Campbell is ready to make history with Kraken as the first woman to coach in the NHL

SEATTLE – Jessica Campbell has a tattoo on the back of her right hand with the Finnish word “Ytimessa,” which became a mantra when she was assistant coach of the German men’s national team in 2021/22.

“It’s essentially flow. Her flow state,” said Campbell, who also wears a Swedish crown on the outside of her right hand from her time as a skating coach in Malmo, Sweden, in 2020-21. “These are all my coaching moments.”

Campbell has no plans to add another tattoo, but the mark she leaves on the hockey world is indelible.

Campbell is the first woman to be a full-time assistant coach in the NHL and will be behind the bench when the Seattle Kraken open their season against the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday (4:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, ESPN+). in the Climate Pledge Arena, SN360, TVAS).

“The coming year will be a lot of fun. But knowing and understanding that obviously the thoughts of other women and other people who have the same ambitions as me are still at the forefront,” she told NHL.com. “So, carrying that torch forward every day and continuing to focus on the job as a coach, but it definitely gives the job meaning.”

Campbell is a member of the NHL Coaches' Association's Female Coaches Program, which supports female coaches in skill development, leadership strategies, communication tactics, networking and career opportunities. The NHLCA Female Coaches Program is now in its fifth year and has more than 100 women, the largest membership in the program's history. This season they welcomed 34 new women to the program.

Campbell, 32, was named assistant coach of the Kraken on July 3, joining Dan Bylsma, who was named Seattle coach on May 28. Bylsma was the coach and Campbell his assistant for Coachella Valley, the Kraken's affiliate in the American Hockey League, for the past two seasons.

There's also familiarity with several players the two had in Coachella Valley who are now with the Kraken, including forwards Shane Wright, Tye Kartye and Ryan Winterton.

Since she was in the AHL, Campbell is in charge of the forwards and power play in Seattle. In their two seasons in the AHL (2022-24), Bylsma and Campbell helped lead Coachella Valley to second place in the Western Conference's Pacific Division in 2022-23 before winning the division last season. The Firebirds lost to the Hershey Bears in the Calder Cup final every season.

Bylsma said Campbell's coaching has benefited not only the Firebirds, but himself as well.

“Two years ago she was a young coach. She needed to grow and improve as a coach, and I think our relationship was just that,” Bylsma said. “I probably challenged them a few times to do things differently or think about things differently. But at the same time, knowingly or unknowingly, she also challenged me as a coach to make sure I was the coach I wanted to be.

“So getting the opportunity in the NHL is because I believe in the skills and characteristics that it gives to the individual players and that she can give them to them and help them, in their place, in their own personal way and Way to get better.” Team way.”

The Kraken have been at the forefront of the movement to employ women in hockey. One of their first steps was to appoint Alexandra Mandrycky as director of hockey administration. She helped bring general manager Ron Francis on board and was named assistant general manager in 2022. On September 25, 2019, the Kraken added Cammi Granato, a legend in women's hockey, as the NHL's first professional scout. Granato was named assistant GM of the Vancouver Canucks on February 10, 2022.

“We’re kind of a unique organization in Seattle. I think our organization is 44 percent women and 23 percent BIPOC people working for our organization. But (Campbell) didn’t get that job because she’s female,” Kraken general manager Ron Francis told NHL.com at the 2024 NHL Rookie Faceoff in September. “She got this job because she is a very talented coach and we believe she will bring not only the knowledge of a coach, but also the ability to work with our players on power skating and skill development. It’s an additional voice in the room and an additional tool to help them in that regard.”

Kraken forward Matty Beniers said Campbell integrated great from the start.

“I think she’s just another coach, someone who worked really hard to get where they were,” he said. “The guys at Coachella were all raving about her and saying she was great; Their power play was really good. They all had great things to say about her and I'm sure the organization and people who hired her went through the process and recognized her qualifications. She’s lived up to those expectations so far and when you get to the rink she’s just another coach.”

Before retiring as a player in 2017, Campbell played four seasons at Cornell University (2010–14) and three seasons with the Calgary Inferno of the Canadian Women's Hockey League (2014–17). With the Canadian women's team, she won gold at the 2010 IIHF U18 World Championship and the 2014 Four Nations Cup, and silver at the 2009 U18 World Championship and the 2015 World Championship and Four Nations Cup.

Her first big break as a coach came a few years later. Campbell was teaching power skating at the Pursuit of Excellent Hockey Academy in Kelowna, British Columbia, when Peter Elander, a longtime women's hockey coach who led Sweden to a silver medal at the 2006 Turin Olympics, asked her if she wanted to come to Sweden.

“He knew I wanted to be a skating coach at that level and a technical coach at that level at the time,” she said. “So he offered me the chance to come to Malmö and I worked with the junior team and then got to support the first team for a little while.”

After that season, Campbell returned to North America and her budding company, JC Powerskating, where she trained NHL players including Los Angeles Kings defenseman Joel Edmundson, Nashville Predators defenseman Luke Schenn, and Carolina Hurricanes forward, Tyson Jost. She also worked with forward Natalie Spooner, her former Team Canada teammate and currently a member of the Toronto Sceptres of the PWHL.

“I felt like she had the edge with all of these skating techniques to really disguise her own skating, whether it was jab turns or gap steps into shots,” Spooner said. “We tried to do what she could. It was challenging at first, but she was able to teach me so well that by the end of the summer I was able to learn it and become a much better skater. I was able to just hide a lot of my movements while skating, which was really nice.”

The next coaching opportunity soon presented itself for Campbell in Germany in the 2021/22 season. She moved to Nuremberg in the German Ice Hockey League and started there as an ice skating and technical trainer. During the second half of the regular season, she was asked by head coach Tom Rowe to look at Nuremberg's special teams.

“He said, 'Okay, put it to the guys, you're on the bench tonight and you're calling the power play,'” she said. “Just minutes after conducting a skills session, I found myself sitting on the bench during training and coaching.”

Campbell called it her “pinching moment, almost an epiphany.”

“I realized I was now taking the same approach to the way I taught skating and skills, behind the bench and in tactics, and just trying to put the pieces together and break it down the same way for the guys. Now, at the professional level, they could connect the dots and deliver. So I'm like, 'This is a lot of fun.' I can do this live.' Not only did it help make a difference in their game but also in the team's success and it was a complete game changer for me. That I wanted to sit behind the bench and be involved on the micro level of the tactical side, not just development.”