Paul Boutilier was a smooth-skating defenceman whose roots on Cape Breton Island made him a fan favourite in his home province.Sandor Fizli/The Globe and Mail
As a teenager, Paul Boutilier helped Canada win its first world junior championship before being selected in the first round of the National Hockey League draft.
His name was engraved on the Stanley Cup the month he turned 20.
A career launched with such promise failed to meet expectation, as he wound up bouncing between the minor leagues and several NHL teams before ending his playing career in Switzerland.
He then had success as a coach, as well as a curling executive, his family’s other favourite ice sport.
Mr. Boutilier, who has died at 63, was a smooth-skating defenceman whose roots on Cape Breton Island made him a fan favourite in his home province.
“From winning a Stanley Cup to representing Canada on the world stage, Paul made our province proud through his incredible career,” Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston posted on Facebook. “Just as important was the impact he had off the ice as a mentor, coach, and leader in the hockey community.”
Mr. Boutilier died in hospital in Halifax on May 14. He leaves his partner, Lisa Mullaly, as well as a sister and his mother. He was predeceased by a sister and his father.
He was inducted into the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame (1994) and the Cape Breton Sport Hall of Fame (1999).
Paul André Boutilier was born in Sydney on May 3, 1963, to the former Adine MacKay and Ernest Alfred Boutilier, a chartered accountant who eventually became president of the Sydney Steel Corporation (Sysco) and the Cape Breton Development Corp. (Devco). The Boutiliers were avid curlers with the Sydney Curling Club. The couple joined Lorna and Nick Oldale in winning the 1971 mixed provincial championship. Ms. Boutilier was also part of the rinks to claim the Nova Scotia women’s title in 1977 and the provincial women’s senior championship in 1990.
The boy, who learned to skate at age 3, had his sister don goalie pads so he could practice his shooting while playing road hockey. At age 10, his father took him to Boston Garden, after which he turned his bedroom into a shrine to Bobby Orr and the Boston Bruins.
He also golfed, played baseball and learned the rudiments of boxing from his father in the backyard.
At 17, the offensive-minded defenceman joined the Sherbrooke Castors of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, where he showed skill both as a playmaker and as a fierce defender in his own zone.
The Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders claimed the defenceman as an underage junior in the first round of the 1981 entry draft, No. 21 overall. It was a draft year filled with talent, as four other first-round picks went on to have Hall of Fame careers, including defenceman Al MacInnis of Inverness, N.S.
New York Islanders' players Ken Morrow, left, and Paul Boutilier, right, in an NHL game against the Minnesota North Stars in November, 1982.Jim Mone/AP
In the 1981-82 season, Boots, as he was inevitably nicknamed, as was his father before him, helped lead the Sherbrooke Castors to the league championship and then to the Memorial Cup final, where they lost to the Kitchener (Ont.) Rangers. He was named to the league’s First All-Star team and won the Émile Bouchard Trophy as top league defenceman.
On Halloween in 1981, Mr. Boutilier was an emergency call up by the Islanders to replace an injured Dave Langevin, who had sprained his right knee. The defenceman drove two hours from Sherbrooke to Montreal, where later that day he saw spot duty at the Montreal Forum alongside Ken Morrow in a 2-1 victory for the visitors. At the time, he was the youngest player to have worn an Islanders sweater.
“Paul already skates like a major leaguer,” said Islanders general manager Bill Torrey, “but there are other areas where he may not be ready yet.”
The defenceman starred at the 1982 world junior championship tournament, as Canada shut out the Soviet Union by 7-0 (Mr. Boutilier scored once) and then squeezed past the co-host Americans, 5-4, on the way to winning Canada’s first international hockey gold medal since the Trail (B.C.) Smoke Eaters claimed the world championship in 1961. In the final game against Czechoslovakia, Mr. Boutilier scored Canada’s first goal in what ended a 3-3 tie, clinching the championship for the Canadians. He was named the best defenceman of the tournament.
A year later, the host Soviet Union went undefeated at the world junior championships in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) to claim the gold. Canada, led by scorers Mario Lemieux and Dave Andreychuk, took the bronze medal. Mr. Boutilier contributed two goals and three assists in seven games.
He would be the last player from his province to crack the Canadian junior roster at the world championships until Stephen Dixon of Halifax and a 16-year-old Sidney Crosby of suburban Cole Harbour made the squad two decades later.
By the time he attended Islanders training camp in Hicksville, N.Y., in 1982, Mr. Boutilier had filled out his 6-foot frame to 200 pounds. He had a reputation for stamina, having played more than 100 games in junior and with the national team the previous year, often putting in as much as 47 minutes in a 60-minute game.
“Paul is built like a statue,” Islanders coach Al Arbour said. “Real solid. We’re going to give him a good look.”
The defenceman split the season between junior hockey and the Islanders, scoring four goals with five assists in 29 NHL games. He skated in two playoff games in defeating the Boston Bruins in the conference finals, enough of a contribution to have his name included on the Stanley Cup after the Islanders went on to sweep the Edmonton Oilers in four games.
He suffered his most grievous hockey injury the day after he signed a multiyear contract with the Islanders. At practice in Nassau Coliseum, he took a slapshot to the forehead from teammate Anders Kallur. A plastic surgeon needed 66 stitches to close the deep cut. The player complained of headaches but did not miss a game.
After the Islanders signed Brian Curran, an arbitrator awarded Mr. Boutilier to Boston.
“We were hoping for a bigger prize,” Bruins general manager Harry Sinden said at the time. “But Boutilier is adequate compensation.”
He would not complete the season with the Bruins before being traded to the Minnesota North Stars, who traded him to the New York Rangers, who in turn traded him to the Winnipeg Jets.
In 288 NHL games, he scored 27 goals with 83 assists.
He also skated in the minor leagues for the Indianapolis Checkers, New Haven Nighthawks, Colorado Rangers, Moncton Hawks and Maine Mariners.
He completed his playing career with the Bern Bears and Zürcher Lions in Switzerland.
He held several coaching roles, including with the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, as well as with junior, minor professional and university teams, including several seasons as head coach of the St. Mary’s University Huskies in Halifax, where he was once suspended five games after throwing a water bottle and clipboard onto the ice.
The coach completed a commerce degree while at St. Mary’s before earning a master’s degree in business administration from Athabasca University, an online institution based in Alberta. Mr. Boutilier taught international business and finance courses at the University of Prince Edward Island.
In curling, Mr. Boutilier served as president of the World Curling Players Association, as well as executive director of the World Curling Tour. In 2005, the tour faced collapse. “At the start of last year, we had $20,000 in the bank and a budget of $1.2-million staring us in the face,” Mr. Boutilier told Globe and Mail curling columnist Bob Weeks. “It wasn’t pretty.” He got CBC to agree to broadcast four Grand Slam events, giving the tour both credibility and financial stability.
Earlier this century, Mr. Boutilier traveled to France, Norway, Qatar and Algeria as manager of the energy portfolio for the provincial Nova Scotia Business Inc. to promote a half-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas terminal in the Cape Breton town of Port Hawkesbury. The project was given the code name of “Lord Stanley” after the governor-general who donated hockey’s famous trophy.
You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here.
To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com.