Canadian Sport Research Articles

Understanding the adoption of long-term athlete development in one community sport club

ABSTRACTRationale/Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the adoption of long-term athlete development in one community sport club in order to advance understanding of its actual uptake and the conditions, barriers, and facilitators that influence its adoption at the community level.Design/methodology/approach: A policy implementation framework incorporating a translation perspective was used to investigate the uptake of LTAD and related principles at the community level. An instrumental case study involving interviews with club administrators and coaches was conducted.Findings: Findings revealed that the club had limited awareness of LTAD yet was undertaking long-term athlete development initiatives on its own in response to the needs and conditions of the club and its community. Communication with stakeholders, several club characteristics, and economic, political, and social/cultural conditions were found to either facilitate or inhibit the adoption of LTAD.Practical Implications: This study draws attention to the fragmented communication system present in the Canadian sport system, and highlights the importance of consulting with community sport clubs in the development and implementation of nationallydeveloped policy.Research Contribution: Gaining the perspective of club administrators and coaches who are responsible for the strategic direction and programing of the club highlights the importance of examining those perspectives with regards to policy implementation.

Collaboratively Designing the Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sport (CCMHS) Using Group Concept Mapping

Mental health researchers and practitioners alike have recognized that there are special considerations and challenges involved in diagnosing and treating mental illnesses in athletes. However, very few clinical psychologists and psychiatrists in Canada specialize in sport, representing a significant gap in mental health care service provision for this population. In this study, a group of expert sport and mental health stakeholders (n = 17) employed a Participatory Action Research approach to design a specialized sport-focused mental health care model integrated within the Canadian Centre for Mental Health in Sport (CCMHS). Stakeholders engaged in focus group discussions to perform an environmental scan of the Canadian sport and mental health care contexts that laid the foundation for a Group Concept Mapping (GCM) exercise. Using the Concepts Systems software, stakeholders individually produced statements that described the elements to include in a sport-specific mental health care model implemented within the CCMHS. A total of 106 unique statements were organized into 6 themed clusters, focusing on: (1) service delivery [40 statements], (2) communications and promotion [20 statements], (3) business, policy, and operations [19 statements], (4) partnerships [9 statements], (5) research [6 statements], and (6) education and training [6 statements]. These findings were operationalized to establish a sport-centered mental health care model and the CCMHS itself - the first Centre of its kind in Canada. GCM is seldom used to conduct sport research, thus the validity and reliability of this methodology was assessed. Lay Summary: In this study, 17 sport and mental health expert stakeholders participated in group concept mapping to design a sport-focused mental health care delivery model. The group produced 106 unique statements that were organized into six strategic priority areas and operationalized to establish the Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sport.

Sport Policy Praxis: Examining How Canadian Sport Policy Practically Advances the Careers of Nascent Female Coaches

The issue of too few females coaching in high-performance Canadian sport contexts is well documented. There is extensive research and programing dedicated to addressing this issue; however, the number of women in high-performance coaching positions within Canada continues to decline. Mentorship is a best practice to advance women into competitive sport coaching roles, and a more recent finding suggests that sponsorship may also be necessary. In this article Canadian national/federal sport policies were analyzed in an effort to better understand how these Canadian sport policies inform and impact the mentorship and/or sponsorship of women coaches. The analysis of four federal government sport policy documents—Actively Engaged, the Canadian Sport Policy, the Coaching Association of Canada’s and the Sport Information Resource Center’s Equity and Access Policy—revealed that none of these pertinent policy documents make explicit reference to mentorship and/or sponsorship programing with the intent to advance more women into high-performance sport coaching positions. As such, the major argument of this study is that the Canadian sport policy sector needs to create policy documents that practically inform programing geared towards nascent female sport coaches and that the voices of female coaches who have been impacted by Canadian sport policies and programing alike, need to be incorporated into these policies.

