Campbell will be the first woman on an NHL bench as an assistant coach with Kraken
Once her playing career ended, Jessica Campbell found a new passion in coaching.
At the time, she may not have expected it would eventually lead her to the NHL, let alone as the first woman to work on the bench of an NHL franchise.
“I’ve had maybe in a naive way had the courage to believe this is possible and even though I didn’t see it, I believed I could do it,” Campbell said. “And I think with that inner belief, whatever it is in sport and life, you can create whatever you believe in.”
Campbell was hired as an assistant coach for the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday, becoming the first woman to hold an on-the-bench role as an assistant or associate coach in NHL history.
She has spent the past two seasons working as an assistant coach for Seattle’s AHL affiliate in Coachella Valley alongside Dan Bylsma, who was hired in late May as the head coach for the Kraken. There were immediate questions about whether Campbell would be making the move.
She will and in doing so break through another barrier for women in hockey. Emily Engel-Natzke was hired by the Washington Capitals in 2022 as video coach, making her the first woman with a fulltime assistant role in the league.
Now, there will be a woman on the bench.
“I’m humbled, obviously, to be in this position and you speak to the word first, to be the first, but that’s never really where my focus is. It’s always on the work. It’s on the impact. It’s on the job. There’s a lot to this game and to this job, so I’ve never taken it for granted,” Campbell said.
“I think the biggest thing is I’m reminded often and it puts a lot of meaning into the work, and I know that if the team has success and my impact is a good one then it could potentially open up doors for others and maybe open eyes for others to maybe think differently.”
Campbell was a decorated player in the NCAA, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and Canada’s women’s national team, with whom she won silver at the 2015 world championship.
With the exception of a short stint with the Malmo Redhawks in Sweden in 2019-20, she hung up her skates in 2017 and had become highly regarded as a skating coach when she joined Coachella Valley in 2022. She had also worked as an assistant coach for Germany during the 2022 IIHF World Championships.
She said it was during her time running her own business as a skating and skill-development coach that the idea of coaching in the NHL felt like an aspiration worth pursuing. Campbell specifically noted the time she spent working with Brent Seabrook during his recovery from injury.
“I realized this is what I want to do. These guys are showing up for my skates in numbers and maybe I want to pursue this goal in a different light, get behind the bench and I felt like what I was teaching, what I was working with them on was translating and it was hitting in a different way,” Campbell said.