Scott Burnside

Scott Burnside (born 1963) is a Canadian sportswriter. Burnside began a career in sportswriting with the Windsor Star where he covered the Stanley Cup championships by the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998. He was the National Post sports columnist when the paper began publication in 1998, then covered the Toronto Maple Leafs for the Ottawa Citizen, and was a special correspondent for USA Today on the Atlanta Thrashers.

Covering the National Hockey League (NHL) for ESPN for 13 years, Burnside's stories explained why something happened and gave a behind-the-scenes perspective. He was president of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association from 2013 to 2017, and subsequently wrote for The Athletic, Daily Faceoff, and cohosted an ice hockey podcast with Pierre LeBrun. Burnside has also wrote web site articles for multiple teams and the NHL Players' Association. He received the 2024 Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award at the Hockey Hall of Fame, in recognition of a career in ice hockey journalism.

A graduate of journalism at Carleton University, Burnside was a columnist and spot news reporter for the Windsor Star and Toronto Sun before his sportswriting career. With the Windsor Star, he won multiple Western Ontario Newspaper Awards, and the special project category at the National Newspaper Awards. After three years covering the criminal trials of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka for the Toronto Sun, he cowrote the book Deadly Innocence published in 1995, and won two Edward Dunlop Awards and a Jamie Westcott Award for crime writing.

Early life and education Burnside was born in Milton, Ontario, in 1963. He played minor ice hockey in the Essex-Kent Juvenile Hockey League, and was twice invited to training camps for the Essex 73's, while attending Essex District High School from grades 11 to 13. and won the special project category at the National Newspaper Awards. The series focused on problems facing shift workers, and revealed that nearly half of the workers in Windsor and Essex County worked outside of normal business hours. and the local success of British rock band Ten Years After. Writing investigative articles about Czechoslovakia, he detailed the transition into a market economy as the government sold off small businesses to fund the State Bank of Czechoslovakia, and reported on environmental issues in Czechoslovakia, and the economics behind water treatment and land restoration.

In 1992, Burnside received a Southam News President's Award for cowriting the education series, "Our Failing Schools". The book published in September 1995 by Warner Books, was based on facts from the trial and outside sources. The book contained few details of the assaults, but concentrated on what not heard at the trial, based on interviews of friends of Bernardo and Homolka. Burnside won two Edward Dunlop Awards and a Jamie Westcott Award for his crime writing with the Toronto Sun. Edward Arunah Dunlop Jr. who was president of the newspaper upon his death in 1981. Jamie Westcott was a Toronto Sun police beat reporter for three years, until his death at age 25 in 1989. The Jamie Westcott Memorial Award was established shortly after his death, for the best Toronto Sun beat report.

Sports journalism career Burnside became the Windsor Star sports columnist in 1997, when the newspaper expanded sports coverage and shifted to a morning publication. His tenure coincided with consecutive Stanley Cup championships by the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998. In September 2001, he was one of 130 layoffs from the National Post due to budget cuts and lack of profits.

Writing for the Ottawa Citizen from 2001 to 2003, Burnside regularly covered the Toronto Maple Leafs and the NHL, and wrote the regular "Inside the Leafs" column. His columns on the Maple Leafs appeared in other Southam News publications, and for CanWest News Service. He also covered the NHL, the Atlanta Thrashers, and Maple Leafs as a special correspondent for USA Today. He was also a cast member of Leafs TV during the 2002–03 season.

Burnside returned to writing for the National Post from June 2003 until October 2004. During this time, he also covered the Atlanta Thrashers for CanWest and USA Today, and the Toronto Maple Leafs for The Canadian Press.

ESPN and the Professional Hockey Writers' Association Burnside was covering the NHL for ESPN beginning in October 2004, His stories explained why something happened, giving fans a behind-the-scenes perspective. He interviewed Sidney Crosby in 2009, discussing the loss by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals, Crosby's subsequent recovery from concussions, then the victory in the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals followed by a details of the parade given to Crosby when taking the Stanley Cup home for a day. In 2015, Burnside accompanied Alexander Ovechkin on charity promotions, writing about a night of bowling, and an appearance at Andrews Air Force Base where Ovechkin was attacked by a military dog and used a bomb disposal robot. He and Kevin Allen of USA Today were the only two journalists given access to the meetings. USA Hockey hoped that the resulting story would popularize the game in the USA, despite the criticism written about the process by Burnside and Allen. He thought the PHWA was facing new challenges since the number of newspaper and radio journalists were decreasing, and being replaced by social media, independent bloggers, and teams producing their own content. Burnside subsequently resigned as PHWA president, and succeeded by Mark Spector of Sportsnet.

Later career Burnside began writing for the Dallas Stars in 2017, as a digital correspondent on the Stars and the NHL for the team's web site. He felt working for the Stars was a "revelatory hockey season", since he learned how an NHL team operated from an inside perspective. During this time, he wrote about the rise and fall of goaltender Ray Emery, who drowned in Lake Ontario at age 35. He also collaborated on a recurring ice hockey podcast with Pierre LeBrun, titled "Two-Man Advantage", discussing the NHL. Other organizations Burnside has written for include the Los Angeles Kings, Nashville Predators, and selected him to receive the 2024 Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award at the Hockey Hall of Fame, in recognition of a career in ice hockey journalism.