How trailblazer Jessica Campbell’s ‘different lens’ paid off in her first year as an AHL coach
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
SEATTLE — Bringing up Jessica Campbell’s name to anyone who has worked with or watched her work with the Coachella Valley Firebirds over the last year will illustrate why she gained a massive amount of trust in such a short time.
It’s been a little more than a year since Campbell made history when the Firebirds, who are the Seattle Kraken’s AHL affiliate, hired her as an assistant coach, making her the first woman to be behind the bench as a full-time coach in AHL history.
“She’s got a knowledge and an experience and a talent that players can see and understand and they know if they listen, they can get better at what they are doing,” Firebirds coach Dan Bylsma said. “That was evident right from the start and it came through some of the results that we got.”
One conversation with Campbell goes into a number of different subjects. It can range from the importance of building respect with players and empowering those players to reach new levels to managing the outside expectations that come with being a trailblazer in the ever-expanding discussion regarding representation and diversity in hockey.
Campbell navigated those items against the backdrop of the Firebirds’ first season. Their inaugural campaign started with the Firebirds playing their opening 20 games on the road with their arena still under construction. It ended with the Firebirds having the second-most points in the regular season and eventually falling a goal short of winning the AHL championship, the Calder Cup.
For Campbell, the initial step toward helping the Firebirds find success was to establish a foundation centered around respect. That meant letting those players know she was committed to their success and making sure she was doing her job to help them to the best of her ability.
Campbell spoke with players about their goals and the areas where they could improve and let them know she was willing to work with them for as long as they wanted.
“That’s the approach I take — it’s to work with them on an individual level,” Campbell said. “It’s how I want to support them, how they can be helped and then build around that. I was also involved in special teams and running power play. So again, the communication piece and showing them that my mind is creative and I wanted to bring that creativity to them and to the approach of how I could coach them and show them different ways they can think about the game or approach different situations.”
Supporting players to help them on the ice was only one part of Campbell’s approach. She also made a point to routinely check in with players to see how they were doing away from the ice and if they needed to talk about whatever was on their minds.
Firebirds director of business and hockey operations Troy Bodie said Campbell “really took it upon herself” to have meaningful conversations with players.
“It happens all the time where players are going through things and slumps,” Bodie said. “She can talk to them to get them to talk about whatever they are going through. Dan does not ask her to do it. She sniffs it out, goes and finds a player. Whether it is in the locker room or on the ice after practice, she goes and does it and does a great job with it.”
Campbell’s background as a skills coach means she can work with players to improve various aspects of their game, such as skating. Bodie said Campbell took “a lot of pride” in spending significant time with players before and after practices on different areas they wanted to develop.
Bodie estimated that the demand for Campbell by the players was so great that she was likely overworked because she excelled at creating such a high level of respect and trust in just one season.
“Before practices, she’d have half-hour skill sessions that would have 90 percent participation,” said Bodie, who played in more than 500 games between the AHL and NHL. “I was shocked because there’s usually never that much participation for an optional skills practice.”
That work was one of the reasons the Firebirds had success as a team and why numerous players achieved individual accomplishments. Campbell’s primary responsibilities were working with the forwards and running the power-play unit.
Scoring goals either 5-on-5 or with the extra skater advantage was not an issue for the Firebirds in 2022-23. They scored 257 goals, which gave them the third-highest scoring attack in the AHL, while also having 10 players who scored more than 10 goals in the regular season. Their power-play unit finished 14th out of the AHL’s 32 teams with a 20.3% success rate. Bylsma said the Firebirds’ power play ranged between seventh and 14th throughout the season.
The Calder Cup playoffs were no different. The Firebirds had 10 players finish with more than 10 points while leading the AHL with 89 goals — 35 more than the team that finished second in scoring, the Hershey Bears, who beat Coachella Valley for the Calder Cup.
Forward Tye Kartye, who was an undrafted free agent, was named the AHL Rookie of the Year after leading all first-year players with 57 regular-season points (28 goals and 29 assists) and eight points in 18 playoff games. Kartye’s performances led to him being called up to Seattle, where he scored three goals and had five points in 10 playoff games.
