Manitoba’s Kristen Campbell thriving in inaugural PWHL season
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You have to admire Kristen Campbell’s optimism that she would grow up to be a professional hockey player.
“I always believed I could from the start,” she said. “I remember telling my friends that’s what I was gonna be when I was in like middle school.”
The only problem? There was no pro league to play in.
Until this season.
Now about to begin her first pro playoff run as the starting goaltender in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, it’s fair to say the Chater, Man., native’s belief in herself has paid off.
Her PWHL Toronto team, which is battling with Montreal for first place in the standings, is ready to attempt a playoff run to cap off what already has been a memorable season in the first-year league.
Not only has Campbell been on the big stage this season, but she’s also thrived. The netminder has racked up 13 wins this season, three of them in shutouts — both league-leading numbers.
Campbell has had success on big stages in the past, having posted three straight shutouts in the 2019 NCAA national championship tournament with the Wisconsin Badgers to take the title. She also made the Olympic roster for Team Canada in 2022, a team that brought home gold. She was also on the roster of this year’s Team Canada, which won gold at the world women’s hockey championship, but she did not see any action.
But it’s tough to wrap her mind around the accomplishment of being a member of history’s first professional women’s hockey league.
“I really don’t think we’re gonna know the magnitude of our impact till years down the road,” she said. “When we look back and we’re like, ‘Holy man. I was part of that in our girls’ season.’”
She’s excited about how the league might inspire girls with similar aspirations to hers.
“So, I think that’s why it’s so cool now to see that girls can actually see this as their path,” she said. “Back then we kind of had to make it up in our heads that this is how it could be.”
Campbell, who grew up idolizing Canadian women’s hockey legend Cassie Campbell-Pascall, gave credit to her own childhood women’s hockey heroes.
“But it hasn’t just been us,” she said. “It’s been all the women who came before us that allowed us to have this opportunity, too.”
From Grade 2 to Grade 5, Campbell played as a skater on a team with both boys and girls at the community rink in Forrest, MB, until a girls’ team in Brandon needed a full-time goalie.
Campbell gave a nod to her fellow Manitobans in the PWHL — Ashton Bell, Kati Tabin, and Corinne Schroeder, and PWHL Toronto teammate Jocelyne Larocque.
“It’s been fun being able to play against other Manitobans and represent Manitoba,” she said. “And to see how your paths were similar growing up playing hockey and landing where we are now is pretty crazy.”
That craziness comes partly from the fan attention the league has received. Campbell’s Toronto team has never played in front of an empty seat this season at its home rink, Mattamy Athletic Centre. The team’s fans also packed Scotiabank Arena, the hockey cathedral of over 19,000 seats that’s usually occupied by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The team played in front of even more eyes in Montreal this month, in a game that loaded over 21,000 fans into the Bell Centre in Montreal.
In Campbell’s view, the league is only going to keep growing with more exposure.
“I think that that’s the biggest thing, is just keeping the visibility up there and the league’s just gonna keep growing,” she said.
“We have the product and the people want to watch it and you can tell that when we are filling these rinks and I think that we’ll expand eventually and the league will just keep getting better and better.”
While the past and future both look bright for the league, the team’s focus is on the present, with the playoffs looming.
“It’s definitely exciting that within the next month, the playoffs will be already concluded and it’s all gonna happen pretty fast,” Campbell said. “So we’re just focused on getting better each and every game right now and being ready to go for that first playoff game.”
The PWHL playoffs start the week of May 6.
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