How Jessica Campbell’s hockey journey led to her history-making debut

Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporterOct 30, 2024, 07:00 AM ET

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SEATTLE — Growing up as a small-town kid with big dreams of reaching the NHL is a story that’s been told for more than a century — about men.

Most girls never had that dream, because no woman had ever reached those heights. Part of it has to do with the fact there hasn’t been a long history. Canada and the United States created women’s national teams in 1987, while the first women’s world championships was in 1990. The Olympics eventually added a women’s tournament in 1998. There was the American Women’s College Hockey Alliance that started in 1997 that saw women’s collegiate teams compete for a national title, but the NCAA didn’t hold its first tournament until 2001.

Jessica Campbell was born in 1992 — the same year Manon Rheaume made history playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning in an exhibition game.

“I imagined and dreamed of playing in the NHL because there was no professional women’s league as a young girl and I thought I was going to play in the NHL because I was playing with the boys,” Campbell said. “Little did I know what wasn’t possible. But I believed it was possible.”

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More than three months have passed since the Seattle Kraken hired Campbell as an assistant coach, and she became the first woman in NHL history to be behind the bench on opening night, Oct. 8. The move came two years after the Kraken’s AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, hired Campbell as an assistant coach. She was also the first woman behind the bench in that league’s history.

Her success has fueled her ascension. Under former Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Bylsma, Campbell helped the Firebirds reach consecutive Calder Cup finals in their first two seasons of existence, coaching the forwards and running the power play. The Firebirds were third in goals in Campbell’s first season, and led the league in 2023-24.

This was a contrast to what the Kraken had experienced. A playoff appearance in their second season was sandwiched between two campaigns in which a lack of goals became a frequent topic of conversation: The team finished in the bottom four in goals per game in both.

It led to Kraken general manager Ron Francis firing head coach Dave Hakstol and assistant Paul McFarland. The Kraken front office saw what Bylsma and his staff were doing in the AHL and believed they could translate that success and the culture that came with it at the NHL level.

The Kraken’s front office already knew Campbell’s philosophies resonated with veterans and rookies alike. They now believe her teachings can help their roster overcome those offensive deficiencies — and get back into the postseason mix.

The Kraken front office hopes that Campbell and the rest of the new coaching staff can get the club back into the playoffs. Christopher Mast/NHLI via Getty Images

Thinking about everything on her plate has the potential to be overwhelming. These are the moments when Campbell stares at a specific tattoo on her right hand.

Finely etched in dark blue ink, the cursive script tattoo that’s 2 inches in length on Campbell’s right hand is subtle while simultaneously commanding attention.

The word is ytimessä. It’s Finnish in origin. When translated into English, it means to be at the heart of something, and Campbell interprets it as achieving what she calls “a flow state,” with the reminder that reaching that destination comes with stops along the way.

Campbell looks at this tattoo daily. It allows her to remember where she’s been, how she’s arrived and where she wants to be in the future.

“It keeps me grounded in who I want to be as a coach, and how I want to show up every day,” Campbell said.

From her beginnings in coaching, to multiple stops in Europe, and back to North America to become the first of what she hopes is more NHL coaches who are women.

There is no precedent for Campbell, because she herself is the precedent.

“When you look at the history of our game and the number of years the NHL has been around, this is awesome,” said Sheldon Kennedy, who worked with Campbell and played eight seasons in the NHL. “I’m not worried about the X’s and the O’s and the game. To me, it’s more about the principle and that she didn’t fluke her way in there. She worked her butt off to get in there. She committed and did what she needed to do, and that’s what’s exciting for me.”

MANY WHO HAVE WORKED with Campbell will immediately and frequently reference how much she cares. She cares about her players, the team and about doing right by everyone.

That’s what stood out to three-time Stanley Cup champion Brent Seabrook.

“I’ve had a lot of great coaches that cared,” said Seabrook, who played his entire 15-year career with the Chicago Blackhawks. “They cared about me as a person and us as a team. I think Jess has those qualities. She cares about her players getting better on an individual basis and her team getting better on a group basis.”