“I think players can sense the motive, sense the passion and sense the reasoning why you are a coach who is trying to get to them and why you talk to them,” Bylsma said. “When they see you are in it for them and have their best interest in mind, they are ready to listen. It may not be a loud voice, a rah-rah voice. It may not be a coach’s voice. We hope some of it comes from our players as well. But when a player understands that and senses that, they are all in — and our guys were all in.”
One of the Kraken’s top prospects, forward Shane Wright, spent part of his first professional season with the Firebirds, appearing in eight regular-season games and 24 playoff games. Wright repeatedly stressed how Campbell was “a smart hockey mind” while adding there is a lot to learn from her.
Wright said Campbell told him to “just be yourself” and to play his game. Wright, who was the fourth pick of the 2022 NHL draft, said Campbell told him to stay true to what got him to this point and continue to expand on those abilities.
Wright said the dialogue he and other players had with Campbell led to a collaborative process. He said it felt like there was an understanding that players could give their thoughts to Campbell and vice versa with the idea that everyone benefited from having an open dialogue.
“We feel comfortable going to her if we have a suggestion for her or if she sees something in our game that maybe we can fix or change — building that chemistry or that relationship is always really important,” Wright said.
For as much as Campbell’s job is about developing players, Bylsma explained why the AHL is also an important development stage for coaches.
Bylsma, who won a Stanley Cup and had 320 victories as an NHL coach, said his most formative years as a coach came in the AHL. He described his time spent in the AHL as “a marathon of learning” that allowed him to harness skills such as crafting and delivering a message to a team in ways that hopefully resonate with players.
“Unquestionably for a coach, being in the AHL is huge for their development,” Bylsma said. “Hopefully, as a coach for Jess and [Firebirds assistant Stu Bickel] that is part of my job to develop them as well and I hope that was the case this year.”
Campbell’s success on multiple levels in her first year behind an AHL bench is only just part of her story.
There is also the narrative around Campbell’s first season as it relates to being a coaching pioneer because, until her, there had never been a woman on an AHL bench in a full-time capacity.
“Anything you do differently, any way you approach things differently is always going to get recognized,” Campbell said. “The reality is anytime you see someone doing something different, you’re going to recognize that difference. … I always tried to look at the positive of, ‘Yeah, I might be different. But because I’m different, I’m bringing a different perspective and I’m bringing a new lens to the game and to the guys and to our locker room that they either haven’t heard before or it might be different.'”
Campbell said her ultimate hope is that while her being on the bench is different, there will come a time when seeing a woman on the bench of a men’s hockey team becomes normalized. She said as the season went on, she didn’t focus on being the only woman on an AHL bench but saw it more as the Firebirds having an assistant coach who happened to be a woman.
She also acknowledged how being in her position comes with pressure to perform because she knows there are other women with the same goals and aspirations as her.
“There are other people that perhaps from the outside are looking at it differently,” Campbell said. “I feel and I take pride in knowing that if our team succeeds, if I can succeed, then others are going to have the doors held open for them and that’s where we want the game to go.”
How did Campbell grapple with the gravity and significance of what she was doing? And how much support did she receive, whether from young girls or women who want to break into coaching or just anyone in general who championed what she was accomplishing?
“There was a ton of support from the community and there were also a lot of non-supporters — and that’s fine too,” Campbell said. “I think I’ve felt and I’ve heard it all at this point. But I try to just keep my focus on the work and the impact, and silence the thoughts that come from the outside noise. Yes, I think whatever you put your focus on, that’s where all your energy goes and I tried really hard to not let potential barriers or remarks or comments about me being a female coach in the game impact my confidence or ability as a coach.”
Campbell said she had to consciously check in with herself to make sure she was treating her job no differently than anyone else. That’s why she wanted to make it about the work and the impact that work had on the team.
“But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t something I thought about,” Campbell said. “I did feel that extra layer of pressure because I did feel the extra eyes and people look at me differently because I am different and that’s to me not a negative. To me, hopefully, eventually it will be old and just knowing that success usually trumps all negativity.
“To see the team succeed and to know we as a club and organization are moving in a direction of thinking outside the box, I think that is what I am mostly proud of. It’s knowing that the success that we have has spoken to potentially that the changes are for the good and it’s good for the growth of the game and that we have a unique coaching staff and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
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Greg Wyshynski
BOSTON — The 4 Nations Face-Off has emerged as a transformative moment for the NHL.
