For first time in NHL, Jessica Campbell becomes assistant coach with Seattle Kraken : NPR

SEATTLE After her playing career ended, Jessica Campbell discovered a new passion as a coach.

At the time, she probably didn't expect to end up in the NHL, let alone become the first woman to sit on the bench of an NHL franchise.

“I maybe naively had the courage to believe that this was possible and even though I didn't see it, I believed that I could do it,” Campbell said. “And I think with that inner belief, whatever it is in sports and life, you can create whatever you believe in.”

Campbell was named an assistant coach for the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday, making her the first woman in NHL history to serve in an assistant or bench coaching role.

She has spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach for Seattle's AHL affiliate in the Coachella Valley, alongside Dan Bylsma, who was hired as the Kraken's head coach in late May. Questions immediately arose about whether Campbell would make the move.

She will and will break another barrier for women in hockey. Emily Engel-Natzke was hired by the Washington Capitals in 2022 as a video coach, becoming the first woman to hold a full-time assistant role in the league.

Now there will be a woman sitting on the bench.

“I'm obviously humbled to be in this position and you're the first to speak, to be the first, but that's never really my focus. It's always about the work. It's about the impact. It's about the job. There's a lot that goes into this game and this job, so I've never taken it for granted,” Campbell said.

“I think the biggest thing is that I get reminded of it often and it gives a lot of meaning to the work. I know that if the team is successful and my impact is positive, that could potentially open doors for others and maybe open the eyes of others to think differently.”

Campbell was a decorated player in the NCAA, the Canadian Women's Hockey League and the Canadian women's national team, where she won silver at the 2015 World Championships.

With the exception of a brief stint with the Malmo Redhawks in Sweden in 2019-20, she hung up her skates in 2017 and became a valued skating coach when she joined Coachella Valley in 2022. She also served as an assistant coach for Germany at the 2022 IIHF World Championships.

She said it was during her time as a skating and skills development coach that the idea of ​​coaching in the NHL felt like an ambition worth pursuing. Campbell specifically mentioned 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 coming to my skates in droves 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 on with them, it was translating and it was hitting in a different way,” Campbell said.

Campbell was also the AHL's first full-time female assistant coach

The 32-year-old native of Rocanville, Saskatchewan, was the first full-time female assistant coach in the AHL when she was hired by the Coachella Valley before the start of the inaugural season. She also had a one-game stint as an assistant on the Kraken bench for a preseason game against Calgary last September.

Bylsma cited Campbell's contributions to the development of players like Ryker Evans, Shane Wright and Tye Kartye, all key players for the Kraken during her time in Coachella Valley, as one of the reasons he wanted to bring her to Seattle.

“Tye Kartye has done the work. It's all up to Tye, but it's with Jessica's guidance. She's grown, she's shown that the last two years, so I'd like her to have the opportunity to do it at the NHL level,” Bylsma said.

The NHL lags behind the NBA, MLB and NFL when it comes to having a woman on the bench as a coach.

The NHL Coaches Association launched a Female Coaches Development Program in 2021 with the goal of expanding the pool of available candidates.

Even before joining the league in 2021, the Kraken have been at the forefront of providing opportunities for women in hockey operations. Current assistant general manager Alexandra Mandrycky was one of the franchise’s first front-office hires as director of hockey administration in 2018 and was part of the group that led the general manager search that culminated in the hiring of Ron Francis.

Namita Nandakumar was hired in 2020 and is a senior analyst in the hockey department.

Seattle also hired Hall of Famer Cammi Granato as a pro scout in 2019, a role she held before joining the Vancouver Canucks as assistant GM in 2022.

Along with Campbell, the Kraken filled another coaching staff spot by hiring Bob Woods as one of Bylsma's assistants. Woods had been an assistant at Minnesota since 2017 but was fired when Dean Evason was fired as head coach early last season.

Assistant coach Dave Lowry, goalkeeping coach Steve Briere, video coach Tim Ohashi and video assistant Brady Morgan round out the rest of the coaching staff.