Shannon Szabados is ready for another challenge playing alongside men in the Southern Professional Hockey League.

The 28-year-old goalie from Edmonton will open her first training camp with the Columbus Cottonmouths on Wednesday after getting a taste of the minor pro league late last season.

There’s talk that Cottonmouths general manager and coach Jerome Bechard could give Szabados the nod over Winnipeg’s Andrew Loewen in the Oct. 25 season opener against the hometown Huntsville (Ala.) Havoc.

“I want to get that first win for her really bad,” said Bechard of Szabados in an interview with The Canadian Press. “We play 56 games. In my mind, right off the bat, the plan is for her to get 20 games, if not more.”

Bechard invited Szabados to join the Cottonmouths last March after she led the Canadian women’s Olympic team to a gold medal in Sochi, Russia, and filled in at an Edmonton Oilers practice when the NHL club was temporarily short a goalie.

After two practices, Szabados was thrown in the Columbus net for its final home game, a 4-3 loss to Knoxville during which the five-foot-eight, 148-pound Canadian netminder turned aside 27 shots.

Szabados also played the final 23 minutes of the SPHL championship opener against Pensacola in relief of Loewen, allowing three goals in a 9-1 defeat.

Despite the tough night, Bechard was eyeing both goalies to start the 2014-15 campaign with the Cottonmouths, so he re-signed Szabados in July.

“I wouldn’t bring her in if she wasn’t legit and didn’t give us an opportunity to win,” Bechard said. “She is probably one of the most technical goalies I’ve seen.

“She’s pretty acrobatic and goes side to side with the best of them.”

While Szabados could be playing north of the border and helping promote the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, she hasn’t received any grief from female players.

“On the players’ side of it, they understand,” she said. “As a goalie, it’s easier to play against guys twice your size.”

But Szabados isn’t the first women to play in a men’s pro league.

Here’s a timeline of those who have previously made the jump.