10
ATHLETICS
Following a successful playing career cut short by injury,
Jason Botterill ’94 is making a name for himself on the
management side of professional hockey
On the
OTHER SIDE
of the Ice
by Jana F. Brown
s the New Year emerged, the Pittsburgh
Penguins were riding a rollercoaster, as
winners of five of their last 10 games
between the end of December and the initial days
of 2016. Perennial superstar Sidney Crosby, by
many considered the best player in the National
Hockey League, was finally getting his game
together after an early-season slump, and new
head coach Mike Sullivan was adjusting to life
behind the Pittsburgh bench.
Around the same time, the Penguins recalled
forwards Tom K
ü
hnhackl and Bryan Rust and
defenseman Adam Clendening fromWilkes-Barre/
Scranton, Pa., of the American Hockey League
and reassigned forwards Scott Wilson and Conor
Sheary back to the AHL. The Pittsburgh manage-
ment team also conducted its mid-season amateur
scouting meetings to evaluate players the team
might consider acquiring in the June Entry Draft.
One of those overseeing the ups and downs
and transactions of the big club and its minor
league affiliates was Associate General Manager
Jason Botterill ’94, whose varied daily routine
might include checking in with the coaching
staff in Wilkes-Barre, evaluating the Penguins’
salary cap in consideration of a trade with another
NHL club, or initiating contract negotiations
with one of the dozens of agents who represent
the players.
“Part of why I enjoy my job so much is that the
days can be so different and there are so many
different touch points,” says Botterill. “I can’t plan
too much. I may be talking with [Penguins General
Manager] Jim Rutherford about a trade, or we
may be trying to figure out who to call up when
a player has been injured the night before. All of
that is what makes my job so intriguing.”
Botterill didn’t plan on joining the management
side of professional sports. A native of Winnipeg,
Manitoba, he grew up playing pond hockey after
school and dreaming of skating in the National
Hockey League, like so many other young play-
ers in Canada. Athletics were imprinted on the
Botterill family DNA; Jason’s father, Cal, worked
as a sports psychologist and college professor,
while his mother, Doreen, was a teacher, who
represented Canada as a speed skater in the
1964 and 1968 Winter Olympics. Sister Jennifer
Botterill is one of the most decorated women’s
hockey players in Canadian hockey history.
A
