I do not post much anymore - been close to 2 years since my last post - but I think some of you forget how lucky we are to have Cassie Campell-Pascal doing Flames games. She's a ground breaking icon who has mad respect around the game of hockey.
Her resume:
- Team Captain of 2 Team Canada Olympic Gold Medal winning Teams. The pressure and lead up to the 2002 win in particular was unreal (for those of you too young to have remembered).
- She's a member of the Order of Canada
- She replaced Eric Duhatschek on the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee when Duhatschek's term ended. She became the first woman on that committee. https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...ion-committee/
Let me say that again:
The highest level of the hockey community thinks highly enough of Cassie Campbell-Pascal that they asked her to replace Eric Duhatschek on the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee. No one on this site can remotely compete with that. No one.
She's a Member of the Order of Canada. Again, that is our nation's highest honor for its citizens.
Along with 3 other leading Canadian women athletes (Jen Kish, Kerrin Lee-Gartner and Fran Rider), she has agreed to donate her brain for the Canadian Concussion Centre. The CCC has analyzed the brains of 44 former professional athletes but they were all male donors. This will permit the examination on the effects of concussions on female brains as well.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/former...arch-1.3924208
As her husband works for the Flames, she has to demonstrate her objectivity and goes out of her way to speak about the other team and player otherwise she'll be called a homer. Even with that said, I received a text last night from an Oiler fan hollering about Cassie highlighting Tkachuk.
I enjoy her on the HNIC crew. But for 1 game a couple weeks ago, i've always enjoyed her participation. I think she gets better each time out and my daughters seem to notice when they hear a "girl" speaking about the game. Listening - actually listening - I think she's holding back on what she may really want to say at times so as to not be overly critical. Instead she is trying to spin the situation in a positive way for an opposing player rather than call out the poor play of another. Interestingly, in doing that she's opening herself up to critique. My hope is that she continues to grow and actually lets us know what she really wants to say some times. I'd like to see them ask her how she would have approached certain situations in her role as "Captain".
You don't become Team Captain of the planet's best women's hockey team if you're not able to see when players aren't performing and then deal with it - whether on the bench, in the dressing room, at practice, off ice etc. There have only been five people to be Team Captain of the Women's Team Canada at the Olympics. She is the only person to have done so twice. We won both times. Best in the world.
The objective indicators of her expertise are beyond compare. I don't know what more we can ask of a colour commentator that she doesn't bring to the table.
She is a ground breaker.
She's a credit to the sport of hockey.
We are so lucky to have her doing Flames games.