CWHL All-Star Game Preview: ‘Grandma Rookie’ Campbell to Lead Team White

CWHL’s best to show off their talent as part of All-Star Weekend

SportsJordan Stoopler — Published February 9, 2017

The group has combined for 21 Olympic Gold Medals and 14 Clarkson Cup championships.

Toronto Furies defender Carlee Campbell, who was selected by the fans to captain one of the two teams, has a hard time believing that she is included in this coveted list.

“I feel so lucky because I am not a name in this league,” said Campbell after a recent game in Montreal against Les Canadiennes. “I’m sure there are other people who deserve this more than I do. It’s an honour to say the least.”

It is Campbell’s first year in the league at the age of 28. After a four-year stint with the NCAA’s Clarkson Golden Knights, Campbell decided to take some time off in order to seek some “consistency” in her day-to-day life. She found a job at Sales Force, a cloud computing company, and got married during her six-year hiatus from hockey.

Campbell is back, however, with a vengeance. After being selected with the Furies’ 11th round selection this past summer, Campbell has become a mainstay on the Toronto blue-line, collecting one goal and eight assists along the way.

While it was the league that chose the All-Stars themselves in early January, it was then up to the fans to decide who would captain Team White and Team Blue and bear the responsibility of having to draft their respective teams.

After just over three weeks of online voting, it was Campbell who led the way, earning 11.85% of the popular vote. While initially shocked by the outcome, she has since come to realize how she ended up on top.

“I had the power of the workforce at work,” said Campbell. “Everybody was voting. It got sent to all of our hubs around North America. When word got out that there was a professional women’s hockey player around the office, they went nuts.”

She will be opposed by her captain in Toronto, Natalie Spooner as well as Meaghan Mikkelson of the Calgary Inferno. Both players came in a tie for second place amongst voters, garnering 11.71% of the overall vote.

“It will be fun,” said Campbell. “It will be a little intimidating having her against me, but I know we are going to have a great time with it.”

What makes the Spooner-Mikkelson duo all the more interesting is the fact that both competed together on season two of the CTV reality show The Amazing Race Canada. They finished in second place on the program.

“It makes it more exciting,” said Spooner. “We were pretty pumped. What are the chances that it would be us? We’ve been chatting. We are super excited to be captains together.”

Spooner served as a captain last season, but ultimately lost to the team headed by Canadiennes defender, and Concordia Stingers women’s hockey head coach, Julie Chu. She vowed to “try harder this year” to come out on top.

Chu will also be back at the All-Star game this year. She is one of eight Canadiennes players participating in this weekend’s festivities. She just hopes to soak in every last moment in what should be a special afternoon of hockey.

“As I get older, every one of these opportunities is special, especially with all the talented players that are out there in our league right now,” said Chu. “I don’t take that for granted. I am going to make sure that I enjoy every moment of getting a chance to play at the Air Canada Centre and represent les Canadiennes and the CWHL in a really awesome game.”

Ann-Sophie Bettez, another Canadiennes representative, aims to show, on a larger stage, that women can compete.

“We want to be able to put on a show for the fans and prove to everyone that girls can play hockey,” said Bettez. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

As leading vote-getter, it will be Campbell who will get to pick first when the CWHL Fantasy Draft is held on Friday night at the Hilton Toronto hotel. Each team will select their starting line-ups, with the remainder of the team being randomly chosen the old-school way, through the selection of random hockey sticks.

Campbell has a good idea of who her first overall selection will be, but remained mum about the player’s identity. Spooner later chimed in that Campbell better not pick Canadiennes forward and reigning league MVP Marie-Philip Poulin with the top spot.

The game will be played on Saturday at the Air Canada Centre, with puck-drop at 1:30 PM. The game can be seen on tape-delay at 3:45 PM on Rogers Sportsnet.