Campbell steps up for MS fundraiser

When Kristen Campbell looked for ways to capitalize on her celebrity as a Professional Women’s Hockey League player, A&W gave her an offer that brought it all home.

The 28-year-old Brandon product, who plays for the Vancouver Goldeneyes, is serving as national spokesperson for the restaurant chain’s annual Burgers to Beat MS Day on Thursday. It resonated deeply with the goaltender, whose mother Janet has battled multiple sclerosis for nearly three decades.

“She’s been a rock throughout my whole life and my hockey career,” Campbell said. “She was diagnosed in ‘99 so I was two years old. As long as I can remember, it was never about her. She always put everyone before herself, her kids, her family. She was always the one driving me to practices, to games.

“She never missed a game, she never missed a practice, she never missed a tournament. She never let MS define the way she wanted to live her life so she inspired me every day to show up and give it my all. Her determination and her grit and her work ethic, I say I get a lot of that from my mom.

“It’s really special for me to be the one supporting her now when she was always the one standing behind me and supporting me through my whole hockey career.”

Campbell, who spoke from Kelowna between training sessions, said she always wanted to be involved with the MS Society of Canada as she grew up, and with A&W’s similar commitment to the organization of the last 18 years, it simply made sense.

The chain is donating $2 from every teen burger sold on Thursday to the MS Society. She said her mom was pretty excited to hear the news.

This is her first year directly involved with the campaign, but it’s one she said she’s supported for a while by going to get her own teen burger. That won’t be changing this week.

“I’ll be there for sure,” Campbell said. “I can’t wait. I think a lot of my family is actually going to the No. 1 Highway A&W, my aunts, uncles, cousins. Everyone is going to meet up for a teen burger.”

People can also round up their bill and all of that goes to MS.

On a more personal level, the good news for the Campbell family is Janet is continuing to do well.

“Over the years, it’s been great that she’s been able to manage the disease and not let it progress at a rate that wouldn’t be manageable,” Campbell said. “She’s doing well. She’s able to walk. She has a lot of invisible symptoms, that I wouldn’t be able to see, but a lot of people don’t even know she lives with the disease because of how she’s able to show up. She’s fortunate in that way.”

GROWING GAME

The five-foot-10 Campbell spent two seasons with the Westman Wildcats before moving to Shaftesbury High School in Winnipeg for two seasons from 2013 to 2015.

She then headed to the University of North Dakota, redshirting for a year before finally seeing action in the 2016-17 season. After the women’s hockey program was unexpectedly shuttered, she made a fortuitous move to the Wisconsin Badgers for the 2017-18 season.

In the spring of 2019, she earned shutouts in all three playoff games as Wisconsin captured the NCAA Division I women’s Frozen Four hockey championship.

For her efforts, she was named the 2019 winner of The Brandon Sun’s Krug Crawford athlete as Westman’s athlete of the year.

She also played for the national team for five years and was part of the Canadian women’s hockey team that earned the top prize at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

After being selected 14th overall by Toronto in the PWHL’s inaugural draft in 2023, Campbell’s pro career began in 2023-24. She’s grateful for all the women who came before but didn’t have a chance to play at the PWHL level.

“Living the reality we are now is only possible thanks to the women who came before us who fought so hard to have an opportunity like this,” Campbell said. “It never came for them. Growing up, I idolized Cassie Campbell, Hayley Wickenheiser, that era of women’s hockey.

“Seeing those women involved in hockey and knowing the league is because of them, it really and truly is only there because they paved the way for us to believe we could play hockey. It’s amazing to run into those women now.”

After two seasons in Toronto — the league’s first year in 2023-24 and 2024-25 — Vancouver acquired her and Toronto’s third-round (19th overall) pick on June 24, 2025 for their second- and third-round picks (16th and 23rd overall) in 2025.

That gave Campbell a second opportunity to play on an expansion franchise in three years.

“It really was an incredible season, to bring PWHL hockey to the West Coast,” Campbell said. “It was something I’d never seen before. There are passionate fans but there is just something else about that Vancouver team fanbase.

“Everyone was just so genuinely and authentically on board for us. It was quite the season. To start a program from the ground up, you’re building that foundation and laying the groundwork for years to come, so it was definitely a challenge but I had done it in year one with Toronto where we starting from scratch with all teams.”

The Westman Wildcats actually have two former players skating in Vancouver, with blue-liner Ashton Bell of Deloraine serving as captain. While the pair didn’t play together in Hartney — Bell is two years younger — they did skate together on the national team, including at the Olympics in 2022.

They also played together on Team Manitoba when Bell skated as an underager.

“We come from small towns in Manitoba and to be able to share that experience … we enjoy getting to play alongside each other and obviously get to know each other really well outside of the rink too,” Campbell said. “It’s neat to think about where we came from and that we played for the Westman Wildcats growing up.

“… One day we’re going to be able look back and reflect on it all and be ‘Wow, we were part of the first handful of years of the league. Right now, since we’re living in it, we’re soaking it in together each and every day.”

LONG BREAK

It will be a while until they get back to work, however.

Camps don’t open until mid-November for the PWHL, which now has 12 teams with the addition of Detroit, Las Vegas, San Jose and Hamilton. The Goldeneyes haven’t played since April 25, so it’s been a long off-season.

“It’s kind of nice,” Campbell said. “The first couple of months, you’re able to relax a little bit and decompress from the season. I went home to Manitoba for a couple of weeks, I travelled for a bit and then I got back into workouts.

“It’s about being intentional right now because even right now, we have three-and-a-half months until the first game of the season.”

She is back skating and working out, but is doing it with progression in mind so that she’s ready when the puck drops.

Campbell said that opportunity for players to earn a living and hone their craft full time is leading to a rapid acceleration in the quality of the play.

“Looking from year one to year three, even just the pace of play … now we have a league where we can train every day and we can focus on our crafts full time now so you can just see the development in players,” Campbell said. “Everyone is just faster and more skilled, better shots, better releases. It gets better and better each year, so as goalies, we have to keep evolving our game too so we keep stepping it up, just like the players. It’s been pretty exciting.

“Even watching younger girls, whether it’s U18 or just younger girls now, it’s crazy to see the skill level. It’s insane, miles from where we were at that age. It’s exciting for women’s hockey as a whole.”

That growth has also fuelled a sea of change in the visibility of the world’s best female hockey players, and given them the ability to use that celebrity for the things they believe in.

And for Campbell, it’s the chance to help out a cause that is near and dear to her heart.

“It’s special to be able to do that,” Campbell said. “Obviously with the women’s game growing, the growth of the game and all the fans watching us now, to have that platform we have is a special opportunity, and then to be able to use it in ways that support the things we believe in, the things we stand for and the causes that are important to us is just a really great opportunity and something I’m really excited that I get to do.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com