Is the NHL’s first female coach a sign of progress or imminent disaster?
On October 8, Jessica Campbell coached her first game as an assistant coach for the Seattle Kraken. Campbell is the first female coach in the NHL.
According to reports, when asked about his decision to hire Campbell, head coach Dan Bylsma claimed that he was simply hiring the best coach, and Campbell fit the bill.
Her list of accolades is long and impressive. Campbell played college hockey at Cornell University, won numerous medals playing on Canada’s national team, and even played professionally in Canada and Sweden.
Is this a situation in which a woman really is the best-qualified candidate? Or is this simply the woke agenda disguised as meritocracy?
Jason Whitlock and Steve Kim discuss the unique situation.
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“I just can’t see this not ending poorly,” says Jason, pointing to the reality that Campbell is 32, attractive, and surrounded by male athletes in the same age range.
“I would hate to be the HR department for Seattle,” he tells Steve.
Steve, however, thinks that a bigger problem is the fact that a female will have authority over men.
“At the highest levels of professional sports, there is no man that wants to be coached by any woman,” regardless of what they’ve been conditioned to say, he tells Jason.
“If you’re going to be screamed at, if you’re going to have a finger pointed in your direction, if you’re going to be disciplined at that level of athletics, men want to be disciplined by other men,” he claims.
But Jason sees an even bigger issue.
Granted the amount of money the NHL players make, he thinks they will be motivated to “hop on board” with inviting women into the league. However, in private they will be resentful because “this isn’t really about competition,” and they’re being forced to be “part of some social experiment.”
According to Jason, behind the scenes, the players will be thinking, ‘“They’ve got this 32-year-old hot blonde coaching me; this is a television show, it’s not a competition.”’
“I think it harms the integrity of the game, and it makes the players more cynical about the actual sport they’re competing in,” he explains.
Steve then points out that men’s hockey is still “largely a white sport with a lot of guys from different parts of the world where none of this DEI stuff is actually going on.”
“I actually wonder how these guys are going to take to quote-unquote female leadership,” he says.
“The DEI stuff is global,” Jason counters, “but as it relates to the athletes inside their homes … you’re right, this is not the construct that they grew up with.”
“I do think most of these white athletes … are from a two-parent household structure that probably is more patriarchal than matriarchal,” he adds, noting that this will only serve to “enhance the cynicism” of the athletes forced to submit to Campbell’s authority.
Going back to the reality that Campbell is young and attractive, Jason is sure it’s not going to end well.
“It’s like whatever woman is there during training camp, let’s say if in real life she’s a six, during training camp she’s an eight and a half, damn near a nine,” he says, drawing on his own experience playing football at Ball State.
“The female trainers turned into the most attractive people on planet Earth,” he recalls, adding that Campbell “will be under attack in that environment.”
To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip above.