Psychological Skills Used by Sport Psychology Consultants to Improve Their Consulting

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine self-practice by identifying the psychological skills that sport psychology consultants (SPCs) used to improve their consulting as well as where, when, why, and how they used those skills. The participants were 8 Canadian-based SPCs (3 male, 5 female) with a mean age of 37 years (SD = 6.86) and approximately 10 years of consulting experience, who were professional members of the Canadian Sport Psychology Association. Most SPCs were part-time mental performance consultants with either a PhD or a master’s degree. Individual open-ended, semistructured interviews were conducted with the participants, and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The SPCs reported using deep breathing, goal setting, self-reflection, time management, imagery, mindfulness, self-talk, and bio-neurofeedback with themselves. They practiced these psychological skills at different times (e.g., when needed, before a session), in a variety of ways (e.g., spontaneously, deliberately, applying specific techniques), and for various purposes (e.g., refine their service delivery, achieve a work–life balance). As such, SPCs should be encouraged to “practice what they preach,” given the range of potential benefits associated with the use of psychological skills (e.g., foster the consultant–client relationship, understand the psychological skill, enhance psychological constructs). Lay summary: The purpose of this study was to identify the psychological skills that sport psychology consultants (SPCs) used to improve their consulting. The SPCs reported using eight distinct psychological skills. They practiced these psychological skills at different times, in a variety of ways, and for various purposes.

Physical Literacy Competency Among Elementary and Middle School Children

Physical literacy addresses the ability, confidence and desire needed to optimize physical activity participation. Ability to perform, or competency in, fundamental movement skills, has not been recently evaluated among children in the United States, which is essential for identifying needs for intervention. PURPOSE: To compare physical literacy competency between sexes and age groups in children. METHODS: 288 children (134 males, 153 females; age 9±2 years; height 132±36 cm; mass 41±14 kg) from 6 schools volunteered to participate. Participants completed tasks in a randomized order to assess five domains of physical literacy competency: locomotor, running, balance, upper extremity (UE) and lower extremity (LE) object control. Trained raters evaluated competency using a standardized, valid and reliable assessment (PLAYfun; Canadian Sport for Life). Participants were divided into age groups (Elementary: grades K-4; Middle: grades 5-8). Competency on all tasks was measured using a 0-100 continuous scale. Total average score and domain average scores were compared between sexes and age groups using a multivariate analysis of variance (α<.05). RESULTS: There were no significant interactions between sexes and age groups (p>.05). Regardless of age, males demonstrated greater competency than females for overall score (mean±SE points: males=71.5±1.0, females=63.7±1.0; p<.001), running (males=75.4±1.8, females=63.72±1.80; p<.001), UE object control (males=73.32±1.71, females=56.4±1.7; p<.001), and LE object control (males=66.9±2.0, females=52.3±2.0; p<.001). Regardless of sex, Middle had greater competency than Elementary for overall score (Middle=62.2±1.0, Elementary=73.0±0.9; p<.001), locomotor (Middle=75.3±1.17, Elementary=65.0±1.3; p<.001), balance (Middle=77.4±1.3, Elementary=62.1±1.3; p<.001), UE object control (Middle=70.0±1.6, Elementary=59.8±1.8; p<.001), and LE object control (Middle=67.9±1.9, Elementary=51.2±1.8; p<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Sex differences in physical literacy are present among children in the United States, especially in tasks involving object control. Similarly, over 20% of children in middle school lack competency in object control tasks. These areas need to be addressed in order to optimize long-term physical activity.

The Syrian Canadian Sports Club: A Community-Based Participatory Action Research Project with/for Syrian Youth Refugees

In this paper, we share the rationale, process, and results related to a community-based participatory action research (PAR) project in which we, among other things, aimed to attend to the underrepresentation of newcomer youth in community sport and recreation pursuits. By way of engaging with one rural county’s Syrian youth refugee population while also attending closely to a social ecological framework, we first identified obstacles and opportunities related to multiple systems (i.e., individual, social/interpersonal, organizational/community, public policy). Drawing upon multiple data sources (i.e., photos and photovoice, participants’ drawings and notes, participant-researchers’ field notes, and focus group interviews) to inform our subsequent plan-act-observe-reflect action research cycles, we and our Syrian youth participants co-created and implemented the Syrian Youth Sports Club. In addition to describing the rationale and process related to this Syrian Youth Sports Club, we focus herein upon the results, which primarily relate to participants’ experiences becoming (physically literate) and belonging.

