Penton: Campbell makes NHL coaching history
By Bruce Penton
When Dan Bylsma went searching for an assistant coach to join him on the Seattle Kraken’s bench, he wasn’t out to make history; he was simply looking for the best coach available.
In Jessica Campbell, he thinks he got both. The best coach available and an historic hire — the first female coach in the National Hockey League.
Campbell, who grew up in Rocanville, a small mining town in eastern Saskatchewan, was eminently qualified for the historic post. A hockey lifer, she has paid her dues on the ice and in the coaching ranks, and now she has almost reached the mountaintop.
Only one step remains, and that would be a head coach. Only time will tell if the best hockey league in the world is ready for that, but Campbell’s credentials are strong and if a woman is ever named to a head coaching position, it would surprise no one if it were her.
Jessica’s parents, Gary and Monique Campbell were in the stands at Climate Pledge Arena Oct. 8 to watch their daughter make history.
Gary recalls saying to Jessica when she was younger, and seemingly obsessed with hockey, ’You don’t get tired of putting on your skates every day, and going out every day?’ And she kind of looked at me and said ‘no, why, dad?’”
After a playing career at Cornell University and a short stint with Canada’s women’s national team, Campbell spent three seasons with the Calgary Inferno of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. Her strength was skating, and teaching skating to others, and her coaching career blossomed when fellow Saskatchewanian Damon Severson, now a defenceman with Columbus Blue Jackets, worked with her. Through the Severson connection, Campbell eventually wound up with a number of NHLers under her tutelage at her Kelowna power skating school. She later coached in Sweden and Germany and her work was noticed by Bylsma, who later hired her as an assistant with Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League.
When Bylsma was hired by the Kraken in late May to replace Dave Hakstol, he knew exactly where to look for an assistant. “We’re going to see a woman behind the bench for the first time in the National Hockey League and it’s monumental,” Bylsma told The Athletic. “But the (goal) was to get the best coach — and it happened to be Jessica Campbell.”
So how did she get behind the bench in Seattle? Campbell was hired by the German national team for the 2022 men’s world championship, and her work helped improve the team’s powerplay. Bylsma was an observer at the event and was impressed with her work ethic, her communication skills and overall success with the powerplay and penalty killing units and hired her in Coachella Valley. After Campbell’s two years behind the Firebirds’ bench, Bylsma knew she had the skills to coach at a higher level. “She has something to provide to players, and they immediately recognize what she has to offer to them and their careers and their growth and development,” Bylsma said in The Athletic story.
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Care to comment? Email brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca