We’ve seen plenty of media members leave to work for professional teams, and it’s perhaps a particularly growing trend in the NHL. A few recent examples include TSN’s Gary Lawless leaving for the Las Vegas Golden Knights and former ESPNer Scott Burnside joining the Dallas Stars. Now, longtime TSN 690 Montreal reporter and anchor Amanda Stein is headed to the New Jersey Devils, as she tweeted Monday:
My Announcement…After 7 years at TSN I have decided to move on… My letter, written the only way I know how: pic.twitter.com/lG4SGXxx6i
— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) August 7, 2017
Hiring media veterans makes a lot of sense for teams, and perhaps especially for NHL teams. The everlasting waves of sports media cuts have often hit hockey coverage particularly hard, as we saw with ESPN, and it’s very much a buyers’ market when it comes to writers and broadcasters (something we’ve also seen with the expansion of The Athletic and other local sportswriting sites). It’s also not necessarily easy to get fans to think of the team’s own site as a destination for news, analysis or videos about the team, and bringing in respected media members can help with that. There can be challenges with working for a team or league network or site, though, so it’s not always an easy jump.
Stein certainly has plenty of experience in the NHL world, as she regularly covered the Canadiens for TSN 690 and sister station CJAD 800. And as Nick Varney notes at SB Nation Devils’ site All About The Jersey, she had been covering the Devils’ prospects camp earlier this summer (which is where the photo at top comes from). She has significant interviewing experience, and seems like a good fit for an all-access host role, something more and more teams are going towards. We’ll see how Stein does with the Devils.
[Amanda Stein on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.
Recent Posts
Urban Meyer convinced Pat Narduzzi quote downplaying Notre Dame game must be AI
"That’s that fake stuff."
Fans rejoice as ESPN reverts back to longstanding NBA box score format
Is Tim Legler to thank?
MLS formally adopts European calendar, avoids postseason football conflicts
Just hours after news broke that MLS and Apple are removing the MLS Season Pass paywall beginning next...
Netflix, Comcast, Paramount all preparing formal bids for Warner Bros. Discovery
WBD is looking to conclude its sale exploration by year's end.
Why is the Disney vs YouTube TV standoff going so long?
“Everybody keeps thinking, this is some kind of crown jewel right within our business. Because to us, it is.”
Sage Steele: Pat McAfee has ‘full control’ at ESPN: ‘That man has no rules’
"When you rip an executive, name drop and call him names and nothing happens, you know that you have full control."