Kyle Rich

Brock University · Department of Recreation & Leisure Studies

Increasingly, sport event bids indicate that multiple jurisdictions within a given region will collaborate on hosting efforts, so that they can share the risks, leveraging opportunities, and benefits of hosting. However, such hosting arrangements are complex and involve many stakeholders, including municipal departments. In this case study, we exam...

Policy implementation in municipal organisations is shaped by various policy frameworks and institutional structures that ultimately impact programming and service provision. The importance of youth development within recreation in municipal organisations in Canada is evident, but little research has focused on manager-level perspectives of youth d...

In this research note, we situate the policy response of park circles enacted by the City of Toronto at Trinity Bellwoods Park in the context of urban gentrification. Rather than a public health measure, we argue that the enactment of park circles as a response to park crowding during the COVID-19 pandemic is reflective of broader processes of gent...

Using a spatial analysis methodology, we analyzed sport participation through membership data of a Provincial Sport Organization (PSO) in Ontario, Canada. Specifically, our analysis brings attention to the participation of women and girls in Row Ontario and the urban and rural nature of the PSO's membership. This research was conducted in partnersh...

Community is a context for much research in sport, sport management, and sport policy, yet relatively few authors explicitly articulate the theoretical frameworks with which they interrogate the concept. In this paper, we draw from communitarian theory and politics in order to contribute to a robust discussion and conceptualization of community in...

The importance of maintaining wellness for seniors is widely acknowledged, and can be achieved through recreation and leisure programming. Nevertheless, little research has explored the intersection between the rural context and the processes of Therapeutic Recreation (TR) practice and programming within long term care (LTC) settings. Using a quali...

Within sport management scholarship, discussions of social change are becoming increasingly prevalent yet the underlying theoretical presumptions about social change are poorly (if at all) articulated. In this paper, we examine this shortcoming and challenge scholars to critically consider their social change agenda. We draw from established theori...

Rationale/purpose Multi-sectoral partnerships have become a common strategy for addressing persistent public health issues, such as physical inactivity, mental health disorders and chronic illnesses. Yet, little is known about the role of the park and recreation sector to such health sector initiatives. The purpose of our study was to analyse the f...

Globally, men are more prone to engage in high‐risk behaviours, which can shorten their life expectancy when compared to women (Creighton & Oliffe, 2010). Further, men die by drowning at twice the rate of women (World Health Organization, 2020). As such, drowning prevention campaigns have often focused on finding ways to change men’s attitudes towa...

Hockey occupies a prominent role in the folklore of rural Canada. In this paper, I discuss the role of hockey events in expressions of place-based rural cultures. I draw from fieldwork conducted in three separate communities to discuss the semiotic processes involved in these events and their relationship to myths of rurality. Informed by mythologi...

Parkdale is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario. Originally developed by wealthy urbanites - even existing as an independent village for a time - it has been reshaped by the industrialization of the waterfront, waves of immigration, and most recently gentrification. Recent changes have produced tensions in the way residents negotiate their sense of...

In this case study, learners are introduced to Sloane, a diversity and inclusion officer who is working to create more inclusive sport and recreation opportunities in her community. A national-level sport event will be hosted in her community and provides an opportunity to elevate and accelerate the work she is already doing with sport and recreati...

Many recreation and leisure professionals are looking for opportunities to upgrade their skills and knowledge in the context of their work. For some professionals that involves returning to post-secondary education. Yet, most undergraduate degree programs are designed in formats for students who are assumed to have little prior professional experie...

Research Question: The purpose of this paper is to advance the idea of cultural safety as a form of praxis for sport and leisure managers. Cultural safety recognizes intersectionality and the diversity of identities and social structures that influence how sport, recreation, and leisure is perceived, understood, and experienced. Cultural safety als...

The collective experience of social distancing will undoubtedly have implications for our social, cultural, and political practices. In this critical commentary, I consider the implications of these experiences by focusing on rural-urban relationships in Canada. Drawing from accounts published in online newspapers, I reflect on how social distancin...

Participatory action research (PAR) is characterised by processes of community partnership and respectful attempts to address and mitigate power relationships between researchers and those affected by research. Further, these approaches to research seek to not only understand social phenomena within communities but also to affect change or action i...

In policy contexts, social exclusion can be experienced through the systematic marginalization of groups by inhibiting their ability to access resources and support. In this article, we consider the context of community sport development in rural Canada to discuss the implications of rationalized policy systems for rural citizens. We discuss instan...

Women in rural and regional communities experience social, cultural, and geographical constraints to sport, physical activity, and leisure participation. This study uses leisure constraints theory to explore the development and delivery of a casual, recreational physical activity program, stand up paddleboarding, for women in regional Victoria, Aus...

The following article is an edited transcript of, "Critical Conversations About Qualitative Research in Sport Management" from the 2017 North American Society of Sport Management conference in Denver, CO, from May 30 to June 3. This 60-min roundtable session included a group of scholars with keen interest and background experiences in qualitative i...

Using first-person inquiry, we explore the use of reflexive practice as a means of self-study in community sport management research. In the context of a participatory action research project with a rural Northern Ontario community recreation committee, we describe our process of conducting first person action inquiry, explore how it enriched the p...

While sport is widely understood to produce positive social outcomes for communities, such as the inclusion of diverse and marginalized groups, little researched has focused on the specific processes through which these outcomes may or may not be occurring. In this paper, we discuss the Community Cup program, and specifically a participatory sport...

In this paper the authors examine the piloting of a cultural safety training module in the Canadian Red Cross’ (CRC) Water Safety Instructor Development Program. Through interviews with pro-gram participants and facilitators, thematic analysis revealed two main themes: Inclusion is important and valued by instructors; and accommodation for cultural...

Each year, over 1 million Canadians participate in the Canadian Red Cross’ (CRC) Swim Program. Despite the increasing importance of cultural diversity in Canadian society, the CRC has yet to incorporate diversity training for this program’s Water Safety Instructors (WSIs). Through the use of critical Whiteness theory and critical discourse analysis...

Sport, and specifically hockey, is discussed extensively in relation to social identity formation and other social outcomes, both positive and negative, within Canadian society. In this article, we utilize a collaborative analysis to examine an autoethnographic account of participation in a rural community hockey tournament and its various social o...

In this paper we explore the ways in which culturally based beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors influence participation in and the development and delivery of water safety education programs. We examine existing data pertaining to ethnic and racial minorities' drowning rates and argue that these groups' high rates of drowning are related to a failure...

Despite its forty-four year long existence, the Northwest Territories (NWT) Aquatic Program has struggled to train and retain northern lifeguards. As a result, the NWT Recreation and Parks Association and the Lifesaving Society of Canada designed the Shallow Water Pool Lifeguard certification to try to more successfully certify lifeguards in the No...