“Nothing’s done more for hockey in a decade than what this tournament’s done,” Team Canada coach Jon Cooper said.
What was supposed to be a midseason appetizer for the 2026 Winter Olympics has evolved into a transcendent event for hockey, which has lacked a best-on-best event since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. That was never more apparent than the first U.S. vs Canada showdown in Montreal, which produced three fights in the first nine seconds of the game followed by an elite representation of the sport as played by two bitter rivals.
The audience was massive — with 9.3 million viewers, it was the most-watched non-Olympic hockey game ever in the United States. The hype was something the NHL hadn’t seen in recent memory. People who don’t usually talk about hockey were suddenly talking about hockey.
It’s just incredible how much of a home run 4 Nations has been for the NHL and hockey in general.
Friends who never watched a hockey game in their lives reaching out asking what the plan is for tonight’s game, what food we’re ordering, etc.
Definition of growing the game.
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) February 20, 2025
“The game is in a better place because that game existed,” Cooper said.
Now that the 4 Nations Face-Off was a game-changer, how will the NHL capitalize on it — and what comes next for its midseason events?
THE NHL HAS ANNOUNCED what is on the way in 2026. The All-Star Weekend, which took a hiatus in favor of 4 Nations this year, will return at the New York Islanders‘ UBS Arena next February. That will serve as a bon voyage event ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, which mark the return of NHL players for the first time since 2014.
The 2026 Olympics begin what the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association hope will be a regular cadence of international best-on-best events. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh announced last week the next World Cup of Hockey is scheduled for 2028. Then come the 2030 Winter Olympics, and then potentially another World Cup and so on.
“We couldn’t be more excited about making a reality: Olympics, World Cups, Olympics, World Cups on a regular schedule of the best hockey players in the world representing their countries,” Bettman said. “We know the full-blown World Cup is going to be sensational.”
Sources told ESPN that the future of the NHL All-Star Game beyond next season has yet to be determined.
The NHL All-Star Game isn’t going anywhere — sources said its status as a tentpole event and its history within the league make it an important part of the league’s slate of events. But All-Star Weekend’s cadence and format beyond next season hasn’t been determined. Logically, it could be held in years when there isn’t a best-on-best event. Perhaps the league continues to double up with the All-Star Game and the Olympics, like it is doing in 2026.
ALL-STAR GAMES are in a transient place in the sports world right now — that’s not just a function of the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off.
While the NHL’s midseason tournament was being widely praised, the NBA All-Star Weekend received criticism from fans and players. Draymond Green called the game’s format “absurd” and said it existed “because ratings are down and the game is bad.”
The effort of the NHL’s players in its best-on-best tournament was in stark contrast with basketball’s midseason classic.
“You can go on an NBA court and go through the motions. You can’t do that in hockey,” P.K. Subban said on “Get Up.” “The culture of our sport, you have to play it with passion. That’s what fans are investing in.”
While that’s true, the NHL All-Star Game isn’t exactly USA vs. Canada for the 4 Nations title, either.
“Different event, obviously. I don’t remember any fights in the All-Star Games,” Winnipeg Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey said. “There’s definitely a place to have both. From what I’ve heard, that’s the plan in the future. And I think both can be exciting.”
1:34
USA, Canada fight 3 times in the first 9 seconds of game
Three players each from USA and Canada are penalized for three fights in the first nine seconds of the game.
THE ALL-STAR GAME brings some virtues that these international tournaments do not. The World Cup of Hockey will be awarded through a host city bidding process. The All-Star Game brings the world’s best players to markets that may never host a World Cup game. It doesn’t just spread the wealth among NHL cities — it does the same among players.
“The one thing about this tournament is ‘Where’s Leon Draisaitl?’ Or Nikita Kucherov?’ Go down the list of guys that aren’t here that you do get to see in an All-Star Game because those guys are special talents,” Cooper said. “Maybe there’s something down the road where everybody gets to play, and that would be super cool.”
The players at the 4 Nations Face-Off uniformly agreed that there’s room for both best-on-best battles and All-Star games in the NHL.
