Giants recruit trainer Burnstein
He spent 20 season with Canucks, and has lifelong ties to world of sports
Always looking for new material for their website, the Vancouver Giants might consider a regular road-trip feature this season entitled, “My Weekend With Burnie on the Trans-Canada Highway,” since it’s bound to be entertaining viewing.
Mike Burnstein was officially named the WHL club’s new athletic therapist Tuesday. The 46-year-old spent 20 seasons in that position with the Vancouver Canucks.
Road games used to involve charter planes. Now, Burnstein is busbound.
The WHL regular-season schedule is slated to be announced later this month. The Giants are expected to have one road trip in 2017-18 to the East Division, which features teams from Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and one to the Central Division, which is home to squads from Alberta, plus Cranbrook’s Kootenay Ice.
“There’s going to be a bit of an adjustment from my end, too,” Burnstein said. “This opportunity is too good to pass up, though.”
Burnstein was fired by the Canucks in July 2015, at the same time the team moved noted local physiotherapist Rick Celebrini from consultant to director of rehabilitation. T.C. Carling, the Canucks’ vice-president of hockey administration, called it “going in a different direction,” and also admitted “it was a very difficult decision because of the quality of the person.”
The Province’s Jason Botchford wrote at the time: “This one is going to gut many players who have bonded strongly with ‘Burnie’ over the years. Among the non-players, there are not many people the Canucks work with more closely than Burnstein. And there are not many people with a better disposition and understanding of the game than Burnie, who is warm, funny and smart as hell.”
Burnstein replaces Nick Murray, who left the Giants in May after six seasons for a similar job with Douglas College. Murray had been enlisted by Hockey Canada for various teams, but doesn’t yet have the cache of a Burnstein.
It’s safe to guess that the Giants are paying more for an athletic trainer than most junior teams, although you’ll never get confirmation of that.
In a bid to win over parents and recruit players, every little bit helps, and especially for a team like the Giants, who have missed the post-season three straight springs and four of the past five campaigns.
“It will be different than what I am used to, but I have a 15-year-old daughter (Abbey) and a 13-year-old son (Lukas) and the players are not far off those ages,” said Burnstein, who lives in White Rock with his kids and wife, Nikki.
“A large part of this is my conversations with and my friendship with (general manager) Glen Hanlon and how he proposed the position, and my conversations with (owner) Ron Toigo.”
Burnstein is from Hamilton, Ont., and was a stick boy at age eight for his older brother’s midget team. In high school, he was an equipment manager for the junior Hamilton Steelhawks, but would soon branch into the medical end of the business and take a three-year course at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont.
He interned with the Canucks’ old farm team, the Hamilton Canucks in 1992-93, and would eventually be hired on there. He moved to the Vancouver Canucks for the 1995-96 campaign, replacing the late Larry Ashley.
Burnstein was the youngest athletic trainer in the NHL at the time, at just 25. Hanlon was an assistant coach with that team.
The first time Burnstein had to go on the ice to tend to a player at the NHL level was in an Oct. 2 exhibition game that campaign between the Canucks and the Calgary Flames. His first patient? Pavel Bure, who had dislocated a finger on Ronnie Stern’s helmet during a scrum.
Hanlon told Burnstein as he was going on the ice: “Hey, kid … he’s worth $25 million … don’t mess up.”
“It was the first injury. I’d just gotten here,” Burnstein recalled in a February 1996 profile story by The Province’s Jim Jamieson. “It was a break-in period and it kind of started from there. Now, when I come off the ice, the guys always say things and it’s kind of a good feeling.”
Burnstein said he looked at positions in pro hockey, but couldn’t find the right fit. He has worked the Spengler Cup for Hockey Canada and the World Cup of Hockey for Team Europe since leaving the Canucks.