between the Pipes.” The film will be written and produced by Angie Bullaro, who will also play the role of Rheaume.

To make the hockey scenes as realistic as possible, Rheaume will be a consultant as well as associate producer, while Bullaro has been working with former NHL goaltender Steve Valiquette.

Bullaro and her husband started their own production company, Lazy Kitty Productions, over a year ago and wanted to make a film that fit their vision of doing stories focusing on strong female leads. After choosing to do go in the direction of sports, Bullaro remembered Rheaume playing for the Lightning and then the wheels were in motion.

The plan is begin shooting this winter with a release by the start of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Rheaume will have a small cameo in the movie and the hope is to also involve former Lightning GM Phil Esposito, who came up with the idea of signing her to a tryout contract for the then-expansion franchise.

We sat down with Rheaume and talked about the movie, her time with the Lightning, the future of women’s hockey and her Stanley Cup Final prediction.

Enjoy.

Q. How did the idea for the movie come about?

RHEAUME: “Angi contacted me through my foundation. So I called her and we ended up talking about the project and we hit it off right away because her idea of the project was to make a story to inspire people. And what I was telling her was everything that happened to me, all the cool things I did, the most satisfying thing was I inspired young girls. I said now we can have a chance to inspire the next generation of young people.”

In a lot of movies the person its based on has cameo role of some sort. Will you get any screen time?

“I don’t know about that. I’ll be there with what has to do with hockey; so every hockey scene and things like that. You see a lot of those hockey movies and it doesn’t look real and you’ll watch a movie like ‘Miracle,’ which it looks like you were there in the stands. That’s what you want it to look like. I’m really excited to be part of it to make sure to portray what hockey’s all about.”

The entire experience with the Lightning, where you able to take a breath during it or did you really have no time to take it all in?

“I had no time to think. It was one of those things by the time I said yes to the training camp to the time that it was over, it went so fast. That’s why I didn’t realize until later in life that it was a big deal what I did and it did impact people. I just thought that, OK I’m playing hockey at the highest level, it’s cool, but I didn’t realize how big it was. Even 20 years later when they did a story a couple years ago, they said no other woman did it since then. I thought after me you may have seen other women playing, so that part of it made me realize how big of a deal it was.”

When you first arrived in camp with the Lightning in 1992, did you feel welcomed?

“Actually, after the first game they divided us into four teams [at camp] and we played a mini tournament, so my first time on the ice was a game and I did not allow any goals in 14 shots. We were actually winning 2-1 when I came in because everyone was splitting the game and playing a period. Apparently, in the other locker room, because some of the French guys told me after, they were saying ‘Oh, the girl’s coming in now. It’s going to be easy. We’re going to win’ and we ended up winning 5-1 and I didn’t allow [any] goals. I think that helped me to get the respect of guys the rest of training camp and a lot of the guys were looking at me like their little sister and supporting what I was doing.

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