“Obviously this brings out real emotions when you get to play these meaningful games,” Sweden’s Jesper Bratt said. “The All-Star Game has its cool things to it, too, and I think fans appreciate that part of it: to see the best individual players from each division and each team to participate in a skill competition.”
Team USA’s Jack Hughes, Bratt’s teammate on the New Jersey Devils, said he’s made some great memories at the All-Star Game.
“That’s always fun for me personally, just because it’s not as extreme as this. Obviously, you get to spend more time with your family and your friends and get to enjoy that with them. I think that’s a great event,” he said. “But as a hockey player for sure, [4 Nations] is the elite of the elite. Getting to play against the best players and represent your country. It means something to everyone on the ice.”
Vincent Trocheck said the experience is different for every player at the All-Star Game.
“I’ve only played in two, and they’ve been extremely special to me. Every time I’ve been able to go, sharing that with my family is really cool. So those are … awesome weekends, but something like this is just different,” said the New York Rangers center, who played for Team USA. “It’s more meaningful. It’s more emotional. Stuff like this is what you dream of as a kid. So coming to a tournament like this is something that you’ll never forget. You can’t match it.”
THE NHL PLAYERS deserve credit, having pushed for more best-on-best opportunities since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
“Whether it’s Team Canada, the U.S., Sweden, Finland, the other nations in the future, if there’s more playing in these events when you put on your country’s uniform, it just means something special,” Morrissey said. “It’s a different feeling, and you can’t replicate that in any other way.”
After the success of 4 Nations, everything is on the table. Could the All-Star Game become something that hues a little closer to nation vs. nation? Could those years between the Olympics and World Cup produce more international events, be it a 4 Nations Face-Off or a “summit series” between the U.S. and Canada?
The 4 Nations Face-Off has broadened the possibilities.
“Look to soccer. They have so much international play that gets so much attention. We’re not soccer, as far as a global game, but we’re not that far behind,” Ron Hainsey of the NHLPA said. “That’s the long-term goal here … where fans look forward to these players representing their countries on a regular basis.”
Shutting down the regular season for international events isn’t without its risks or its critics. The 4 Nations Face-Off saw a handful of injuries, most notably to Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who was hospitalized Monday with an infection in his right shoulder and a significant injury to his AC joint.
“I don’t know how the NHL teams feel about it, because guys are going so hard out there and we still have a quarter of the season left,” New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes said. “But I think the guys inside the locker room have extreme care for this and are really, really enjoying this.”
Canada star Connor McDavid agreed less is more for international tournaments.
“I’m not sure you could do this every single year. It’s been pretty taxing. Obviously, we see guys going down and getting hurt.” McDavid said. “But it goes to show how much guys care about playing for the country, how much pride they play with while they’re wearing the jersey.
“I think with the Olympics and the World Cup, I think we’ll get enough.”
The World Cup of Hockey returns in 2028, although its final form has yet to be determined. There will be eight teams representing eight nations, without the “melded” teams from 2016 like Team North America and Team Europe. The NHL will not partner with the International Ice Hockey Federation for the World Cup, instead negotiating with other professional leagues themselves in order to populate teams like Germany and Switzerland with players.
There will be a bidding process for host cities, and that process will be open to European locations.
“The Olympics provides a good model for us in terms of how long the break will be for games in Europe,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.
Of course, the biggest issue around the 2026 Olympics and 2028 World Cup is whether Russia will be included, as it remains banned from international play through 2026 by the IIHF because of its invasion of Ukraine.
“I’d love to see our Russian players playing in these tournaments. Again, they’re incredible hockey players,” Walsh said. “The issues are political and it is not political as far as the NHLPA, it’s the world politics that we have to get through and I’m hoping that as we get closer to the Olympics, as we get closer to the World Cup, we will start seeing the Russian athletes back in the competition.”
THE 4 NATIONS FACE-OFF showed best-on-best hockey can cross over to the mainstream. But the conditions might not be there to capture lightning in a bottle a second time.
The geopolitical undercurrents to the USA vs. Canada rivalry heightened its passions. The tournament featured the first opportunity for a generation of stars — McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, the Tkachuk brothers and Auston Matthews, among others — to represent their countries in a best-on-best event.
