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Jason Botterill won a national championship at Michigan in 1996, played in the pros and thought his career in hockey was over.

He didn't know it was really just beginning.

Botterill has been the assistant general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins for the past two seasons, making a fast rise through the administrative ranks for a player who was a student at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business less than five years ago.

AnnArbor.com caught up with Botterill for a few minutes to discuss where he is now and how he reached that point.

Q: So what have you been up to since you left Michigan?

Jason Botterill: “Let’s see. I graduated in 1997 and was able to play pro hockey, bouncing from organization to organization mostly in the minors, but played in 80 to 90 NHL games. I had a situation during the 04-05 lockout season, sustained another injury playing in Rochester, N.Y., and I talked to the doctors and decided it was best to stop playing the game of hockey. I got accepted to the Ross Business School, so I came back in the summer of 2005, came back to Ann Arbor. Had two great years and got my MBA in 2007. In between my first and second year of grad school, I was fortunate enough to get an internship with the National Hockey League at their office up in Toronto. That was my big break into the hockey world from a business standpoint. After business school, I applied to a few NHL teams and was fortunate enough to get a job with the Pittsburgh Penguins as Director of Hockey Administration starting in the fall of 2007.”

Q: You’ve made good strides in Pittsburgh, too. Has that gone as well as you thought, quicker than you thought?

JB: “It happened a little quicker than I anticipated. We’ve been fortunate with stars such as (Sidney) Crosby, (Evgeni) Malkin and (Marc-Andre) Fleury on the ice for a fun team for fans to watch. I’ve been very fortunate from my standpoint to work with some great people down there. (General manager) Ray Shero has been the type of boss that trusts you and allows you to do a bunch of different things. When I came on board, the assistant general manager was Chuck Fletcher, who is now the general manager in Minnesota, and Chuck did a great job in giving me a lot of responsibility and allowing me to do different things. There were salary-cap related things I was in charge of, and also being involved with Wilkes-Barre (the Penguins' AHL affiliate) and being involved with scouting on the amateur and pro side. So having both Ray and Chuck bringing me into so many different things right off the bat allowed me to have a great experience. I think our staff as a whole is a young staff. We have quite a few young scouts and our assistant to the general manager is Tom Fitzgerald, who is also young, and I think we are a group that enjoys working hard and enjoys working together, too. It’s a fortunate situation.”

Q: What’s your favorite part of the job?

JB: “My days aren’t exactly the same day-in and day-out is probably the most exciting factor. One day it's dealing with an agent on contract negotiations and then next day it's dealing with a scout evaluating a player who might be able to help the Pittsburgh Penguins five or six years down the road. The fact that every day seems a little bit different is an exciting part of the job.”

Q: When you were playing or even at Ross Business School, is this what you thought you were going to do or not?

JB: “Pretty much the exact opposite of what I thought I was going to be doing. When I was done playing I thought I was going to be done with the game of hockey. Maybe I didn’t accomplish everything I aspired to on the pro level playing, but I had some great memories and enjoyed the game. I assumed it was sort of time to move on to the business world. My time at Ross I was looking at corporate finance or commercial banking. That’s what I thought I was going to go into. But I kept on staying in touch with the game that first year and still had a passion for it and was very fortunate through some of my contacts to get the internship. It worked out well that first year I did my internship in 2006, that was the first year of the new (collective bargaining agreement) and there was a lot of uncertainty what was going on with it. The fact that I had experience working with it and had an MBA benefited me a lot. I feel fortunate I have a job I feel truly passionate about. It’s not something I planned, but something I am thankful for.”

Q: How close were you to going to the corporate world?

JB: “(Laughs.) Well, I had a couple internships lined up and as things are in the sports world, things go slower than anything else. I had to make a decision between a couple internships with corporate America or pursuing something in sports with the National Hockey League. I’m glad I waited and it’s turned out for the best.”

Q: When you saw everything going on in the corporate finance world after you made that decision, were you like, ‘Wow, that worked out pretty well?’

JB: “Oh yeah, I reflect back on it. Some of it was my friends in business school, quite a few people I hung out with, were passionate about sports and I realized I was very fortunate to have the contacts that I made in my playing career. That was a huge advantage and some of them wished they had those type of contacts. Here I am trying to get out of the sports world and I listened to myself and it was still a passion of mine.”

Q: Looking back at your time at Michigan, what is your favorite memory?

JB: “You have to go back to the championship in 1996. There are a lot of great memories that led up to that from the moment I stepped on campus. The class was a fairly big class and all of us got along fairly well together. A lot of things came together and worked out extremely well for us. For us to step on campus and to have seniors such as Steve Shields and Brian Wiseman to show us the way and have some success, maybe not win a championship but have some success my freshman and sophomore year, it gave us experience so we were prepared for ’96. So that sticks out, obviously, and the amount of support we had down there and to finally get over the hump and get the national championship, it was a great day. Something I cherish very closely.”

Michael Rothstein covers Michigan sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by email at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.