Blackhawks: Kendall Coyne Schofield hired as developmental coach

Kendall Coyne Schofield is now a Chicago Blackhawks development coach, continuing to break barriers for women in sports.

Kendall Coyne Schofield is one of the most successful hockey players in the history of the sport. She has broken all sorts of gender barriers in the sport so far but her ultimate accomplishment came in 2018 when she became an Olympic Gold Medalist with Team USA. They came up just short with Silver in 2014 but finally finished the deed in 2018. Now, she is a development coach for the Chicago Blackhawks as of Monday afternoon.

Coyne Schofield was born in Illinois before making her way around the country. She is a native of Palos Heights, Illinois. She still is an active hockey player and broadcaster but is going to be coming on as a development coach for the Hawks.

She is going to be the first woman in the history of the franchise to be a development coach and is now the third woman to be involved with hockey operations.

Coyne Schofield has also been a great analyst on television over the past few seasons as well. She has broadcasted as a color commentator with the San Jose Sharks, national NHL games with NBC, and Notre Dame games for NBC. She clearly knows her stuff. Being an active announcer along with an active player should really help her relate to some of these young Blackhawks prospects.

This isn’t going to be the first time that she has broken a barrier in hockey either. In 2019, she replaced Colorado Avalanche superstar, Nathan MacKinnon, in the NHL Skills Competition fastest skater event. She clocked in with a time (14.326 seconds) that competed with some of the NHL’s fastest skaters. In 2020, they had an all-women “3 on 3 game” between Canada and the United States at the skills competition and Coyne was an American participant.

The Chicago Blackhawks are a rebuilding organization right now, according to them. We can argue whether or not they will do it right but a rebuild of any sort is the best time for someone like Coyne to come in as a development coach. She is going to be able to step right in and help some of these young kids as they try to make it to the NHL someday.

This was a brilliant hire by the Blackhawks in so many ways. Kendall Coyne Schofield has done it all for the game of hockey. She knows the game well and that is exactly what you want in a development coach. She has made it clear that she wants to be the GM of an NHL game one day and it is fair to assume it will one day happen. This is the great first step for her towards that goal and the Blackhawks are going to benefit greatly from it.