Rocanville, Sask., celebrates hometown hockey hero Jessica Campbell, 1st woman to coach from an NHL bench

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 is hosting a watch party on Saturday night at the Rocanville community hall as Campbell's Seattle Kraken take 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 that 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 Selbie, 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," Selbie 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?"