Following her retirement from playing hockey, Campbell launched her own powerskating business during the pandemic under the title JC Powerskating in Kelowna, B.C. Business quickly picked up, and Campbell began teaching NHLers, such as Tyson Jost (Colorado Avalanche), Damon Severson (New Jersey Devils), Luke Schenn (Nashville Predators), and Brent Seabrook (Chicago Blackhawks). Eventually, Campbell was coaching up to twenty players who were preparing in the spring of 2020 to return to the summer playoff bubble to finish up the interrupted 2019-2022 NHL season.
From there, her coaching career launched. After working in Sweden with the Malmo Redhawks and in Germany with the Nurnberg Ice Tigers, Campbell became the first woman ever to coach at the IIHF Men’s World Hockey Championships. At Worlds, she first came into contact with Dan Bylsma, the former Stanley Cup champion coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Kraken’s new head coach for the 2024 season. After spending two years on Bylsma’s coaching staff with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, Bylsma asked Campbell to join him when he replaced former Seattle coach David Hakstol this year.
In a press interview with the Athletic, Bylsma commented on what this landmark moment means for the sport and the Seattle franchise: “We’re going to see a woman behind the bench for the first time in the National Hockey League and it’s monumental. But the [goal] was to get the best coach—and it happened to be Jessica Campbell.” With the NBA, NFL, and MLB all having female representation at the coaching level, the NHL is the last of the major American sports leagues to see a woman behind the bench. But for Campbell, this watershed moment is also just another day on the job: “I have to continue to do what I’ve always done, and that’s to do my job to the best of my ability. I wake up every day, I put my shoes on, and my skates on, and my track suit in the same way as my counterparts.”
Though the novelty of Campbell’s newfound position with the Kraken indicates that female representation in the NHL still has a long way to go, her history and expertise demonstrate that there is a way forward for women who want to coach at the men’s professional level. With the season underway, the focus will now turn to Campbell’s coaching capabilities with the Kraken. As the NHL’s thirty-second team, the Seattle team is just five years old. Ranking twenty-ninth last season and with just 2.6 goals per game, Seattle missed the playoffs with a nineteen-point drop in their standing compared to their 2021-2022 second-round playoff team. Seattle is currently tied for nineteenth with 3.0 goals per game at the time of writing. Hopefully, with an assistant coach like Campbell at the helm, the Kraken can continue to gain its footing as an up-and-coming franchise.