Varsity Sport Hazing

With varsity teams stepping onto fields across Canada, the risk of hazing is undeniable. However, research indicates that coaches can be the largest influence in changing the culture of hazing when they are actively engaged in educating and working with team leaders to introduce alternative orientations. Learn more in the SIRCuit.

Volleyball Swing Volumes

Overuse injuries are common in volleyball. Research reported in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy discovered that women collegiate volleyball athletes performed twice as many overhead swings, serves, and hits during practice, compared to volumes during games (with both games and practices lasting approximately 2 hours). This has important implications for managing training, especially…

Developing Executive Functions and Social Emotional Learning Through Sport

This blog was adapted from a SIRCuit article written by Dr. Vicki Harber. For the full article, click here. Within Canada, there is some concern that an ethos of “winning at all costs” has infiltrated youth sport, degrading the quality of the sport experience resulting in reduced participation (Brenner, 2016) and increased injury (Jayanthi et…

Managing the Risk of Athlete Burnout With or Without Early Specialization

Parents who dream of their children becoming professional athletes, and coaches who believe that single-minded dedication is the only way to reach the top of their sport, have contributed to an increase in early sport specialization. However, there are many researchers, coaches, and athletes who have been pushing back on this trend, citing a range…

Hazing Policy

Most university and college athletic departments have policies that directly prohibit hazing practices. However, research revealed that hazing-related policy was often buried in broader codes of conduct or addressed in harassment and abuse policies, or that policies were poorly implemented and enforced. Creating hazing-specific policy can help organizations address and prevent hazing. Learn more in…

Hazing and Team Cohesion

Many athletes and leaders continue to believe that hazing contributes to team cohesion. Yet research reveals that hazing can have the opposite effective and can fracture relationships amongst teams and between players. Coaches and athlete leaders can use education to debunk the mythical relations between hazing and team cohesion, and use alternative activities to build…

Changing the Culture of Hazing in Canada

Allegations emerging in media reports from Toronto’s St. Michael’s College in the fall of 2018 have made hazing top of mind for athletic staff at Canada’s secondary and post-secondary education institutions. Unfortunately, it is not an isolated event. Reports of hazing have emerged from a number of Canadian institutions in the past decade, including Laurentian…

Social Identity and Team Behaviour

Good team cohesion is a key factor for success, but can create pressure for team members to conform. Research conducted with NCAA athletes found that those who more closely identified with their team were more likely to adapt to their teammates’ behaviour. This held true for both risky (e.g. drinking and driving, concealing concussion) and…

Increasing engagement by addressing de-selection practices in youth sport

As researchers and educators who have been (and still are!) extensively involved in sport, back to school time also means back to school SPORT time! Through our personal experience and our research, we know firsthand the positive impact that participation in sports can have on child development. We are also acutely aware that many children…

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Changing? The Culture of Sport Hazing in the 21st Century-January 2018

Hazing is a complex issue that is entangled in the culture and tradition of Canadian University sport.  Hazing is defined as an event created to establish a team’s social hierarchy by humiliating, degrading, abusing and/or endangering newcomers regardless of a person’s willingness to participate in order to reinforce their social status on the team. Anecdotal…