Campbell is all about learning. It’s why she learned from the coaches who supported her and the ones who didn’t throughout her time playing at Cornell, the now-defunct Calgary Inferno, the Canadian women’s national team and the Malmö Redhawks in Sweden.

As a player, Campbell concentrated on improving her weaknesses rather than her strengths. She’d heard how focusing on weaknesses was bizarre from a development standpoint. But she saw it differently in that chipping away those trouble areas would eventually make her an even more complete player.

Toward the end of her career, she worked with a sports psychologist who asked Campbell what she does best, who she is at her best and what makes her special as a player.

Skating was her answer, while admitting that she spent her offseasons working on every aspect of her game but her skating.

“He said, ‘Let me be the first to tell you that if you forget about what makes you special, you’ll get away from being who you are,'” Campbell said. “In this game and in this industry there’s so many special players and talented players, the way you separate yourself is by being more of who you are and expanding of who you are and bringing that to a team.

“That was such a big moment for me and as a coach, I think about that all the time.”

That’s why Campbell asks every player what they do best, who they are at their best and what makes them special, while finding ways to elevate different aspects of their game to be the most complete player possible.

Campbell is adept at coaching younger players and veterans, such as Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour. Steph Chambers/Getty Images

MOVING TO KELOWNA in 2017, she was an assistant coach at what is now known as RINK Academy while also starting her own business as a power skating and skill development coach. Her goal was to eventually have NHL clients.

Campbell began building her client base starting with Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Damon Severson. They grew up together in Melville, Saskatchewan, a town of around 5,000 people.

Severson, like many active and retired NHL players, has a place in the Okanagan Valley where Campbell was coaching. As buildings began to gradually reopen during the COVID pandemic, Severson reached out to Campbell to see if she could train him.

Campbell agreed — only for Severson to ask if he could bring a friend. That friend was Los Angeles Kings defenseman Joel Edmundson.

Pretty soon, Campbell went from working with just Edmundson and Severson to a group of 20 NHL players who were looking to regain their sharpness before entering either the Edmonton or Toronto bubbles of the 2020 playoffs. The list included Mathew Barzal, Dante Fabbro, Tyson Jost, Brayden and Luke Schenn as well as Edmundson, Severson and Seabrook.

“Luke said to me I think at the very first skate, ‘Do you come up with your own drills? I’ve never gotten these drills and these are awesome,'” Campbell recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah, they’re all my own drills,’ and I remember the look on his face when he first said that to me. It gave me so much confidence because he was into what I was putting out there.”

Those skates are what led to Seabrook asking Campbell if they could have private sessions as he was recovering from surgeries on both hips and a right shoulder procedure.

“She never let us get away with anything,” Seabrook said. “Even when she was skating with the guys, she was harping on the details and the little things. As a player, I’m always really big into those details. … She was tough on me and the big thing was knee bend and getting down. That is something I had to work on at the gym to get stronger after surgery and then incorporate that on the ice with skating.”

THE NEXT STEP in her ascension didn’t go as smoothly.

Campbell had lived in Kelowna for a few years before she went to Europe and played one last season for Malmö in 2019-20 following a two-year hiatus.

After she retired from playing, becoming a skating and skills coach looked like the next step for Campbell. She had a successful collegiate and pro career that led to her playing for Canada internationally. Not only did she coach at the academy level, but had started a business that allowed her to run skates with NHL players. Plus, her time playing in Europe meant she built relationships with coaches on another continent.

“So I actually asked a few people in North America, ‘Do you think I should pursue [trying to coach] in Sweden?'” Campbell recalled. “I basically got told, ‘Don’t do that. Don’t quit your day job to move. There are many skating coaches and phenomenal skills coaches that are in Sweden specifically. That’s where some of the best coaches come from.’

