“I couldn’t live without hockey": Ryan Botterill’s journey from the mound to the rink
Sophomore’s passion for baseball and hockey built on-ice intensity and off-ice character
Kali Mick
1/6/2026
When the Wisconsin men’s hockey team played an outdoor game at Chicago’s Wrigley Field in January 2025, sophomore forward Ryan Botterill got to live out a childhood dream.
However, the thought of playing outdoors under a sparkling night sky with 25,000+ fans cheering for the Badgers wasn’t what excited him. The real highlight of his day happened nearly 11 hours earlier, when the team stopped by Wrigley in the morning to soak up the sights ahead of their 8 p.m. game.
While the rest of the roster fantasized about hitting the ice, Botterill ventured to the infield, baseball and glove in hand, and confidently took his place on the pitcher’s mound. He raised his right arm, leaned back and threw as hard as he could to home plate, unofficially making his Major League Baseball debut in one of the league’s most historic stadiums.
“I always dreamed of playing at Wrigley Field,” Botterill said. “Growing up, I wanted to play pro baseball, so to be on a mound there was super awesome.”
He was so excited that he even brought a few mitts from home so he could toss the baseball around and share this experience with his teammates.
“I could tell he was like a little kid out there,” sophomore forward Adam Pietila said.
As metaphoric as Pietila’s statement is, it’s the truth – the experience reminded Botterill, a longtime player of both baseball and hockey, of his childhood in more ways than one. “It felt like I was back at home, skating on the outdoor rink and running around the bases in my backyard,” he said.
Botterill’s athletic childhood
A native of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Botterill’s interest in sports started from a very young age. In fact, his first word was “ball,” and he started throwing one around his living room when he was just 10 months old.
“He could throw like crazy,” Botterill’s mom, Janelle, said. “It was unreal how far he could throw, and how accurate at such a young age. He kept doing it and loved it.”
So, at age four, Botterill began playing youth baseball, quickly becoming a star pitcher on every team he played for.
Photo credit to Memories by Me Photography for photos three and four.
As a child, the forward also started playing with mini hockey sticks, activating his love for the other sport that would define his life. He learned how to skate on an outdoor rink that his dad, Kirk, built in the backyard of Botterill’s childhood home every winter, and once he could confidently go back and forth at age five, his parents enrolled him in squirt hockey.
“He really started to skate when he had the puck to chase,” Janelle said. “It was amazing how all of a sudden he started to glide.”
Photo credit to Memories by Me Photography for photos one, four and five.
The Botterills are no strangers to sports. Generations of relatives on both sides of his family had an interest in baseball, with many also playing hockey at the collegiate and pro level, so it wasn’t surprising that Ryan showed so much athletic potential so young.
After learning the basics of hockey and baseball, Botterill continued to play both growing up, creating a consistent routine – hockey in the fall and winter, baseball in the spring and summer, and repeat.
The routine came to a halt in 2021 after his high school graduation, when, at 18, Botterill decided to attend the Okotoks Dawgs Baseball Academy in Alberta. He moved nearly 1,000 miles away from home to live with his aunt and uncle, leaving behind his parents, sister, friends and most devastatingly, hockey.
Botterill dreamt of making it to the MLB, and playing for the Dawgs was the next step to get him there. He was a fantastic hitter and an even better pitcher, throwing up to 90 miles per hour, so he felt like he had to give playing baseball full-time a shot to see if he could accomplish his goal. The sophomore played against Canadian high school and college teams, routinely winning games as a pitcher, and he was even talking to schools in both Canada and the United States to pitch at the collegiate level.
But something wasn’t right.
Making a hard choice
In December of 2021, while playing at Okotoks, Botterill made the tough decision to return home – he needed to play hockey.
“There was a part of me missing,” he said. “I felt like I couldn’t live without hockey.”
A lot of thought went into this decision, including many late-night FaceTime calls with his parents and research into what opportunities would be available to help Botterill pivot to achieve his new dream of playing hockey at the next level.
“For a long time, we reflected on different things about the games, cultures and environments,” said Janelle on helping Ryan make a decision. “The big thing was asking questions and really allowing him to work through the process himself. He for sure made the decision on his own, and I always said when you have choices, you make a decision and go with it. You can follow that decision and keep going, or you can change at any time and make a different decision. Just don’t be afraid of the decisions you make – do whatever feels best for you, and keep going.”
