“The things that we do start as a joke,” she said. . She rollerbladed 2,000 miles from her Glens Falls, New York home to Greeley, Colorado in 2000 and made it a cancer awareness event called “Rolling to Recovery.”
“[That] started because my father wouldn’t buy me a plane ticket to Colorado,” McMaster recalls. “I said, ‘Heck, well I’m going to skate back then.’ “
Her pro hockey debut is no laughing matter, though.
“I‘m lifting weights a couple times a week,” McMaster said. “I really am taking it serious. This is professional men’s hockey. It’s business before anything else. It’s not a joke. I don’t want to embarrass myself and I don’t want to embarrass the people who are letting this happen.”
McMaster will do at least one shift with every team.
“Some of the owners at the All-Star game asked me, ‘Are you any good?’” McMaster recalls. “’Stick around because we could use you for a second shift.’ “
McMaster has an 11-year amateur hockey career, and has been skating since she was a kid. Even veterans have little mishaps, though.
“The first time I came out in practice with the Frostbite, all the players were down at the other end of the ice,” she said. “They were doing some drills and I started skating around. They started hooting and hollering when they saw me. I was so nervous, because you know they’re going to give you grief.
“Then they all turned and started doing their thing again. As soon as they did, I stepped on a puck and down I went. But none of them saw it. I was so lucky I got that out of the way. Hopefully there will be no more of that.”
Her tour met with UHL Commissioner Richard Brosal’s full approval because he, too, has survived cancer.
“At first he looked at me like I was nuts,” McMaster said with a laugh. “Then he said, ‘I’m a cancer survivor. Today is my six-year anniversary. That basically blew me away.”
Frostbite co-owner and ESPN hockey analyst Barry Melrose has her wholehearted support.
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