A comparison of the magnitude and duration of linear and rotational head accelerations generated during hand-, elbow- and shoulder-to-head checks delivered by hockey players

Ice hockey has the highest rates for concussion among team sports in Canada. In elite play, the most common mechanism is impact to the head by an opposing player’s upper limb, with shoulder-to-head impacts accounting for twice as many concussions as elbow- and hand-to-head impacts combined. Improved understanding of the biomechanics of head impacts in hockey may inform approaches to prevention. In this study, we measured the magnitude and duration of linear and rotational head accelerations when hockey players (n = 11; aged 21–25) delivered checks “as hard as comfortable” to the head of an instrumented dummy with their shoulder, elbow and hand. There were differences in both peak magnitude and duration of head accelerations across upper limb impact sites, based on repeated-measures ANOVA (p < 0.005). Peak linear head accelerations averaged 1.9-fold greater for hand and 1.3-fold greater for elbow than shoulder (mean values = 20.35, 14.23 and 10.55 g, respectively). Furthermore, peak rotational head accelerations averaged 2.1-fold greater for hand and 1.8-fold greater for elbow than shoulder (1097.9, 944.1 and 523.1 rad/s2, respectively). However, times to peak linear head acceleration (a measure of the duration of the acceleration impulse) were 2.1-fold longer for shoulder than elbow, and 2.5-fold longer for shoulder than hand (12.26, 5.94 and 4.98 ms, respectively), and there were similar trends in the durations of rotational head acceleration. Our results show that, in body checks to the head delivered by varsity-level hockey players, shoulder-to-head impacts generated longer durations but lower magnitude of peak head acceleration than elbow- and hand-to-head impacts.

“We the North” As the Dispossession of Indigenous Identity and a Slogan of Canada’s Enduring Colonial Legacy

As the only Canadian team in the professional United States’ National Basketball Association, the Toronto Raptors adopted the slogan “We the North.” The new slogan is designed to invoke historical myths and narratives of what or who Canada is. The slogan emblematically assumes, as a metanarrative, the mythologized national identity of Canada as distinctly “northern,” revealing itself to be a reproduction of banal nationalism in Canada in the process. It is, however, more than that: it is the appropriation of an imagined northern Canadian, and specifically Inuit or authentic northern (indigenous) identity. Something as seemingly innocuous and banal as a Canadian sports team’s slogan can manifest the enduring colonial legacy of Canada. Banal nationalism in Canada is anything but benign, and in the case of the Raptor’s highly appropriative slogan, dispossessive of Inuit identity and an enduring symbol of Canada’s colonial legacy. In the process of attempting to encapsulate the imagined Canadian national identity and fashion it into a metanarrative, the slogan appropriates the uniqueness that makes northerners and northern indigenous peoples what they are, northerners, and dispossesses them of facets of their identity.

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The Social Construction of the Long-Term Athlete Development Framework

This article examines the social construction of the Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) framework and the Canadian Sport for Life Leadership Team (now Sport for Life), the group responsible for the creation, development and promotion of LTAD. In particular, the study draws upon Schneider and Ingram’s theory of social construction and policy design and empirical data collected from the leadership team and senior civil servants to trace the socio-political developments that have led to the emergence and development of the LTAD framework and the leadership team within Canadian sport. The analysis focuses on the role of government (via Sport Canada) and how the LTAD framework and the leadership team emerged from and attempted to influence the Canadian sport policy process. The findings reveal how the adoption of the LTAD framework can, in part, be explained by the socio-political developments or ‘politicking’ that occurred within and around the creation, development and dissemination of the framework itself. More broadly, the study explains how the LTAD framework has become an increasingly orthodox conception of the athlete development process despite the absence of scientific research to support many of its claims.

Maintaining and disrupting global-North hegemony/global-South dependence in a local African sport for development organisation: the role of institutional work

ABSTRACTRecently, conceptual developments in the field of institutional theory, such as institutional work, that refer to the practices and processes of individuals and organisations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions, have emphasised how institutions are engaged in and affected by organisational actors. Institutions and humans are in a recursive relationship, whereby humans both shape and are shaped by institutional templates through political processes infused with power dynamics. In this paper, research conducted in a local African sport for development (SFD) organisation is featured. SFD is a field of increasing institutionalisation in policy and practice. This study underscores the valuable utilisation of institutional work for exploring international development and sport policy and practice. Using an ethnographic approach, how organisational actors at a local SFD site in a community in sub-Saharan Africa influenced the institutionalised nature of SFD was examined. We provide specific details about the features of the micro-processes of symbolic and relational work in maintaining and disrupting the institution of SFD and discuss three sub-themes in relation to global North hegemony/global South dependence: (1) health awareness, (2) social development and (3) sport development. Future studies of sport in general and SFD in particular would be well-suited to adopt an institutional work perspective in order for in-depth understandings of local relations, international policy and organisational actors and institutions.Abbreviations: SFD: sport for development; NGOs: non-governmental organisations; IOC: International Olympic Committee; NCAA: National Collegiate Athletic Association; NSA: National Sports Association; SC: Sports Centre; CSA: Canadian Sport Association; UN: United Nations; ODR: Olympic Day Run

Primary care management of concussion in Canada.

