Moving Forward With Hockey And Life 

Kraken general manager Jason Botterill was hanging out at the intersection of innocuous and harmless when realizing he’d stumbled into one of life’s crossroads from which there was no turning back.

Playing for the AHL Rochester Americans on Halloween Night in 2004, the hulking forward took a “routine” hockey blow to his chest from an opposing Syracuse Crunch player that briefly snapped his head backward. That whiplash-like effect, however momentary, caused the latest of several Botterill concussions, one his doctors warned had best be his last because the next blow might cause permanent brain damage or even death.

So, Botterill, still only 28, hung up his skates for good after 88 career NHL games and 393 minor pro contests and sought out his former University of Michigan coach about what to do with the rest of his life.

“I was disappointed, obviously, because while I’d had the honor of playing in the NHL, it didn’t meet all of my aspirations – playing more games, having a bit more success,” said Botterill, 48, who this week became an NHL general manager for the second time when elevated by the Kraken after four years as an assistant to Ron Francis. “I felt like I still had more to give and was still developing as a player, so it was difficult to step away. But I was still young enough to go back to school and had thought about getting my MBA. And I knew my coach was one of the first guys to make the NHL straight out of college and had a lot of experience with school and hockey life.”

In fact, former 17-year NHL stalwart Red Berenson had won a Stanley Cup with Montreal in 1965, then found himself back in Ann Arbor, Michigan the very next day to start working towards his own MBA at the university where he’d later coach. Botterill’s ensuing talks with Berenson helped convince him to get his MBA, which led to a front office career with three NHL teams and his own Stanley Cup victories, three of them with Pittsburgh as an assistant GM to Ray Shero and Jim Rutherford.

“I realize now that the fact I got out of playing in time was what let me go on to grad school and start this new career,” Botterill said. “To do the stuff I did in Pittsburgh and then here, the whole thing really was a blessing in disguise.”

For his former coach Berenson, now 85 and still living in Ann Arbor after coaching the Wolverines from 1984-2017, Botterill already had the perspective to know what he needed to do.

“I used to preach to players that this was why they were coming to school – that there’s life after hockey,” said Berenson, a six-time NHL all-star center and left wing who scored 261 career goals for Montreal, the New York Rangers, St. Louis and Detroit and later coached the Blues for three seasons – winning the Jack Adams Award in 1979-80. “It used to be that if you had a bachelor’s degree it would get you in most doors. But it was getting to the point that you needed a master’s degree.

“So, I was promoting to our players, especially the ones that were better than average students, to try and get an MBA or a law degree after they graduated or were done playing. And Jason was one of those kids who was a good listener. And he was interested in his whole life, not just the hockey part of his life.”

Part of that was Botterill’s upbringing in a Winnipeg, Manitoba home equally versed in athletics and academics. His father, Cal Botterill, was a pioneer of sorts in sports psychology and even co-wrote a book titled “Perspective: The Key To Life” the final seasons of his son’s pro career.

He'd moved the family from Edmonton, Alberta to Ottawa and then Winnipeg to take a full-time professor’s job at the local university there when a young Jason was only 4.

Botterill’s dad became rather widely known to Canadian sports fans as the psychologist for the country’s national hockey teams and several NHL squads. He'd also been a onetime junior level, college and minor pro player, though his on-ice exploits now arguably rank dead last among the family’s achievements.

That’s because Botterill’s mother, Doreen, was a two-time Canadian Olympic speed skater, competing under her maiden name of Doreen McCannell, in 1964 and 1968. She later became an elementary school physical education teacher and was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.

Botterill’s sister, Jennifer, a Harvard University graduate three years younger than him, made it to four Winter Olympics in 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010 as a star center for Canada’s national women’s hockey team – winning three gold medals and a silver. She also played professionally in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League ahead of embarking on her current broadcast career with Sportsnet and last November joined her mother with a Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame induction.

“I had a lot of competition in my family,” Botterill said.

Not to be outdone, Botterill himself made history as the first player to ever win three consecutive gold medals at the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships since the tournament became a sanctioned event in 1977, doing so for Canada from 1994 to 1996. It was also in 1996 that Botterill won a national championship at Michigan playing for Berenson.

Prior to that, he’d been drafted 20th overall by Dallas in 1994. Upon graduating from Michigan with a degree in economics, he immediately jumped to the NHL for four games with Dallas the spring of 1997. The possibilities seemed endless for the talented 6-foot-4, 220-pound winger.

But then, as he bounced between the minors and NHL in ensuing seasons, the concussions began piling up and ended it all before it seemingly ever got started.

“It was kind of heartbreaking,” his father said. “He just loved the game so much. But we were also relieved that he saw the writing on the wall. That it just didn’t make sense anymore.”

Cal Botterill said his son had always kept post-hockey life in mind, even while growing up getting tennis balls blasted at his shins by his younger hockey-playing sister.

Botterill was a talented teenage prospect in Winnipeg when drafted by the major junior Brandon Wheat Kings and that team’s general manager, current Vegas Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon. But even then, Botterill made it clear to McCrimmon – a Michigan grad himself – that he was eyeing a college path and kept asking him how much time he’d have for school in between Wheat Kings practices and games.

“Kelly had experienced both,” Botterill’s dad said of McCrimmon. “He’d played both major junior and college before there were restrictions on doing both. And he could see Jason wasn’t a typical junior hockey guy even though he wanted him on the team.”

