Kendall Coyne Schofield, seeking a league of her own, made the call that led to the PWHL

On consecutive days last July 4th weekend, three-time Olympian Kendall Coyne Schofield delivered her first child and celebrated the birth of a legitimate women's professional hockey league for which she worked so tirelessly and so long.

Her son, Drew, was born one day, a historic collective bargaining agreement was unanimously ratified the next.

"I think he was like, 'Mom, I'm done in here, let's go,' " she said. "It was a special weekend, to say the least."

Seven months later, Chicago-raised Coyne Schofield, 31, plays for the not-yet-nicknamed Minnesota franchise in the new Professional Women's Hockey League that has drawn sellout and five-digit audiences its first month.

She might be the person most responsible for the first women's sports pro league to reach a labor agreement before it played a game. The PWHL's eight-year labor agreement pays players meal money, provides health and insurance benefits and keeps them from sleeping on air mattresses or working a second or third job. All games are televised, too.

Coyne Schofield was a teenager when she first met tennis legend and equal-rights proponent Billie Jean King and heard her speak at a 2010 women's summit in San Diego. On the flight home, she read King's book "Pressure is a Privilege" that came in a gift bag she'd received.

King remembers the phone call that came nine years later — March 2019 — vividly because she and her wife, Ilana Kloss, were at a Lakers game. Former commissioner for a World TeamTennis league that King helped found in the 1970s, Kloss took it in a corridor, 13 months after Coyne Schofield played in her second Olympics and the U.S. women won their first gold medal since 1998. Coyne Schofield was seeking help to launch one unified pro league that lived up to its name — professional — from among the many American and Canadian leagues that came and went through many years.

"If Kendall Coyne hadn't come to us … that was the beginning," King said on the PWHL's first game broadcast, from Toronto on New Year's Day. "She said, 'We need help. The top players want a place to play, and this is it. This is their opportunity.' I know what that's like. I've been there with tennis."

King recalled how women's tennis leaders signed a $1 contract in 1970 to "go against the establishment" and start a women's pro tennis circuit. "It was scary, so scary," she said.

Long time coming

King and Kloss became minority owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2018. In turn and in time, they connected Coyne Schofield and North America's best women players with Dodgers majority owner Mark Walter, the CEO of Guggenheim Partners global investment firm. He and his wife, Kimbra, are the sole owner of the PWHL and its first six franchises, with a 10-year investment plan.

"There were many pieces to the puzzle that went into this," said PWHL Minnesota General Manager Natalie Darwitz, a women's hockey trailblazer herself. "Kendall's piece was the one that clicked and made all the rest of the pieces fit. She made the magical call."

And the timing seemed right.

"This has been a long time coming," King said. "I don't think the players realize the yearning that has gone on for generations for this. It's going to make it because of long-term investment and one owner."

When Coyne Schofield was told King credits her for starting it all, she flipped the script.

"If it wasn't for her, there would be none of this," Coyne Schofield said. "Without Billie Jean King, without Ilana Kloss, none of this happens. They got Mark to say yes. They've been behind it from the first time we met and talked about the state of women's hockey. Every day they've worked toward this goal for us, with us."

She considered the call logical and practical given King's stature in women's sports history. Hockey Hall of Famer, former Women's Sports Foundation president and friend Angela Ruggiero helped connect her.

Coyne Schofield referred to King as a champion for equality. "I had the opportunity to call her and ask, 'What do we do? How do we do it? You've had the vision. You've done it beyond anyone's wildest dreams.' I couldn't think of a better person who could guide us."

Coyne Schofield saw what can be when she accompanied King and Kloss to the 2021 U.S. Open in New York. Both the women's and men's finals sold out — and they paid the same $2.5 million prize.

"It was a moment," Coyne Schofield said. "No one talked about how full the women's final was. Of course it was full. No one talked about both champions winning the same money. It's expected. It's the standard."

Coyne Schofield, though, once was an unlikely candidate to play such a part. Now she's on the players association's five-player executive committee.

Barely 5 feet tall, Coyne Schofield always has been the shortest, fastest one since she shot pucks on rollerblades with her older brother in their suburban basement. She starred collegiately at Northeastern in Boston and played in her first Olympics at the 2014 Sochi Games when she was 21. She helped lead a threatened player boycott of USA Hockey in 2017, seeking better conditions and support before the world championships that year.

The threat succeeded, but women's hockey remained without a viable pro league. Coyne Schofield still had a barrier to break.

"Relentless, non-stop," said Dodgers President Stan Kasten, who is on the PWHL's four-person advisory board with King and Kloss. "I've been on both sides with her through this. She gave birth, and six months later she was playing hockey again. She is a force of nature."

Changing women's hockey

Married to Detroit Lions lineman Michael Schofield in summer 2018, Coyne Schofield became the first woman to compete in the NHL's All-Star Skills Competition the next winter and impressed in the fastest-skating competition. In 2020, the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks hired her as their first female player development coach.

Every summer, Coyne Schofield runs a hockey camp in the Chicago suburbs. More than 100 girls from across the nation attend.

"They all say, 'I want to be like you, I want to be a professional hockey player,' " Coyne Schofield said. "I struggled all these years to look them back in the eye and tell them they can. Now knowing what this league offers, I can look those young girls in the eye and say they can, knowing they're going to be treated like one."

In 2022, her book "As Fast as Her: Dream Big, Break Barriers, Achieve Success" was published. King wrote the foreword.

PWHL Minnesota Coach Ken Klee watched the transformation of Coyne Schofield from when they first met after the 2014 Olympics to when Darwitz made her one of the team's first three free-agent signees.

"She went from being a hockey player who skated really fast but wasn't really aware of anything else to an unbelievable player," Klee said. "She changed the women's game by taking charge. That wasn't easy for her. She's a very private, soft-spoken person. She doesn't want the limelight. For her to have matured as much as she has, it's just amazing."

During that time, she observed the players and pioneers who came before her. Recently, she saw cars lined around the block waiting to park near Xcel Energy Center, home of the NHL's Wild. She also saw 13,361 people attend her team's home opener.

PWHL Minnesota is in second place, one point behind Montreal heading into Saturday's game at Boston.

And the PWHL is off to an energetic start.

"About time," Coyne Schofield said. "It's a long time coming. It's a reflection of all the players, the teams, the leagues that have come before us. All those things we did to get here was because we love this game more than anything.

"We were willing to go through the tough times to pave a way for a better future, which we're living today. It was a long five years with a pandemic and everything, but we got there."