Jessica Campbell made hockey history earlier this year becoming the first full-time NHL female coach with the Seattle Kraken.
Her path to that historic moment was anything but linear, as one would expect. Her route to behind-the-bench NHL assistant coach isn’t even one she initially conceived. Initially, the goal was to get there as a skating coach, a path that had already been travelled by women before her. But on the way to doing that, a few twists and turns, a few breaks and some unexpected help from a worldwide pandemic provided her with the kind of opportunities one would need to open that door to a previously male-dominated profession. Campbell took full advantage.
Following the Kraken’s 8-2 win over Montreal Tuesday night that included three power-play goals — the power play being one of Campbell’s areas of responsibilities on head coach Dan Bylsma’s staff — the Kraken held a media availability for their history-making assistant coach in Toronto on Wednesday morning
Here, in Campbell’s words, is how one goes from small-town Saskatchewan to national team standout to entrepreneur skating school owner to a coaching career that continues to hit historic markers.
HOW IT STARTED
Campbell officially retired from the playing side of the game in 2017 following three years with the national team, but her coaching career probably doesn’t get off the ground without some of the contacts she made in a stellar playing career that saw her spend four years at Cornell and follow that up with three years with the Calgary Inferno of the CWHL, in addition to her national team tenure. Her first coaching job was actually a high school team in British Columbia, but it would take not one, but two trips overseas and the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in between to allow herself to make the inroads she would need to reach the game’s highest levels.
WHAT TOOK YOU TO SWEDEN?
“I was coaching in the Okanagan with the hockey academy then I got an opportunity through a connection in Sweden. One of the national team coaches knew me as a skating coach and presented me with the opportunity to come and work with the Malmo Redhawks, the junior team, and shortly after that I started working the SDHL team as part of that. It was a short contract, but it turned out to be a big deal.”
COVID HITS AND IT’S BACK TO NORTH AMERICA
“When I returned from Sweden, that is when I really launched my business (JC Powerskating) and the junior pro and NHL players started to show up. But that experience in Sweden is something I will cherish for the rest of my life and definitely was the start of my coaching career.
“When I decided to return from Sweden, I mean, I didn’t really have a choice. Everyone was in a different spot with COVID, but for me, I mean, people might call it crazy that I launched my business during COVID, but I actually landed a pretty unique opportunity. When I had access to ice, players were looking for ice and it just took one guy to come out and enjoy their skate and then the next minute I turned around, and the numbers grew.”
WHO WAS THAT FIRST PLAYER THAT OPENED THE DOOR TO THE NHL?
“There were several, but Brent Seabrook was such a huge advocate, him and guys like Luke Schenn. They showed up as veteran guys, late in their careers and wanted to work on fundamentals of their game. Skating was one of those pieces I helped them with but after when the rinks allowed for larger numbers to come back on the ice together, they actually hired me to come and run their pre-playoff bubble training camp. So there was over 20 guys and I was running those skates so I was really just coaching them at that point.”
WHO ELSE WAS PIVOTAL IN BRINGING NHL TALENT INTO JC POWERSKATING?
“I grew up with Damon Severson and he was actually one of the athletes that came out and skated me with in Kelowna (when Campbell first started her skills development career). We just knew each other growing up and he knew what I was doing so I guess he was a big starting point for me. He brought out a lot of teammates and that was kind of the start.”
AND THEN IT WAS BACK TO EUROPE
“I obviously carved out a little bit of a niche and made some connections in Europe with what I was doing there (the first time). Similar to the way I ended up in Sweden, a GM from the team in Nurnberg, the top team in the German league, reached out and was looking for a skills development coach and I was able to go in. When I got there they were a little short staffed and Tom Rowe, the head coach asked me to help out in any way I possibly could. The special teams weren’t in a great spot so he asked me to take over the power play and pretty quickly it turned around and I found myself behind the bench in a completely different light. And that’s when it clicked for me that I could blend the two things I loved most in hockey – teaching development, but can also get results immediately that night, and that’s when the spark happened.”
Campbell would join Rowe as an assistant coach with the German Men’s national team, further bolstering her resume before returning to North America.