His dad by then was working with the Chicago Blackhawks and introduced Botterill to star forward Jeremy Roenick. It would be Roenick’s family that ultimately pushed Botterill towards the U.S. prep school route and attending St. Paul’s School in Connecticut ahead of joining the Michigan Wolverines.

Botterill spent just one year there, and then, having fast-tracked through high school, began attending the University of Michigan at age 17.

“He was always very sharp, very bright and very academic,” said Brendan Morrison, his former Michigan teammate and longtime friend who enjoyed a 14-year NHL career with Vancouver and six other teams. “He was just a tremendous individual all around.”

Morrison said Botterill was obviously disappointed when his pro career ended but seemed to feel “relief” at the finality and the decision being taken from his hands.

“The one thing I know about Jason is that he never was down, never hung his head too long,” Morrison said. “He’s always been a very motivated, very driven individual.”

And that helped Botterill, upon gaining his MBA, to get an internship at the NHL’s head office and Central Registry for a year. The Penguins hired him after that in 2007 as their director of hockey administration, where he became a salary cap specialist in the early years of the NHL having one.

Botterill also gained expertise in contract research and negotiations under general manager Ray Shero as the Penguins reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2008 and won a title in 2009. That summer, Botterill was promoted to assistant GM and by 2011 was named by influential Hockey News magazine as one of hockey’s Top-40 most powerful people under age 40.

“He was one of those guys putting those championship rosters together,” Morrison said. “The cap era was fairly new and there were a lot of projections that had to be done as far as what guys would make and anticipating the future. Not unlike today, but it was all new. He just jumped in with both feet and did it.”

Penguins’ GM Shero, son of legendary Philadelphia Flyers coach and onetime Seattle Ironmen defenseman Fred Shero, became a mentor to Botterill, showing him the ropes of an NHL front office. Ray Shero is known for spawning an NHL executive tree, with other GMs that include Tom Fitzgerald – first hired to the Penguins’ front office the same day as Botterill – in New Jersey, Bill Guerin in Minnesota and Patrik Alvin in Vancouver.

“I’m proud to be known as a ‘Ray’ guy,” Botterill said. “We had a smaller front office, and even though I was sort of a rookie executive, I was a part of all the discussions, and he was great at looking for my opinion. Did he listen to my opinion all the time? No way. But I was a part of those discussions, of our trade possibilities and stuff like that.

“So, when Chuck Fletcher left after my second year and went to Minnesota, I felt I was ready to take over as assistant GM,” he added. “Because they had brought me into all the conversations.”

Botterill said Shero showed him the importance of “hiring the right people” and having fallback plans.

“What I was always so impressed by was he always had his ‘Plan A’ but he also had his ‘Plan B, C, D and E’ in case Plan A didn’t come to fruition.”

And by the time Shero -- who died this month at age 62 after battling cancer -- was fired by the Penguins in 2014, Botterill was named interim GM and was rumored his full-time successor.

But the Pens ultimately lured veteran GM Jim Rutherford over from Carolina, where he’d enjoy his best success winning two more Cups for Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017 with Botterill as his assistant.

“Jim was amazing at figuring out trades and what a team needs from that perspective,” Botterill said. “But he gave me even more authority to oversee the scouting staffs and have what I felt was a well-rounded resume and having a lot of responsibility in running these departments.”

By that point, Botterill was considered a top GM candidate league-wide and the Buffalo Sabres pounced.

Botterill, during his GM stint in Buffalo from 2017-2020, expanded upon what he’d learned, drafting current Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin as well as Dylan Cozens – now with Ottawa – while trading for eventual 40-goal scorer Tage Thompson. He also got a taste of GM life on a bottom-tier team and experienced challenges different from perennial playoff Penguins squads he’d worked for.

“It made me better prepared to be a general manager now,” said Botterill, cut loose after three losing seasons for a Buffalo franchise now at 14 straight non-playoff campaigns. “In Pittsburgh, we were buyers at the trade deadline every year. We were going for the Stanley Cups. You have pressure there of living up to those Cup expectations, but then you get to Buffalo, and you go through experiences too.

“There’s the pressure of drafting first overall. There’s a different dynamic of trading at the deadline. And not just sustaining the culture, but you’re trying to build a culture, too.”

Upon joining the Kraken a year later in 2021, he returned to focusing on and mastering specific areas. Francis tasked him with overseeing player development and the pro scouting side of team operations.

Botterill became a key component of player trades, free agent signings and adding input into top draft picks. “On the draft side of things, you’re evaluating 18-year-old kids and trying to differentiate between a kid that’s in Minnesota high school and a kid playing over in the Swedish elite league against men,” Botterill said. “There isn’t an exact science to it and at the end of the day, there are some heavy discussions around it.”

Discussions with the same front office members he’ll continue working closely with minus the guesswork of having to get to know a new team. His Kraken and prior experiences, he said, left him well equipped to take over and he feels there “isn’t much that can happen in this industry that I haven’t been a part of.”

He also gets to be part of life with his wife and two young daughters, minus the post-concussion symptoms that dogged him the first few years after his playing career ended.

“I look back now and hey, I’m still in the game – a game I have such a love and appreciation for,” Botterill said. “If I’d gone back and played, maybe now I can’t do certain things.

“So, thankfully, I had people around me to give me the right advice and certainly support me on moving forward with my life.”