Jessica Campbell’s hometown is celebrating her achievement as the first woman to take on an assistant coaching job in the NHL, but she says the volunteers in Rocanville, Sask., are the real heroes.
The town hosted a watch party on Saturday night at the Rocanville community hall as Campbell’s Seattle Kraken took on the Edmonton Oilers.
The town of just under 900 people, located about 200 kilometres east of Regina, is also erecting a billboard along Highway 8 to honours her local roots and her stints on the town’s hockey teams.
Many of the volunteers who coached and organized tournaments when Campbell was growing up are still involved in local hockey, Campbell said in an interview with CBC Radio’s The 306.
“Those early years as a player are very formative,” she said.
“I can’t say thank you enough to the people that showed up as volunteers, because they’re the ones that made a difference.
“They made a difference for me, and they’re going to make a difference for the young girls and boys that are growing up in those communities now with the same aspirations that I had.”
Though there’s nowhere to buy ice skates in Rocanville, the town has a “huge minor hockey league” and other youth hockey programs, said resident Kelsey Selby, who helped organized Saturday’s watch party.
“It’s really cool that [Campbell] is breaking barriers and showing little girls that you can be whatever you want to be, whether you’re an athlete or a dancer or even if you want to use something that’s knowledge-based, and you can go anywhere in the world,” Selby said.
“It doesn’t matter where you come from.”
Campbell and hockey equipment company Bauer partnered for the Saturday night event to bring a surprise for kids in local hockey programs. She also recorded a video message that will play during the watch party.
Before the Kraken hired her in 2024, Campbell was the first woman hired as a full-time assistant coach in the American Hockey League. She was also a decorated player in the NCAA, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and with Canada’s women’s national team, winning silver at the 2015 world championship.
Campbell’s coaching career began with her own business, training junior professional hockey players.
“Then the NHL guys started to show up,” Campbell said. “That’s when it really became a possibility. If they were showing up for my skates, my coaching, my training, then why couldn’t I believe that I could coach in the NHL?”
It seems almost as though Campbell was destined to break barriers in the hockey world. Her mother, Monique, and sister, Gina, both laced up for the University of Saskatchewan.
Her father, Gary, grew up playing hockey. Her brother Dion played for the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Yorkton Terriers and at the University of New Brunswick.
Her oldest brother, Josh, was also playing for the Terriers when he was killed in a vehicle crash on Oct. 11, 2002. He was 18 and Jessica was 10.
Campbell adopted her brother’s jersey, No. 8.
Now, she says hockey has come a long way from her early days.
“To see how far the game has come, for young girls now to imagine themselves being able to be a professional female hockey player as their career, [is] unbelievable,” she said.
“I never take a day for granted that I get this great privilege to do what I love.”
The Oilers ended up edging out the Kraken 5-4 in Saturday’s game.
Jessica Campbell’s journey from Sask. to the NHL
