When the topic of hockey's greatest leader comes up, the usual suspects are always named: Mark Messier. Steve Yzerman. Phil Esposito. Joe Sakic.I think the greatest leader in hockey may not even have been a NHL guy. In fact, the greatest leader may not have been a guy at all.
As the long time captain of Canada's national women's team, Cassie Campbell led the nation to two Olympic golds and a world championship. She is one of Canada's all time most decorated athletes, adding 5 more world championships, as well as an Olympic and world championship silver medal to her medal count. She is the only Canadian hockey player to captain back to back Olympic gold medal championships.
And she did all that while earning an honours degree in Sociology and raising 100's of 1000's of dollars for charity.
No one earned more respect as a leader than Campbell. Wayne Gretzky was very complimentary of her as a great hockey leader:
"I was totally impressed with her ability to motivate the Canadian women's team both on and off the ice. Not only did she work hard as a player during the actual games, but she seemed to go above and beyond her duties as captain to try and keep her team together off the ice."
Now that she has retired, Cassie Campbell has dedicated herself to being a true ambassador to not just women's hockey, but all of hockey. She is truly an amazing and inspiring person we can all look up to.
One of Campbell's initiatives is the new book H.E.A.R.T
. In the book Campbell shares her secrets of success, and how we can all use not only to be better athletes, but better people.H is for hard work. E is for experience and education. A is for attitude. R is for responsibility and respect. T is for teamwork. Combined they form the word heart, but they also form success.
And this book isn't all self help talk. She also talks about her many experiences she had while on the national team for 13 years. She includes several great stories, and talks about her teammates and her opponents.
Though the book is considered juvenile literature, this book isn't specifically geared towards kids, although they will be easily draw by it. Adults can also take a lot from this book.
Kids and adults, girls and boys, women and men, hockey fans and non hockey fans will like it and hopefully latch on to the principles quickly.
When asked the question 'who should read this book?' the answer is simple: Everybody.
Comments