North Bay Battalion owner Scott Abbott says the decision to reassign Stan Butler to an advisory role wasn’t easy.

He says he thought about making the move for some time because he was concerned their young players weren’t growing as they needed to as they’ll be the team leaders in the future.

“They’ll be the leaders of the next team that contends for a championship here. They’re the leading edge of our next strong competitive team and I think they have to have the proper foundation this year,” Abbott says.

Abbott says he decided to split Butler’s old jobs up with Adam Dennis as GM and Ryan Oulahen as coach because that’s sort of the norm in the business currently and this will free Dennis up to see the top midget prospects in Southern Ontario more often.

“He’ll be doing more scouting than Stan was able to do from North Bay. In that respect, it makes sense to have someone other than the coach do the General Manager’s work,” he says.

Abbott says Butler will be carrying out advisory duties including looking at developing more players from the European Import draft.

 

(photo by Aaron Bell OHL images)

Filed under: North Bay Battalion, Scott Abbott