BACK IN NORTH AMERICAN, NOW WHAT?
By this point, Campbell’s skillset both as a skating coach and as a special teams tactician is reaching more and more people. One of those was Bylsma, who hired her to work on his staff with the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds as an assistant coach, where she excelled for two seasons before Bylsma made the jump back to the NHL as a head coach for the first time since 2016-17 with the Kraken and brought Campbell with him.
WHAT IMPACT DID YOUR OWN SKILLS DEVELOPMENT BUSINESS (JC POWERSKATING) HAVE ON YOUR FUTURE COACHING CAREER?
“I definitely surrounded myself with really good mentors and really good coaches and asked a lot of questions. But I focused on my own work, my coaching style, my method, my approach and that is what has given me the confidence and conviction at this level. I kind of proved it to myself, on my own. As (NHL players) showed up and paid for my services and really, and I’ve said this before, they gave me the permission to believe in this dream because I didn’t see it was possible. They helped me to see that it was.”
YOU HAVE HELPED SO MANY PEOPLE TO IMPROVE THEIR SKATING, WHO TAUGHT YOU TO SKATE
“My mom taught me how to skate. I grew up in the small prairie town of Rocanville, Sask., population 1,000 people, so we grew up on outdoor rinks and just going to the rink and skating. I loved being on the ice, so I think a lot, or some of it, came naturally. But David Roy was a pretty key person for me as a young athlete before I got to the national team. He was a skating coach in the NHL as well and was a true teacher. His method, his approach, he kind of instilled in me and then I utilized that as I started to build my own approach when I transitioned into that space. I attest a lot of what I can do as a skater to him.”
WHAT KIND OF ROLE MODEL HAS YOUR MOM BEEN FOR YOU?
“I think about my childhood and I played boys’ hockey right up until I was 16 years old really. The pictures for me as a kid was 10 kids on the bench and they were boys and then there’s myself and my mom who is the coach. So I think, looking back, you can always connect those dots backward. In a way, she perhaps planted this seed in me and I saw it at a young age but never really thought of it any differently.”
STYLE OF COACHING
“For me I have been shaped by a lot of great coaches, but also maybe coaches I didn’t love along the way. You learn something from everyone. You take pieces from every person that you come across, but from playing to now coaching, I think I really enjoyed the coaches that were honest but also extremely positive. I think the power of positivity is real and even the top players, sometimes even they don’t know how good they are. You would be surprised how effective just giving a player affirmation and then you see them go out and get rolling even more.
“I tried to model my coaching after Doug Derraugh. He was my college coach (at Cornell). He cared most about us as people first. For me that is paramount to what I do. Just care about them as a human being, get to know them, how they tick, how they operate and what makes them get going and from there you can start to access the hockey conversation and ways to support them.”
WHAT TOOK YOU TO SWEDEN?
“I was coaching in the Okanagan with the hockey academy then I got an opportunity through a connection in Sweden. One of the national team coaches knew me as a skating coach and presented me with the opportunity to come and work with the Malmo Redhawks, the junior team, and shortly after that I started working the SDHL team as part of that. It was a short contract, but it turned out to be a big deal.”
COVID HITS AND IT’S BACK TO NORTH AMERICA
“When I returned from Sweden, that is when I really launched my business (JC Powerskating) and the junior pro and NHL players started to show up. But that experience in Sweden is something I will cherish for the rest of my life and definitely was the start of my coaching career.
“When I decided to return from Sweden, I mean, I didn’t really have a choice. Everyone was in a different spot with COVID, but for me, I mean, people might call it crazy that I launched my business during COVID, but I actually landed a pretty unique opportunity. When I had access to ice, players were looking for ice and it just took one guy to come out and enjoy their skate and then the next minute I turned around, and the numbers grew.”
WHO WAS THAT FIRST PLAYER THAT OPENED THE DOOR TO THE NHL?
“There were several, but Brent Seabrook was such a huge advocate, him and guys like Luke Schenn. They showed up as veteran guys, late in their careers and wanted to work on fundamentals of their game. Skating was one of those pieces I helped them with but after when the rinks allowed for larger numbers to come back on the ice together, they actually hired me to come and run their pre-playoff bubble training camp. So there was over 20 guys and I was running those skates so I was really just coaching them at that point.”
