‘There’s so much room for all of us’ Botterill’s memoir Why Not You is sure to inspire future rosters in women’s sports By: Grace Anne Paizen Posted: 5:36 PM CDT Sunday, Sep. 20, 2026

Decorated Olympian. Hard-hitting hockey analyst. Inspiring author. Winnipeg’s own Jennifer Botterill is adding yet another chapter in her historic and storied career.

Botterill’s autobiography Why Not You: My Story of Perseverance, Hockey, and Olympic Gold, that hits the shelves Sept. 22, takes a step-by-step look back at the former forward’s many sports lives — from her days as a ringette player growing up in Winnipeg in the 1980s, to her Olympic debut as a fresh-faced 18-year-old at the 1998 Nagano Games, to her burgeoning career as a hockey analyst as part of the beloved Hockey Night in Canada broadcast crew.

And wrapping up her long resumé was something she already had in the works before she was inducted into the Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame last November.

“It was just nice timing on how it all worked out,” Botterill told the Free Press last week.

“This book has sort of been on my radar, on my wish list for many, many years, and I think it started when I was still playing and competing for Canada and how much I loved the experiences.”

And true to form, the gritty former Team Canada stalwart put had put just as many reps into her memoir as she did to make the cut in every Olympic cycle from 1998 to 2010.

“With anything I’m involved with, I want to make sure that I have the time to dedicate enough to it, to make it a quality project, and so finally, it felt like the time was right,” she explained. “I had spoken to Kristina Rutherford, who I collaborated with on this project, and it was just an amazing fit from our first conversation in terms of understanding.

“I think she really understood my point of view, so that through our conversations, through our writing, it just felt authentic and sincere, and so in that sense, it was just a real honour and a privilege to have the chance to put this all together, where it’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I’m just so happy we were able to complete the project.”

The process on delving deep into every Olympic milestone in the book was intentional. No reader will complain about lack of details covered in Botterill’s pursuit of wearing the Maple Leaf. From the nervousness of finding out as a teenage rookie she would make her debut in Nagano along with the women’s sport, to the euphoria of wrapping up a storied international career at home in Vancouver with a historic gold, no detail is missed.

“It felt like the time was right.”

“The process on reflecting on, ‘How much detail do we include?… I feel like that part of it maybe was challenging on figuring out,” Botterill said.

“We wanted to make sure we included enough so we can take people through those moments, what was happening, how I felt, but also knowing that I was fortunate to have a pretty long playing career,” she added. “Which moments felt the most impactful or the most meaningful, or what moments I learned the most from.”

While Botterill documents her historic firsts during her decorated college career with the Harvard Crimson — including becoming the first Canadian to win the Patty Kazmaier award as top player in NCAA Division 1 women’s college hockey and still holding the record as the first NCAA player to earn the award twice (2001 and 2003) — an interesting angle in her story was how not having a pro league never mentally hindered her.

Though she was a member of the PWHL’s proto league — playing for the Mississauga Chiefs (2007-2009) and Toronto Furies (2010-11) of the now defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League — the forward’s push for the Olympic cycle is what mainly propelled her career forward.

“I think it was balance,” she explained. “People have often asked how we felt about it. I think it was just this balance between us knowing what we wanted for the future, because certainly a professional league is what we wished for and dreamed for, but it wasn’t the reality of what we had, so it wasn’t something that could consume you.

“I think we also had to focus and enjoy and appreciate the environment. The opportunities that we did have, in terms of having the chance to prepare for an Olympic cycle, or the Olympic games, or when I was in Toronto after university, or when I was in Calgary before I made my first Olympic team, I found an opportunity to be surrounded by other great athletes and great hockey players that helped me to develop and felt like it was different… than playing in a professional league.”

“The process on reflecting on, ‘How much detail do we include?… I feel like that part of it maybe was challenging on figuring out.”

Botterill sung the praises of those who helped her along the way, including her teammate France St. Louis, who starred in the Nagano Games along side the rookie, twenty years Botterill’s senior.

“I just feel like she has always been so gracious and I just always admired that,” Botterill said.

“When we were both vying for spots on that first Olympic roster and in two very different situations… it was just the idea of not being threatened or taking competition to a negative space. It was just the opposite for her on, ‘What can I do to help? How can I elevate you or the people that we’re surrounded by,’ and so she was just someone I — to this day — continue to respect and admire.”

Botterill also says how welcoming veteran Cassie Campbell-Pascall was as well, particularly when Botterill was new on the broadcasting roster.

“She’s been another amazing mentor and friend,” Botterill said. “She was the one that first got on to CBC and Hockey Night, and doing these games, and when I first started in the industry, like before I ever got to Sportsnet, it was, ‘Wow, Botts, this is amazing!’

“There’s so much room for all of us, not like, ‘Uh-oh, are there more females joining the space?’ It was just like, ‘This is so great, this is what we want,’ so she’s amazing.”

Of course, achieving her own dreams — whether it was in hockey or in broadcasting — those goals were always achievable in her own household.

Her brother, Jason, was drafted 20th overall by the NHL’s Dallas Stars in 1994. And Botterill’s mother is Hall of Famer and decorated speed skater Doreen McCannell-Botterill, who was only 16 years old at her first Olympic games in 1964.

And on the mental side of the game, whether in sports or at the broadcast desk, her father Cal Botterill is a sports psychologist, who was worked for several teams around the NHL.

The title of the memoir Why Not You is just one example of his sage advice throughout the autobiography.

“I think the big thing, too, with my family, was just communication was such an important part of it,” Botterill said. “My mom, my dad, my brother — they all did amazing things in sport and life, but there was never pressure for us. I think that was just something that was really nice to be in an environment where it was just encouraged and communicated on what’s possible.

“My mom, my dad, my brother … they all did amazing things in sport and life, but there was never pressure for us.”

“And so I think that’s one of the biggest things when I went through this process and putting the book together, it was just looking back and thinking how meaningful that was for me, and it was talking things through with them to just understand what possibilities were, and hopefully now, for everything moving forward. It’s just about choice. And pro sports, not that you have to, but I love the choice is there for people.”

And while Botterill will not be returning to Sportsnet this fall, she said she has new and exciting plans that are being finalized.

But for now, the puck drops on her book tour in her home town on Tuesday in Grant Park’s McNally Robinson Atrium at 7 p.m.

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