The Seattle Kraken made history last summer by hiring Jessica Campbell as a full-time assistant coach.
When she took her spot behind the bench at the start of the NHL season, she helped put a spotlight on other women making a mark on the league.
ESPN will recognize some of those women Thursday during its “Women in Hockey Night,” when the network will give “exposure to some of the roles that are out there now for women” in men’s hockey, according to Cassie Campbell-Pascall, a three-time Olympic medalist and ESPN analyst.
Campbell-Pascall will be on the broadcast Thursday when Campbell’s Kraken take on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
ESPN’s celebration of women comes two weeks after a viral social media post criticized women in men’s hockey.
The post made it clear that some still aren’t aware of — or happy with — women taking NHL opportunities that were previously reserved for men.
ESPN’s “Women in Hockey Night” aims to counter the negativity about women that still pops up in the hockey world, but Campbell-Pascall hopes it also reminds viewers that women have been a big part of the NHL for years.
“I’m excited about it, excited about the celebration. Again, it’s a focus on great women in hockey, but at the same time, I just wish we would be beyond these celebrations and it becomes sort of the norm,” said the 22-year broadcast vet.
“The narrative has to change,” she added.
Changing the narrative
While the Kraken’s hiring of Campbell was historic, women have long been a part of NHL broadcasts, as Campbell-Pascall noted.
On ESPN, there’s Campbell-Pascall and her partner for Thursday night, Blake Bolden, as well as Leah Hextall, AJ Mleczko, Emily Kaplan and Linda Cohn, to name a few.
Thursday’s ESPN event will be an opportunity to recognize some of these women and others for their roles in hockey.
“It seems to be normal now to have a female hockey player on the broadcast, and I’m proud to help sort of start that 20 some years ago now, and it’s a time to reflect too on women like Linda Cohn, who I know has been with ESPN for such a long time,” Campbell-Pascall said.
Campbell-Pascall believes the rich history of women in NHL broadcasting should be reflected in the narrative around women’s role in the hockey world.
“I think we’re long past the we deserve to be there, and we’re long past the, ‘Oh, this is groundbreaking.’ We’ve had people who’ve been doing this for years and, so that’s the part I kind of get frustrated with. But at the same time, I’m excited for someone like Blake, who’s just kind of getting her feet wet in this,” she said.
Moving forward, Campbell-Pascall wants the discussion to be focused on the personalities and experience these women bring to the broadcasts.
“You’re constantly kind of asked, ‘How are you successful in a man’s world?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, who determined it was a man’s world? Like, who set that in stone?’ And we just have some great women in the game who have great personalities and great backgrounds and what they bring to the game and their experience in hockey. I think we don’t talk about that enough,” she said.
Life as a female broadcaster in the NHL
Campbell-Pascall has been on the receiving end of vitriol throughout her broadcasting career, but it’s never come from the players she’s covering.
Instead, it comes from external sources.
“I’ve been through my fair share over the years of criticism and negativity and cruelty, to be honest with you, and sexual harassment and all those things. But I think I’ve learned to just block those things out, and I don’t respond to them because I don’t want to give them any sort of notoriety. It’s really stupidity,” she said.
She’s heard it all on social media, from “women don’t don’t belong in the game, she never played in the NHL,” to “her voice is like nails on a chalkboard.”
But she knows “there’s no substance to it.”
Campbell-Pascall may not have played in the NHL, but she’s more than qualified for the job.
In addition to past roles at Rogers Sportsnet, NHL Network and covering the Olympics for CBC, Campbell-Pascall is a decorated hockey player.
She captained Team Canada to its first Olympic gold medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and again four years later at the 2006 Turin Olympics.
“That experience as captain of that team — you helped win the first gold medal for your country in women’s ice hockey, and it’s a memory you’re going to have forever. Still to this day, people are talking about it up here,” Campbell-Pascall said of her experience at the Salt Lake City Winter Games.
She finished her career as “the longest-tenured captain in Canadian hockey history” and became the first woman player to be inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, according to ESPN.
She was also part of the inaugural class to receive the Order of Hockey in Canada alongside fellow hockey legends Wayne Gretzky and Jean Beliveau, per the CBC.
That experience isn’t lost on the NHL players. They have respect “for all the women in the game,” Campbell-Pascall said.
“When I was a broadcaster starting out, they treated me unbelievably. They always gave me the best answers. There was just a level of respect there from player to player. I’ve never been made to kind of feel like a woman in the man’s game. I’ve always been made to feel like a hockey player and a broadcaster,” she said.
More Jessica Campbells in the NHL
NHL players don’t appear to have any qualms about more Campbells coaching in the NHL. The “players don’t care” if a coach is a woman, Campbell-Pascall said.
“I’ll be honest with you, I know the players don’t care. The players are like, I just want to learn, give me a new perspective, teach me something new, be prepared, all those things,” she said.
There are also more avenues opening up for women in the NHL outside of coaching and broadcasting. Within the last few years, women have been trailblazing with front office roles.
In 2021, both Cammi Granato and Émilie Castonguay were hired as assistant general managers for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and in 2022, the team also hired Hayley Wickenheiser to the same position.
That same year, Meghan Duggan was named the director of player development for the New Jersey Blue Devils after serving as the team’s manager of player development the year before.
The doors opened by these women could lead to future opportunities for more women.
“I think sometimes it just takes someone to start it and to get going, and then it kind of opens the floodgates. There’s some substantial knowledge in the females that have played the game, and I think the guys appreciate that and appreciate the communication styles and they find it beneficial,” Campbell-Pascall said.
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