Concussion has emerged as an important public health issue affecting thousands of Canadians annually. Health care providers including paediatricians, family and emergency medicine physicians, nurses, and nurse practitioners are commonly tasked with the responsibility of providing primary care to patients with acute concussion and those with persistent post-concussion symptoms. In July 2017, Parachute, in collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Sport Canada released the Canadian Guideline on Concussion in Sport that outlines a standardized and evidence-based approach to the recognition, diagnosis, and management of youth and adults with suspected concussion. In this report, we provide a brief overview of the important roles of primary care providers in the medical assessment, management, and prevention of concussion as outlined in this national best practice guideline.

Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sport (CCMHS) Position Statement: Principles of Mental Health in Competitive and High-Performance Sport.

The brave decision made by many Canadian athletes to share their experience with mental illness has fed a growing dialogue surrounding mental health in competitive and high-performance sport. To affect real change for individuals, sport culture must change to meet demands for psychologically safe, supportive, and accepting sport environments. This position statement addresses mental health in competitive and high-performance sport in Canada, presenting solutions to current challenges and laying a foundation for a unified address of mental health by the Canadian sport community. The paper emerged from the first phase of a multidisciplinary Participatory Action Research (PAR) project, in which a sport-focused mental health care model housed within the Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sport (CCMHS) is currently being designed, implemented, and evaluated by a team of 20 stakeholders, in collaboration with several community partners and advisors.

Catch the Feeling of Flying: Guided Walks Through a Trampoline Olympic Development Environment

Olympic-medal performances represent peak accomplishments in athlete development. Seanor, Schinke, Stambulova, Ross, and Kpazai identified environmental factors in a high-performance Canadian trampoline sport environment that developed decorated Olympic medalists. The current intrinsic case study was authored to further highlight the idiosyncrasies of a high-performance trampoline environment (re)presenting stories garnered from this localized Canadian sport environment. Through guided walks, a mobile method of conversational interviews, three contextual experts who are engaged in the development of Olympic athletes provided tours of their sport environment. Each contextual expert’s guided walk played out uniquely in relation to his or her ascribed role (i.e., Olympic coach, assistant coach, and Olympic champion). Three main themes were identified through interpretive thematic analysis: creating lift (subthemes: facility design, sport-culture paragons), providing a tailwind (subthemes: establishing athlete–coach partnerships, team interactions), and soaring onto the Olympic podium (subthemes: preparing athletes to be untethered, competitive collaboration). Each theme is presented through three portrait vignettes, with discrete vantages derived from each contextual expert to illuminate the context from idiosyncratic ascribed roles within the environment. These stories create a rich (re)presentation of a high-performance sport environment through the interplay of the contextual experts’ narratives, their surrounding context, and their Olympic-podium accomplishments.

Clean Sharp Image

Canadian sports commentator Don Cherry is notorious for his outspoken opinions and flamboyant style, both attracting popular attention. This article examines his attention-grabbing on-air style as an extension of both his values for the game of hockey and his view of himself as a working-class boy made good. I argue that Cherry deliberately uses his suits to embody his social and personal values. Drawing on fashion studies approaches, I show that while not exactly fashionable in terms of trendiness, Cherry’s suits are examples of the ability of clothing to be indexical of working-class personality transformed.

Sport in broader leisure lifestyles: An analysis of the professional sport consumer’s cultural engagement

Despite the prevalence of professional sport in contemporary societies, there is little known by academics about professional sports consumers. We know much more about other cultural domains, such as music and the arts. This study examines consumption and sport in Canada to further understand how patterns of sports consumption fit into broader leisure lifestyles. Through investigation of how five professional sports leagues in Canada are consumed, this paper draws conclusions about the lifestyle of these consumers to assess which prevailing theories of cultural consumption are most useful for this segment. By utilising latent class analysis and regression modelling, this paper finds that cultural omnivores are the most likely consumers of these leagues. This group also maps onto theorisations of omnivores as high-status persons. Additionally, this paper suggests that theories of cosmopolitanism in omnivorous consumption may have particular salience for the Canadian case.

