Jennifer Botterill

Jennifer Botterill

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Three-Time Olympic Hockey Gold Medalist, Harvard Graduate, Motivational Keynote Speaker, NHL Broadcaster

Jennifer Botterill is a consummate professional who brings her high-performance mindset to every opportunity. As a decorated collegiate hockey player with Harvard University and a three-time Olympic champion with the Canadian National Team, her success on the ice has translated to a flourishing career off of it. Not only is Jennifer the CEO of two companies, she has also established a strong presence at the highest level of NHL broadcasting. She is the only NHL analyst to be on the main panel for national networks in both Canada and the USA. Jennifer’s work with Turner Sports (Warner Media) and Sportsnet (Rogers) includes in studio analysis, and in game analysis at ice level in between the benches. When she is not sharing her knowledge and expertise for sport on the air, she is empowering others to pursue excellence with her engaging keynote presentations and career coaching.

Jennifer was born in Ottawa but raised in Winnipeg, and sport has always been a core part of her family life. Her mother Doreen is a two-time Olympic speed skater, and her father Cal was a hockey player, and is a sports psychologist working with NHL and Olympic athletes. Her brother Jason played professional hockey and won three World Junior Championships for Canada, After his elite playing career, Jason has worked front-office roles in the sport, now the assistant GM for the Seattle Kraken.

Her family encouraged a high-performance mindset from an early age, ensuring Jennifer was just as dedicated to her school work as she was to sport. Her first memories of hockey were from playing ball hockey in the basement with her brother, but it wasn’t until she was 13 that she began to seriously pursue the sport. Her passion lead her to attend the National Sport School, and later graduate from Harvard University with an Honors degree in Psychology.

Jennifer debuted for national team at the 3 Nations Cup in 1997, at the age of 18, and subsequently was named to the first-ever Canadian Olympic women’s hockey roster in 1998. During her freshman year at Harvard University, she helped the Crimson to their first-ever national title in Women’s hockey. She continued to rack up the achievements, becoming the only two-time winner of the Patty Kazmaier award (for the top player in women’s college hockey) and named a four-time All-American.

Throughout her collegiate career, and beyond, Jennifer was a member of Canadian National Women’s Hockey Team for 14 years, amassing 17 gold medals for Canada during that time. She is a four-time Olympic medallist (including 3 gold medals), a five-time World Champion, and was named MVP of the World Championships twice. Jennifer also played for the Toronto Aeros, Mississauga Hockey Club, and the Toronto CWHL team.

In 2011, Jennifer kicked off her broadcast career with TSN for the Women’s World Championships. Since then, she has grown her credentials with MSG Network (New York Islanders broadcasts), CBC (Hockey Night in Canada, Olympic coverage), and Sportsnet (Hometown Hockey, Wednesday Night Hockey, Hockey Central, Hockey Night in Canada). She also joined the highly-anticipated broadcast team for Turner Sports’ NHL on TNT coverage for the 2021-2022 season. Jennifer was also a part of NBC’s first-ever all-women NHL broadcast team in 2020, inspiring the next generation of excellence in broadcasters.

As the CEO of Excel in Life Inc.; Journey to Excel Inc., Jennifer continues her pursuit of excellence while inspiring and coaching others along the way. CCM Hockey named Jennifer to their Board of Directors in 2021, bringing her experience as a hockey player and mentor to the brand as it continues to develop tools for athletes to perform at their best. In 2006, Jennifer was awarded the Order of Manitoba, and has continually given back to her community as an ambassador for Right to Play, and work with charities such as Special Olympics, Kidsport, Children’s Wish Foundation, SickKids Hospital, CanFund, Hockey Canada Foundation, and Canadian Cancer Society.

She is based in Toronto with her husband Adrian and their three children, but travels internationally for her career.

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Speaking topics

Why Not You? How to Excel in Life and Business

In this keynote Jennifer focuses on how to reach new levels of excellence in your personal and professional life.  She addresses the importance of setting high standards for yourself in every capacity.  Jennifer provides tools that her audience can start to apply on a daily basis.  She encourages an approach for sustainable excellence and provides techniques on how to perform at your best on a consistent level. Jennifer shares techniques to help with preparation and she discusses the critical importance of time management.  She helps people to strive towards their ideal performance state and to take a ‘no regrets’ approach to each day.  Jennifer wants every person to think about the lasting impact that they would like to create in their lives, and she will help them to achieve this.