WHO ELSE WAS PIVOTAL IN BRINGING NHL TALENT INTO JC POWERSKATING?
“I grew up with Damon Severson and he was actually one of the athletes that came out and skated me with in Kelowna (when Campbell first started her skills development career). We just knew each other growing up and he knew what I was doing so I guess he was a big starting point for me. He brought out a lot of teammates and that was kind of the start.”
AND THEN IT WAS BACK TO EUROPE
“I obviously carved out a little bit of a niche and made some connections in Europe with what I was doing there (the first time). Similar to the way I ended up in Sweden, a GM from the team in Nurnberg, the top team in the German league, reached out and was looking for a skills development coach and I was able to go in. When I got there they were a little short staffed and Tom Rowe, the head coach asked me to help out in any way I possibly could. The special teams weren’t in a great spot so he asked me to take over the power play and pretty quickly it turned around and I found myself behind the bench in a completely different light. And that’s when it clicked for me that I could blend the two things I loved most in hockey – teaching development, but can also get results immediately that night, and that’s when the spark happened.”
Campbell would join Rowe as an assistant coach with the German Men’s national team, further bolstering her resume before returning to North America.
BACK IN NORTH AMERICAN, NOW WHAT?
By this point, Campbell’s skillset both as a skating coach and as a special teams tactician is reaching more and more people. One of those was Bylsma, who hired her to work on his staff with the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds as an assistant coach, where she excelled for two seasons before Bylsma made the jump back to the NHL as a head coach for the first time since 2016-17 with the Kraken and brought Campbell with him.
WHAT IMPACT DID YOUR OWN SKILLS DEVELOPMENT BUSINESS (JC POWERSKATING) HAVE ON YOUR FUTURE COACHING CAREER?
“I definitely surrounded myself with really good mentors and really good coaches and asked a lot of questions. But I focused on my own work, my coaching style, my method, my approach and that is what has given me the confidence and conviction at this level. I kind of proved it to myself, on my own. As (NHL players) showed up and paid for my services and really, and I’ve said this before, they gave me the permission to believe in this dream because I didn’t see it was possible. They helped me to see that it was.”
YOU HAVE HELPED SO MANY PEOPLE TO IMPROVE THEIR SKATING, WHO TAUGHT YOU TO SKATE
“My mom taught me how to skate. I grew up in the small prairie town of Rocanville, Sask., population 1,000 people, so we grew up on outdoor rinks and just going to the rink and skating. I loved being on the ice, so I think a lot, or some of it, came naturally. But David Roy was a pretty key person for me as a young athlete before I got to the national team. He was a skating coach in the NHL as well and was a true teacher. His method, his approach, he kind of instilled in me and then I utilized that as I started to build my own approach when I transitioned into that space. I attest a lot of what I can do as a skater to him.”
WHAT KIND OF ROLE MODEL HAS YOUR MOM BEEN FOR YOU?
“I think about my childhood and I played boys’ hockey right up until I was 16 years old really. The pictures for me as a kid was 10 kids on the bench and they were boys and then there’s myself and my mom who is the coach. So I think, looking back, you can always connect those dots backward. In a way, she perhaps planted this seed in me and I saw it at a young age but never really thought of it any differently.”
STYLE OF COACHING
“For me I have been shaped by a lot of great coaches, but also maybe coaches I didn’t love along the way. You learn something from everyone. You take pieces from every person that you come across, but from playing to now coaching, I think I really enjoyed the coaches that were honest but also extremely positive. I think the power of positivity is real and even the top players, sometimes even they don’t know how good they are. You would be surprised how effective just giving a player affirmation and then you see them go out and get rolling even more.
“I tried to model my coaching after Doug Derraugh. He was my college coach (at Cornell). He cared most about us as people first. For me that is paramount to what I do. Just care about them as a human being, get to know them, how they tick, how they operate and what makes them get going and from there you can start to access the hockey conversation and ways to support them.”
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