OPINION BY LINDSAY PENNAL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NHL COACHES’ ASSOCIATION

 

“When I retired as a player and began pursuing a career in coaching, it felt like the only opportunities for women were at the college ranks. But over the past four years, trailblazing work has been done in our sport. I have been able to progress from being a skating coach to standing behind the bench at the men’s pro level. The availability of these pro coaching opportunities for women today is a testament to the hard work and leadership that’s been happening both visibly and behind the scenes for years. It speaks to the forward-thinking mindset many organizations hold and the value they place on diversity of perspectives.”

– Jessica Campbell, Assistant Coach, Coachella Valley Firebirds; Member of the NHLCA Female Coaches Program

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Four years ago – on March 8, 2020 – we excitedly announced the launch of the NHLCA Female Coaches Program.

Our vision was to identify female hockey coaches across North America looking to advance their careers. We wanted to create a platform for them to enhance their skills and expand their knowledge. We wanted to provide them with access to learn from some of the best minds in hockey. We wanted to give them the connections and the confidence to coach at the highest levels of the sport. Four years later, we’ve exceeded even our own expectations. Over the past four years we’ve hosted over 50 virtual sessions for more than 80 women in the program. We’ve seen the hiring of the first female NHL video coach and the first female AHL assistant coach. In the past year alone, we’ve helped place 13 women with NHL organizations to join their development or training camps. The number of women coaching in developmental leagues including the CHL, USHL, and NAHL, has also steadily increased.

But the journey to get to today was not smooth.

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It took eight months to conceptualize, build, and launch the NHLCA Female Coaches Program. When COVID shut down the NHL and the world, it took only four days for that initial program to get blown apart. It took another month to restructure our vision for a program that would meaningfully impact women, but within the confines of a locked-down world where hockey wasn’t even being played.

Every few weeks during these past four years, from September through May, my colleagues and I have hopped on Zoom with a collection of the 80 women in the NHLCA Female Coaches Program. With full-time jobs, families, and busy schedules, not all members can join every meeting. I empathize. It’s impossible to find balance as a woman in pretty much any industry, but I’d argue even more so in hockey.

The sacrifice hockey coaches make for their teams is fuelled by passion and sustained by love. Love for the sport, love for their players, and love for helping people get better, unite, and find success.

I’ve never coached a hockey game. I’ve never even played a casual game of hockey. So I knew right from Day One that I needed to establish an environment for the Female Coaches Program that allowed vulnerability and authenticity not just to be accepted, but encouraged.

Like what I imagined a good coach would do, I led by example.

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A week ago, I listened back to the recording of our very first program meeting in 2020. I was summarizing to the group my findings from over 40 hours of one-on-one conversations I’d had with dozens of them during that initial eight-month planning period. We needed to deeply understand, in their words and lived experiences, the barriers to career advancement for women in hockey. As the meeting wrapped up, I took a deep breath, dropped any pretence that I knew what I was doing, and said just that: “I don’t know what I’m doing. But I know we need to do something. And we need all of you to help. We need to know what’s working and what’s not. We need your feedback. We’ll try things, and they may not work. We need your ideas. Let’s figure this out together. Let’s build this together.”

Vulnerability is a double-edged sword. When presented in the wrong situation, it can make you seem unsure of yourself, unprepared, or even worse, incapable. But when used in the right context, vulnerability is a powerful tool that can disarm and motivate. I learned that from being surrounded by 200 men. I learned that from NHL coaches.

“Control the controllables.” While I doubt that origin credit is due here, I first heard those words spoken by Mike Sullivan, current Head Coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins. It’s stuck with me. Many things have stuck with me while listening to NHL coaches over the past eight seasons that I’ve been with the NHL Coaches’ Association. I’ve been in a unique position to see their passion, dedication, and sacrifice first hand. That passion is infectious. It’s impossible not to be motivated by it. I’ve also been in the unique position of knowing them as human beings, not just as coaches scowling behind the bench every other night for seven or eight straight months.

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As I prepared for that first program meeting, I asked myself, what can I control? The answer was obvious: Access. While I’d never coached a hockey game myself, I knew 200 men who had coached a heck of a lot of them. And I had all their phone numbers.

No matter the level you coach – from Mites to Pro – there are commonalities amongst hockey coaches. One is that they are teachers. They want to share. They want people to learn and improve under their guidance. In the spring of 2020, with a pandemic having paused the NHL season, I opened my contact list and started calling NHL coaches. I needed their help. But I also figured they might need mine. They were unable coach. They were stuck at home. The abrupt halt to the season was jarring and left many of us feeling rudderless. My ask was simple: “Can you spend an hour with a group of aspiring female coaches talking about something you’re passionate about?”

In hindsight, I’ve come to see myself as lucky. Without the once-in-a-lifetime circumstances we found ourselves navigating in the spring of 2020, the immediate and overwhelming support from our NHL coaches may not have been available. The Female Coaches Program may have sputtered out. Maybe that’s a bit alarmist, but it certainly wouldn’t have come roaring out of the gate as strongly as it did. And that would have been a shame, because over the past four years, we’ve seen countless barriers broken by women as they climb the coaching ranks. Their stories aren’t always known, but we’re trying to change that.

In the Spring of 2020 when I called and asked our NHL coaches for their help, they immediately stepped up. Over the past four years, almost every NHL coach has helped support our program in one way or another.

Today is March 8, 2024, and I’m excited. I’m excited because in the very near future, when I pick-up the phone to call our NHL coaches and ask for their help, I’ll hear a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. I know I’ll be hearing many women’s voices over the many seasons ahead.