Kendall Coyne Schofield is a five-time World Championship gold medalist hockey player who helped the United States capture the gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics by scoring two goals during the competition in PyeongChang, South Korea. She currently plays for the Minnesota Whitecaps of the National Women’s Hockey League and just last week she made history as the first female to compete in the NHL All-Star skills competition. In short, Coyne Schofield knows hockey. That didn’t stop on-air reporter Pierre McGuire from trying to explain it to her, though.
Coyne Schofield, who earned a communications degree at Boston’s Northeastern University, was invited to make her broadcasting debut on NBC’s Inside the Glass as an on-air analyst for Wednesday night’s match between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Pittsburgh Penguins. McGuire didn’t seem to be aware that Coyne Schofield knew a great deal about hockey, though. “Tampa’s going to be on your left, Pittsburgh’s going to be on your right,” McGuire told Coyne Schofield on air, adding: “We’re paying you to be an analyst, not be a fan tonight.”
In 2014, the Oxford English Dictionary named “mansplain” as a runner-up for their word of the year. According to the dictionary, to mansplain is “to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.”
Now, McGuire faces backlash for his emarks hockey to a woman who theoretically knows how the sport works better than him and most, because even though he did coach for one season, Coyne Schofield USA Today points out, McGuire hasn’t played hockey in the NHL.