Resiliency! Thriving in a Changing Environment

The path that we face isn’t always as we may have imagined.  Jennifer addressees the benefits of adapting to change.  We have a choice to make every day, and Jennifer demonstrates how we can learn to shift our perspective to make the most of our environment. Jennifer shares stories and messages that have helped her on her evolving path through life, sport and business.  She provides examples on how we need to do things differently to get better results that we have in the past.  Jennifer shares ideas on how to be productive and efficient in every way.  She teaches how to control potential distractions and how to maintain a strong level of focus.  She encourages people to strive towards new excellence – in any environment.

Teamwork! The Journey to Success Together

Jennifer has decades of experience in various team settings!  She recognizes the value of teamwork and shares lessons that have been the most valuable. Jennifer demonstrates the benefits of bringing out the best in those around you.  She helps teams and organizations to create a positive culture.  Each person has an attitude that has the potential to be very contagious.  She knows that it can be extremely helpful to create healthy competition and to embrace a positive rivalry in many situations.  Each role within a team is equally important, and Jennifer teaches how to shift your perspective to help the group to succeed.

Women In Business! Reaching new levels of excellence

Video clips

Jennifer Botterill

Speaker testimonials

Scotiabank/VIRTUAL EVENT: Jennifer was incredible! We had a couple of prep meetings with her, she took our feedback and totally ‘hit the marks’ we were looking for. We surveyed the team – and the feedback was consistent; inspirational, authentic, high energy, alignment to our culture, and the story telling was awesome! I would highly recommend Jennifer for other speaking engagements with more of your customers! Jennifer brought exactly the messaging and energy we were looking for. Her comments and story-telling style of messaging resonated well with teams. Jennifer was a pleasure to work with – thank you for the recommendation.

Jennifer was amazing! She was engaging, a great storyteller, and her message was extremely well aligned to our event. We could tell she took the time to understand who we are as an organization and drew parallels so well on how we can all find balance and strive for excellence in our everyday. ​

Jennifer Botterill spoke exceptionally well to Deloitte’s Next Generation CIO Academy. She was engaging, honest, thoughtful and funny. The audience was extremely absorbed in her message, and Jennifer presented us with numerous words to live by. Many in the audience even took notes on her presentation, a strong vote of confidence from a group of senior leaders. In short, I would not hesitate to have Jennifer back to engage broader audiences at Deloitte.

Jennifer Botterill – our keynote speaker at four events, each with a different audience and all very successful! Jennifer is a proud and patriotic, family-centred woman with a ready laugh who demonstrates an open desire to interact with the guests/attendees. Her energetic and goal-oriented style is authentic, sincere, and positive. Jennifer has an admirable ability to connect her presentation and personal successes to the audience with only a short briefing meeting in preparation for presenting. She delivers an impactful presentation that resonates with the attendees both on a professional and personal level – living in the moment but never losing sight of your goal; the critical importance of teamwork; the focus on others – that of making people around you better; the joy of celebrating others and sharing success; the magnitude of being supportive; and the significance of honouring the past – what and who got you to where you are.

Inspiring” “Captivating” “Dynamic” “These were the words used to describe Olympian Jennifer Botterill after her speech to over 300 surgeons at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. You could have heard a pin drop in the room as the Canadian women’s hockey star delivered a talk on perseverance, teamwork, and following your dreams. Afterwards, the long lineup of people wanting an autograph or photo with Jennifer and her Olympic medals seemed to last forever and serves as a testament to her riveting speech and powerful impact on the audience. “When she spoke of the joy that she felt when she saw her teammates receive their gold medals after the Olympic hockey final game, I understood what it meant to be part of a real team and to lift up those around you so we can all perform at our best”. She is an accomplished speaker who graciously connects with an audience and delivers a message of teamwork, effort, and dedication. Jennifer, thank you for being a part of our meeting and inspiring our group to work together and go ‘faster, higher, stronger’.

I frequently entertain some of my most valuable and important clients at fundraising events for the Canadian Olympic Foundation, and have been fortunate enough to watch and listen to Jennifer first-hand as a keynote speaker at some of these events. Notwithstanding how high the bar is set for Jennifer given her athletic and educational accomplishments, and her reputation as a motivational speaker, Jennifer always exceeds expectations. She has a captivating on-stage presence and that special ability to instantly connect with her audience. Her messages about hard work, dedication, positive attitude, and mental clarity and focus to reach goals and overcome obstacles resonate deeply with the audience, and in ways that allow audience members to tailor those messages to personal experiences and challenges. Jennifer’s one of a kind and would make any client event memorable.

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