With this motherly advice in mind, Botterill traded in bases and bats for skates and sticks – this time for good. From 2021-23, he stayed close to home, playing for the Portage Terriers of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, the team he had most recently played for prior to heading to Okotoks.
Before making the final decision to leave baseball, Botterill reached out to his former Terriers coach and asked if he could come back and play, and the Terriers were able to save him a spot, allowing Botterill to have a fresh start with hockey after not playing for 18 months.
With the Terriers, Botterill was able to play in all types of situations to regain his skills, even helping the team to the Centennial Cup semifinals in 2022-23 while leading the league in goals with 45. His success with Portage allowed Botterill to make the jump to the Youngstown Phantoms of the United States Hockey League in 2023-24 – the next step of achieving his dream of playing hockey at the highest level.
During his year in Youngstown, Botterill continued to develop as a player, quickly committing to the University of Wisconsin to play college hockey, where his sophomore year is underway.
Botterill’s relationship with baseball now
Though hockey has been at the forefront of the forward’s mind for the last few years, he still has an immense amount of love for baseball.
He and roommate Pietila, who played with Botterill in Youngstown before they both came to Wisconsin, watch baseball together all the time, especially when Botterill’s Toronto Blue Jays play Pietila’s, a Michigan native, Detroit Tigers.
The forward also keeps up with the game physically, finding time to play catch with friends at home on his backyard baseball diamond and visiting batting cages with Pietila on off days.
“We were trying to hit home runs on the baseball machine, and Ryan was in there hitting 90 miles per hour fastballs,” Pietila said. “Get this guy in the MLB.”
All this practicing led to his star moment on the mound at Wrigley Field. His efforts to integrate baseball with hockey throughout the Frozen Confines continued when he and sophomore forward Gavin Morrissey brought a real bat into the stadium for walk-in photos, which now plays an important role in helping Botterill relive the day.
“I got that bat signed by most of the guys from last year to keep,” he said. “It was such an awesome experience for our team.”
Bridging the gap between baseball and hockey
Being a multi-sport athlete has its benefits, and Botterill carries what he learned as an elite baseball player into the rink every day. His many years on the field allowed the forward to develop his upper body strength, which has increased his endurance and puck-moving ability.
“Playing a lot of sports helped me with my athleticism,” he said. “Also, hand-eye coordination in baseball is super important, so I became better at batting pucks down and scanning the ice.”
Playing multiple sports also made Botterill ultra-competitive, which has built his intensity on the ice and his respectful demeanor off of it.
“He doesn’t like to lose,” Janelle said about Ryan’s personality growing up. “Even though he was so competitive, over time, he learned that it’s okay to be upset about it, but we need to be respectful and appreciate the opponents and have sportsmanship. That’s what I see in him.”
Pietila agrees. “When we play games on the Wii at home, it gets really competitive,” he said. “We’re yelling at each other, but that doesn’t take away from how caring and loving Ryan is, and how he’d do anything for me or any of our teammates. That’s my favorite part about him – how compassionate he is while still being a competitor.”
This competitiveness and appreciation for both the players and the game made Botterill into the athlete he is today: a gritty goal-scorer who thrives under pressure.
“I think what drives him is that he loves the games,” Janelle said. “The more pressure he had, the better he would be. He kept rising to the challenge. If there was a pressure situation, whether it was in hockey or baseball, you wanted him to be on the ice or the field.”
Botterill’s attitude and athleticism have already helped him find success in college hockey, reinforcing that he’s made the right decision.
As a freshman in 2024-25, the forward tallied four goals and seven points in 31 games played, and he already has six goals and nine points in 17 games this year, setting a positive tone for the second half of his season.
“I have more confidence in myself and more jump to my game,” said Botterill about developing between his first and second seasons. “I feel like I got a lot stronger over the summer, so I feel more confident with the puck and making plays more freely.”
Pietila adds, “He’s been looking really good on the ice. He’s probably got one of the best, if not the best, shots on our team, and I think he’s got a huge year in store for him. I’m really excited to see what he does.”
The ups and downs of his baseball journey have helped Botterill grow into the player and person he is today – it was all worth it to find his Wisconsin men’s hockey family.
“When I ask him how things are going, he says, ‘It’s great,’” said Janelle, getting emotional at the thought of how far her son has come. “Not just good, it’s great. When you’re going after doing the best you can in this sport, you have to remember the character of who you are as a person, as well as the on-ice component. They’re equally as important, and he demonstrates that and works on it. We’re so proud of him. He’s so happy.”