Men's Hockey | 1/25/2021 12:02:00 AM

MONTREAL -- Ken Morin, a former captain of the McGill University men's hockey team, has joined the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League as the team's scout for Western Canada. He was lured away recently from a similar post with the Montreal Canadiens, where he had been employed since 2010 in their hockey operations department.

Morin, a 36-year-old native of St. Prosper, Que., had served with the Habs for the past decade, occupying the roles of hockey information coordinator and scouting coordinator before being promoted in 2015 to the role of amateur scout responsible for the Western Hockey League.

With the Panthers, he joins Shane Churla, who recently left the Canadiens organization after seven years to be named as Florida's director of amateur scouting. Morin will continue to be based in Western Canada.

He is the second McGill graduate currently with the Panthers, joining Jérome Burke, who earned a commerce degree while playing football and was appointed by Florida in 2018 as the team's chief of staff.

Morin patrolled the McGill blueline from 2005 to 2009, scoring 13 goals and 69 career points in 159 contests overall, before graduating with a degree in industrial relations. He served as captain in his senior year and won the Bobby Bell trophy as team MVP. He received the 2009 Richard Pound Trophy, presented to a graduating male athlete for proficiency and leadership in athletics and also was the recipient of a Gretta Chambers Award for demonstrating leadership qualities while contributing to the advancement of alumni activities in a volunteer capacity.

In 2009-10, he played for Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., where he studied in the MBA program. At season's end, he was signed to play for the Bakersfield Condors in the East Coast Hockey League.

A hard worker who has been described as someone who "thinks outside the box", Morin played a prominent role in organizing the 2007 Corey Cup game to be played at the Bell Centre. The contest between McGill and Concordia drew over 5,300 fans, the largest hockey attendance in more than three decades to watch a university game in Montreal. He also developed and executed a marketing plan for the 2008 "Fill The Stadium Night" that resulted in more than 6,200 fans attending a university football game at Molson Stadium.

Morin is one of 41 McGillians to be employed by a National Hockey League team, including a current group of 10, highlighted by Mathieu Darche (Tampa Bay), Jamie Kompon (assistant coach, Winnipeg Jets) and Shauna Denis of the Montreal Canadiens, who captained the hockey Martlets to their first national championship in 2008, is the Habs' senior director of content strategy.

McGillians in the National Hockey League (41)