Jim Bottomley has an impressive athletic record. He played with the 1978-79 Atlantic University championship hockey team at Dalhousie University. He was team captain the next year. He is in Dal’s Sport Hall of Fame with the championship team. His number 8 is one of only two ever retired by the Dal Tigers.

As a builder, Bottomley, a Halifax native, has coached more than 1,000 games, led teams to 10 first-place finishes (eight league championships and two Fred Page Cups) and, in 2002, a Royal Bank Cup as coach of the best Junior A team in Canada.
For the past three decades, Bottomley has been instrumental in keeping interest in Junior A hockey alive in the province’s major city, and, many will say, in the entire Maritime Junior League. He is the winningest coach in Maritime Junior A hockey history with 771 wins in 1,315 games.

His fiery nature behind the bench has drawn crowds to rinks across the region. He worked with other coaches in the league to sell rivalries by making outrageous comments in local media to drum up interest to fill road arenas when his teams came to town. In his 30-plus years, Bottomley coached hundreds of young men to success on the ice and to later success in their careers and communities.

He’s coached in Halifax, Bridgewater, Amherst, and Yarmouth. Today, he owns, but does not coach, a Junior B team in Liverpool because he sees potential in an under-served area. Bottomley has coached at elite levels including with Team Atlantic Under 17s in 1984-85 as an assistant coach, as head coach a year later against a team of touring Russians, and as coach of Nova Scotia’s 1991 Canada Games hockey team in Charlottetown.
He worked one year as an assistant with the Mooseheads (2003-04) but the long road trips brought him back to Junior A with its fewer long periods away.

Bottomley’s biggest thrill was winning the Royal Bank Cup, at home, in 2002. His team, the Oland Exports, had to beat out over 100 other Canadian teams for the national Junior A title. He had coached teams to the finals on five previous occasions.