Charlottetown Figure Skating Club
Immigration is diversifying Canadian communities, and represents an important audience for the Canadian sport and physical activity sector. This video, produced through the Government of Canada’s #ImmigrationMatters initiative, shares the story of how the Charlottetown Skating Club was revived by the enthusastic participation of the Chinese community. For tips on engaging newcomers to Canada in…
Winter 2019 SIRCuit
The Winter SIRCuit is now available! This edition is issue-packed, providing evidence-based and experience-informed insight through a variety of timely and topical articles: Increase your commitment to improving sport in Canada through an article on values-based sport. Contemplate the role of policy and practice in maintaining hazing culture, supporting the inclusion of transgendered athletes, and…
Creating a Values-Based Sport System in Canada
Across playing fields, courts and ice rinks in Canada, demands for improvements in the quality of the sport experience are growing. While sport has long been celebrated for its role in developing the character of our nation, stories shared in the media or by word of mouth are calling into question the type of environment…
Putting Multi-sport into Practice
The Coaching Association of Canada’s 2018 Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Conference focused on fostering positive change in the sport system through influence. One panel discussion attracted attention with the simple question: Is there a future for multi-sport in Canada? Led by an expert panel that included Carolyn Townsend (Sport Nova Scotia), André Lachance (Baseball Canada), Richard…
2018 Year in Review
As we ease ourselves into the year ahead, here is a round-up of the most popular SIRCuit articles and SIRC blogs from 2018! Top 5 SIRCuit articles The implications of cannabis legalization for athletes Issues in athlete identification and selection: Are we compromising talent? A year in the making – Reflections on Canada Artistic Swimming’s…
The Legalization of Cannabis: Insights for Sport Organizations
The legalization of cannabis in October 2018 has significant implications on the Canadian sport system, ranging from anti-doping policy, to athlete and staff safety and wellbeing, to risk management for organizations. In November, Julia Dales, Associate Lawyer with Dentons, joined SIRC through a webinar to discuss cannabis laws in Canada. The webinar was designed to increase…
Powered by the People: the Magic of Crowdfunding in Sport
Funding for sport is changing and government support is increasingly more difficult to obtain, but the money is out there – it just needs to be found. A relatively new fund development tool is crowdfunding. Think about it, a crowdfunding campaign is similar to sport – it’s time sensitive, there’s a very clear goal, it’s…
Building a genuine feedback culture within your sport starts at the top
Sport is often held aloft as an example of an environment where feedback flows easily. As a communications coach and management consultant working with business leaders across North America, I often publicly herald the virtues of the feedback culture I witnessed and experienced in the sport arena, and criticize the dearth of effective feedback habits…
Tapping into the evidence: The Sport Canada Research Initiative Conference
This year marks the 12th Sport Canada Research Initiative (SCRI) Conference, hosted by SIRC. First held in 2005, the SCRI Conference provides an opportunity for the Canadian sport sector to connect with sport-related researchers. The conference program is designed to engage key stakeholders, share research and evidence to inform decision-making, and ultimately enhance the impact…
Inclusion requires action! Creating inclusion for newcomers to Canada
It is clear that the next generation will be diverse, multicultural and, apparently, much less fit than the previous generations. Research points in this general direction, but results from the recent TOPO survey, released in May 2018, demonstrates this trend clearly. The 2017 survey engaged 13,400 children and 7,800 parents across all school boards on…