“I’m like, ‘OK, so you’re telling me you know I’m going to fail?'”

Campbell said what she was told and how she heard it felt like two separate things. It didn’t necessarily make her want to prove people wrong, as much as she wanted to prove to herself that she could become a coach in Europe.

Campbell marketed herself to multiple teams. What set her apart from other coaches was the fact she could bring teachings from North America. There were coaches who heard her elevator pitch and liked what she presented.

“They said, ‘I think what you’re doing is awesome. Your material looks great,'” Campbell said. “These were agents, these were other skills coaches and great people. They said, ‘I hate to say this, but our team would never hire a female. It wouldn’t happen.’ I heard that along the way.

“I guess I just chose to not listen to it. I knew the only way I would get to this level is to do it on my own.”

Campbell’s mission was to focus on the testimonials she received from players rather than dialogue about why she wouldn’t receive an opportunity.

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Jessica Campbell explains her path to making NHL history

Jessica Campbell joins “SportsCenter” to discuss her journey to becoming the first woman assistant coach in the NHL.

Her first job came in 2020-21 when her old club, Malmö, hired her as a skills coach for the men’s team. A year later, she joined the Nürnberg Ice Tigers in Germany.

She initially joined the Ice Tigers as a skills coach, but the team was struggling with its special teams and wanted another perspective. Her suggestions worked, and it led to the Ice Tigers hiring Campbell as an assistant coach for the remainder of the season. Her work played a part in the Ice Tigers reaching the qualifying round of the playoffs.

“It was my ‘aha!’ moment as a coach where I saw what I was doing and the way I was communicating as a fit,” Campbell said. “The guys were going out and capable of making the changes and the tweaks that I was asking them to do.”

Her work with the Ice Tigers also opened a door for Campbell to join the German men’s national team as an assistant coach during the 2022 IIHF men’s world championships. Coaching at the men’s world championships was historic, in that Campbell became the first woman to ever be behind the bench at the tournament.

Being with Germany was foundational because of head coach Toni Söderholm.

Söderholm, who is Finnish, is the person Campbell fondly refers to as “my green light” because he gave her the confidence to fully embrace her coaching role. That was also the job that opened the door for Campbell to join the Firebirds a few months later.

Söderholm worked to create a culture within the national team and there was a word that embodied what he and his staff sought to achieve.

The word was ytimessä.

FACED WITH A DECISION before her historic first NHL game as a Kraken assistant coach, Campbell asked her best friend and former teammate, Brooklyn Langlois, for some advice:

What should she wear?

“I turned to her and asked, ‘Which one should I go with?'” Campbell recalled. “She says, ‘White. That’s the only color a man wouldn’t wear.’ That’s how I ultimately chose the white suit. The blazer that I bought was called, ‘the standout blazer,’ so it all felt perfect.”

Her experience with the German national team at the men’s worlds speaks to why wearing a white suit has so much meaning.

The German Hockey Federation wanted everyone from the equipment managers to the coaching staff to match. From shoes to sweaters down to having their same lapel pin placements.

“It was very traditional and it was a great look, but they also wanted the men wearing ties and I could wear a scarf,” Campbell said. “Ultimately, it kind of looked like I was a flight attendant which is not what I pictured for myself. We laugh about it now because it definitely didn’t reflect my natural fashion style, but I was willing to fill water bottles in that scarf if I had to in order to be part of that team.”

Campbell said she didn’t feel the need to say anything at the time because she wanted to fit in with the team. But it was a different situation with her new club.

Campbell said being on the bench and working with the team felt like any day at work. Or, it did at first.

When she looked into the Climate Pledge Arena stands, specifically during the introductions, that’s when Campbell realized that this was unlike any day of work she or any woman in the history of hockey ever had.

“My family was there. My best friends who are from all over Canada and the U.S. were there and with everybody coming together, it felt like my hockey wedding day in a way,” Campbell said. “Just the energy and the excitement, but that’s what really brought the magnitude of the moment to me.”