"I'm not a goon, I'm an agitator," Agaton Vrbata insists.
Vrbata is the only female player in the National
Hockey League,
and even when she's sitting across from you at a cafe and not
slamming
you against the plexiglass while throwing down her
gloves, she commands your attention as she speaks.
"I'm
a lightning rod. The opposing team always has a finite amount
of
energy. The more of that energy that I can channel into thinking
about me, the better it is for my team." Vrbata began her career
as a goalie, but
shifted to center after experimenting with the role
for a few months at Hartford last season. "I
have a line from a
Kris Kristofferson song taped to my locker: Everybody
needs
somebody that they
can look down on. Well," she says with
a grin, "that somebody is me. I provide
a service for teams
like the New Jersey Devils and the New York Islanders. I give
them
focus. I am a camera."
