Abstract
Smaller cities in North America are associated with higher rates of elite talent development in sport compared to larger cities (Côté et al., 2006), but little is known about how city size affects participation. The objectives of this study were to examine the relationship between city size and participation in Canadian male youth ice hockey and to examine if there was a link between city size and dropout using a subset of the sample. A database obtained from the Ontario Hockey Federation provided the participation counts of 15,565 players from 2004 until 2010. To test the relationship between city size and participation, the number of years each player was registered was examined in relation to the city size category (n=9) in which he participated. There was a significant negative correlation (p < .001), meaning participation rates increased as city size decreased. To examine the impact of city size on dropout, the distribution of players who were registered for only 1 or 2 years (n = 1,819) was compared with the distribution of players who were registered for 6 or 7 years (n =11,025) in the 9 city size categories. Odds ratios revealed that cities of over 500,000 people were 2.88 times more likely to produce dropouts than engaged players compared to all other city sizes. Together, these findings suggest that sport programs in smaller cities are more conducive towards promoting prolonged participation in youth sport. Implications for sport program policies will be discussed.Acknowledgments: We would like to thank the Ontario Hockey Federation, Melissa Wolk, Bill Pearce, and Jeff Moon for their great support and contributions towards this project.