And what, exactly, do they do for an encore? Four fights in eight seconds next time?
“The expectations were high. I think the tournament’s done a good job of setting that bar and going beyond it,” Team USA’s Brock Nelson said.
The 4 Nations Face-Off was meant to be the appetizer for the Olympics. Based on its success, the NHL needs to capitalize on the moment.
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Adam Rittenberg
The Nebraska–Tennessee football home-and-home football series scheduled for 2026 and 2027 will not be played after Nebraska opted out of the agreement.
Tennessee athletic director Danny White posted on X that Nebraska called off the series and added that Tennessee is “very disappointed” by the cancellation, especially so close to the initial game in 2026. The teams had been set to play in 2026 at Nebraska and at Tennessee the following year.
In a statement, Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen explained renovations to the team’s stadium, which will temporarily lower seating capacity, ultimately led to the decision.
“We are making plans to embark on major renovations of Memorial Stadium that may impact our seating capacity for the 2027 season,” Dannen said. “The best scenario for us is to have eight home games in 2027 to offset any potential revenue loss from a reduced capacity. The additional home games will also have a tremendous economic benefit on the Lincoln community.”
The Cornhuskers announced they will host Bowling Green in 2026 and Miami (Ohio) in 2027 on the dates when it was originally set to play Tennessee. Nebraska has never faced either school. The team will play eight homes in 2027 for the first time since 2013.
The cancellation ends a nearly two-decade process around a Nebraska-Tennessee series, which was originally agreed upon in 2006 and set for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. In 2013, the two schools agreed to delay the games for a decade. Nebraska will pay $500,000 to get out of the scheduling agreement.
White told Volquest that the “buyout implications need to be much steeper” with an “old contract,” and the cancellation puts Tennessee in a bind. Tennessee, which opens the 2025 season against Syracuse in Atlanta, had its nonleague schedule set through the 2030 season. The school either must find an opponent who can fill the 2026 and 2027 dates for a home-and-home series, or explore neutral-site options.
“You really can’t pull an audible this late in the game,” White told Volquest.
Nebraska’s stadium renovation, the first phase of which had been set to begin after the 2024 season, has been delayed until after the 2025 season, at the earliest.
Tennessee and Nebraska have played only three times before, most recently in the 2016 Music City Bowl, won by the Vols. Nebraska beat Tennessee in the 1998 Orange Bowl to secure a share of the national title that season.
Tennessee has been on the other side of a similar situation. The Vols in 2021 canceled a game against Army for the next season in 2022 and added Akron instead.
Information from ESPN’s Chris Low was used in this report.
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Jorge Castillo
TAMPA, Fla. — The New York Yankees‘ facial hair and grooming policy, an infamous edict in place for nearly 50 years, was formally amended for the first time Friday.
In a statement, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said the organization will allow “well-groomed beards” effective immediately, changing a rule his father, George, established in 1976.
“In recent weeks I have spoken to a large number of former and current Yankees — spanning several eras — to elicit their perspectives on our longstanding facial hair and grooming policy, and I appreciate their earnest and varied feedback,” Hal Steinbrenner said in the statement. “These most recent conversations are an extension of ongoing internal dialogue that dates back several years.
“Ultimately the final decision rests with me, and after great consideration, we will be amending our expectations to allow our players and uniformed personnel to have well-groomed beards moving forward. It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy.”
George Steinbrenner implemented the mandate before the 1976 season, leaving players with a choice of being clean-shaven or wearing a mustache. Hal Steinbrenner kept the policy in place after becoming chairman and controlling owner of the franchise in 2008.
Players overwhelmingly obliged with the order over the next five decades, from spring training through October, often before letting themselves go during the offseason, though a few have pushed the limits.
In the 1990s, for example, star first baseman Don Mattingly was fined and benched by manager Stump Merril for refusing to trim his mullet. Four years later, Mattingly wore a goatee for part of his final season in 1995.
This year, All-Star closer Devin Williams, acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in December, reported for his spring training physical with a beard before shaving it down to a mustache for the team’s first workout the next day. On the other end, former Yankees Gleyber Torres and Clay Holmes reported to camp with their new teams sporting full beards.
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