SIRC articles provide evidence-based and actionable insights from sport researchers, athletes, coaches, sport organizations and thought leaders to advance sport in Canada.
The unanimous choice: How a 12-year-old girl became captain of a boys’ hockey team
There is an assumption in sports that leadership is earned through tenure, skill, and a certain kind of presence—the intangible, ineffable quality that separates the good from the great. But every once in a while, a story emerges that challenges those assumptions and more. In Sarnia, Ontario, a 12-year-old girl named Laylah Stokes did just…
Project summary The value of sport events extends beyond the competition itself to society at-large. The overarching goal of this project was to understand how to maximize the positive impacts associated with hosting non-mega sport events. Guided by the idea that effective event design and leveraging strategies can increase positive outcomes from sport events, the specific objectives of...
Project summary Youth development research has examined the antecedents, processes, and outcomes that occur in sport contexts. One common finding that consistently emerges is that influential adults, such as teachers and coaches, play instrumental roles in facilitating the developmental process....
View the summary of this research here. Project summary Researchers have documented the importance of sport in the lives of Aboriginal people, emphasizing how it can improve health and wellness. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the cultural...
Project summary Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a full contact combat sport that integrates striking and grappling techniques from a variety of other combat sports (i.e. martial arts, boxing, sumo, wresting, karate, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, and Tae Kwon Do). MMA...
Project summary Sport Canada’s Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model acknowledges that there are limitations to ensuring appropriate development of team sports, especially with regards to selecting into chronological age (CA) bands. Adolescent of the same CA can be 4...
Project summary Sport is often extolled as a key activity for the development of healthy and productive youth as well as for the optimization of health and functioning across the lifespan. However, there is evidence that the delivery of sport...
Project summary This research examined the barriers to participation in sport and physical activity for Shibogama First Nations communities in northwestern Ontario. Aboriginal peoples face significant barriers to participation in physical activity in comparison to Euro-Canadians or other minority populations....
View the summary of this research here. Project summary Deselection (or being “cut”) is the elimination of an athlete from a competitive sport team based on the decisions of a coach. Given the competitive sport structure in Canada, it is...
Project summary Many people who adopt the goal of improving physical activity do not succeed. The aim of this research was to examine goal conflict as a uniquely contributing factor to the low rate of success. Our experiments showed that...
Project summary Sport team membership provides people with opportunities to work together toward a common goal and build supportive social relationships. Quite simply, being a member of a sport team is associated with a host of psychosocial benefits. However, joining...
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