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Team's new GM breaks the mold

With all the fresh faces on the ice for the Cochrane Generals right now, it might be easy to miss the new face off the ice. But the team’s new general manager, Jacqueline Hurlbert, is hard to miss. At 22, she doesn’t fit the hockey GM stereotype.
Jacqueline Hurlbert
Jacqueline Hurlbert

With all the fresh faces on the ice for the Cochrane Generals right now, it might be easy to miss the new face off the ice.

But the team’s new general manager, Jacqueline Hurlbert, is hard to miss. At 22, she doesn’t fit the hockey GM stereotype. At all.

But it’s something the fourth-year communications student has wanted to do for as long as she can remember. So when the 2008 Cochrane High School grad found out her local team had an opening, she jumped at the chance.

“I wanted to get some experience with managing hockey teams because, in the future, I would like to get my Masters in sports management and manage a professional hockey team,” she said following the Generals’ Sept. 21 Heritage Junior Hockey League season-opener against the Medicine Hat Cubs. “I asked the team if there was anything I could do to help out. It happened this year that (outgoing GM) Randy Schmautz was looking to step down, and they offered me the full position.

“Obviously, that was something I couldn’t pass up.”

She just wasn’t expecting this opportunity to come “before I was 30.”

She won’t be directly involved in any hockey decisions yet. She’s currently studying under the watchful eye of Schmautz, who’s staying on long enough to ensure Hurlbert’s seamless transition into the GM’s role.

“Right now I’m in charge of the game sheet, paying the refs, making sure the refs are here on time. Buses, away games. That kind of thing.”

She’s also running the team’s website. More chores will come as Schmautz passes them on before finally stepping down.

“So far it’s been awesome,” Hurlbert surmised.

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