Perspectives on pre-participation cardiovascular screening in young competitive athletes: U SPORTS

ABSTRACTObjectives: To investigate the pre-participation cardiovascular screening (PPS) protocols currently implemented at U SPORTS (the governing body of university sport in Canada) sanctioned schools as well as the attitudes toward PPS as reported by Canadian University medical and athletic personnel.Methods: A 15-question survey was sent to the U SPORTS athletic directors in both French and English. The survey focused on the current practices of PPS within the respondents’ universities as well as attitudes regarding PPS. Athletic directors distributed the instructions to participate in the voluntary survey at their own discretion to coaches, athletic therapists, physicians, and associated personnel working within U SPORTS-sanctioned schools.Results: Twenty-three athletic therapists, 12 coaches, 6 physicians, and 5 associated personnel completed the survey (46 in total). Half of the respondents (52%) reported that some form of PPS was conducted at their institution. Eighty percent of respondents agreed with the implementation of mandatory PPS, and 60% reported that they believe their athletes have a neutral attitude toward PPS. Three respondents documented having witnessed an athlete’s sudden cardiac arrest/death.Conclusion: Members of the athletic care teams at U SPORTS-sanctioned schools display an overall positive attitude toward the implementation of mandatory PPS. Based on concerns raised by survey respondents, PPS procedures would need to be developed in a time- and cost-effective manner if PPS were to be expanded.

Система подготовки спортсменов Канады к Олимпийским играм

Objective. To analyze the system of training Canadian athletes for the Olympic Games. Methods. Analysis and generalization of scientific and documentary data. Results. The Federal Government and the Canadian Olympic Committee, national sports federations, sports training centers, provincial governments, and numerous sports organizations act as partners for the preparation athletes for the Olympic Games. The government agency Sport Canada implements its policies and takes part in shaping the Canadian sports system through these bodies. Legislative and political acts have been adopted, including position document Canadian Sport Policy, that contribute to continuous increasing of the government infl uence on the development of sports in Canada through the funding and monitoring mechanisms. The special program Own the Podium serves as a basis for the purposeful strategy of training Canadian athletes for the Olympic Games. Effective management structures have been established aimed at optimizing and focusing activities of public bodies, various sports organizations, and sponsors on the training of the strongest athletes, who are really capable of stepping onto the Olympic podium. An effective policy was developed and implemented to identify the challenges of Olympic preparation, effective training programs for athletes were created, monitoring was planned, critical problems for scientific research were identified, rapid introduction of scientific advances into practice was enabled along with the implementation of advanced world experience and advanced training coaches and other professionals. Conclusions. The formation and implementation of an effective system for training Canadian athletes for the Olympic Games were facilitated by: the positive attitude and support of the government for sports, physical education, and healthy lifestyle of the population; the intensive development of health enhancing physical culture and mass sports; the creation of a strong physical infrastructure; the introduction of rational organizational forms of training for top level athletes; substantial funding of Olympic preparation; and introduction of advanced technologies in all components of the training system.

Using tweets to understand changes in the spatial crime distribution for hockey events in Vancouver.

The use of social media data for the spatial analysis of crime patterns during social events has proven to be instructive. This study analyzes the geography of crime considering hockey game days, criminal behaviour, and Twitter activity. Specifically, we consider the relationship between geolocated crime‐related Twitter activity and crime. We analyze six property crime types that are aggregated to the dissemination area base unit in Vancouver, for two hockey seasons through a game and non‐game temporal resolution. Using the same method, geolocated Twitter messages and environmental variables are aggregated to dissemination areas. We employ spatial clustering, dictionary‐based mining for tweets, spatial autocorrelation, and global and local regression models (spatial lag and geographically weighted regression). Findings show an important influence of Twitter data for theft‐from‐vehicle and mischief, mostly on hockey game days. Relationships from the geographically weighted regression models indicate that tweets are a valuable independent variable that can be used in explaining and understanding crime patterns.

The Girl and the Game: A History of Women’s Sport in Canada

The Girl and the Game: A History of Women’s Sport in Canada