Scott Russell (commentator)

Scott Alexander Russell (born 1958) is a Gemini Award and Canadian Screen Award-winning Canadian sports writer and sportscaster.

Russell's broadcasting career began in 1985 as a reporter for CBC Radio Charlottetown.

He has worked on numerous CBC Sports, notably covering 17 Olympics ending in 2024, including seven as host, and led the network's coverage of six Pan Am Games, six Commonwealth Games, two FIFA World Cups and a pair of Women's World Cups.

Russell was a rinkside reporter on Hockey Night in Canada from 1989 until 2003, and again from 2005 until now.

He is the network's top broadcaster for gymnastics and has covered them at the Olympic Games of 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008*, 2012, 2016, and 2020 (delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic until 2021), the 1994 Commonwealth Games and the 1999 Pan American Games. (* - He was the host for the second half of the 2008 Summer Olympics, since the previous host, Ron MacLean's mother died).

He has also worked as a studio host on coverage for each of the Winter Olympics of 1992, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022.

He has also periodically worked on Canadian Football League games and curling telecasts as a sideline reporter.

He hosted CBC Sports Saturday from 2003 until 2005. He also hosted CBC's coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Russell is from Oshawa, Ontario, and earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1985.

In 2012 he was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his contributions to sports in Canada.

Russell is an honourary board member of the Paralympic Foundation of Canada, advisory board member for the International Centre for Olympic Studies at Western University and has an honourary doctorate (D.Lit.) from Nipissing University.

In June 2024 Russell announced he would be retiring from broadcasting following the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, where he will host CBC's daily Bell Paris Prime coverage of major events and performances by Canadian athletes.

In the fall he is to be installed for a four-year term as chancellor, or ceremonial head, at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario.