It’s no secret that the sports management industry is male-dominated. We have a woman vice president (who’s also running for the president of the United States, BTW), but still can’t manage to hire more women to coach sports teams — especially ones that don’t have a “W” in front of their names. But Jessica Campbell is taking a huge leap toward changing that and basically the entire face of the National Hockey League (NHL). She just started as the first woman full-time assistant coach in NHL history. Pretty iconic if you ask me.
Now Jessica was hired by the Seattle Kraken all the way back in July, but things finally set in motion on October 8 when she coached her first regular season game — the season opener against the St. Louis Blues. And even though her team lost 3-2, the moment Jessica got introduced was still pretty epic. She was welcomed into the arena with a lot of applause and even the head coach Dan Bylsma talked about how great for the NHL Jessica is.
Of course, Jessica has a pretty impressive resume that helped her land this gig. Back in 2022, she was an assistant coach for the Coachella Valley Firebirds (no, I don’t know who’s in charge of naming these teams), making her pretty legendary already, at least within the American Hockey League. Before that, she was an assistant coach and skills coach (someone who leads hockey training sessions) for the Nürnberg Ice Tigers — Germany’s top professional men’s league.
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And of course, you don’t become the first woman full-time assistant coach in the NHL without being a beast at hockey yourself. Jessica played herself while she was a student at Cornell University, and was even captain of her team her senior year.
Even though Jessica spoke publicly about how she’s mostly just focused on the team and their potential success, she’s also noted that she’s trying to remember to savor the moment. And even though the Kraken came up short on their first game, they literally have another one coming up this very week to jump back into things and prove just how badass women-lead teams are. We love to see it.
