Commentary

A report from the NHL Combine

ESPN The Magazine takes you inside the once-off-limits event

Updated: June 5, 2009, 2:46 PM ET

By Lindsay Berra | ESPN The Magazine

Insider: Lindsay Berra at the NHL Combine

For the first time ever, the NHL opened its draft combine to reporters and invited three of us to Toronto to go through the same testing as the prospects. I'm in good shape, but I'd heard hundreds of stories about kids vomiting into garbage cans following the anaerobic and VO2 Max bike tests, so I won't say I wasn't a little bit nervous. But at the end of the day, I did pretty well, even besting the boys in a few tests. I learned that no matter how gassed you think you are, there's almost always a little more in the tank if you're not afraid to push. Oh, and I became the first woman to complete the NHL Draft Combine. All in a good day's work.