Abstract
Fringe team sports (e.g., dodgeball, ultimate), sometimes referred to as alternative or niche team sports, are less popular, funded, and attended than mainstream team sports (e.g., soccer, ice hockey), yet participation in more conventional sports is in decline in Canada. Although fringe team sports might provide important substitutions, they are inadequately researched, and their athletes’ participatory and developmental journeys are unknown. Thus, a scoping review using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology was conducted to determine the breadth of Canadian fringe team sport and fringe team sport athlete development research. The SPORTDiscus, PSYCInfo, Web of Science (all databases), Ovid MEDLINE, and CINAHL databases were searched thoroughly for English-language, peer-reviewed research performed with or referencing adult (aged 18+) Canadian, typically developing athletes from a fringe team sport. Unpublished studies, grey literature, and research with non-athlete sport participants (i.e., coaches, officials, and non-fringe sport, parasport, and non-Canadian athletes) were excluded. There was no date limit. Search results found 32 relevant articles that were predominantly quantitative, conducted with elite Canadian athletes, sampled more female than male athletes, and which mostly recruited participants from field hockey and rowing. Most articles fell into five categories: physiological, injury, perceptual-cognitive, psychological, or cultural studies, but few used a theory or model, or terminology to distinguish fringe from mainstream sports. These findings indicate that more research is urgently needed, especially for more unfamiliar fringe team sports, and more rigorous research inquiries of fringe team sport athletes are warranted to legitimise this field within the sport science literature.
Introduction
Fringe team sports are those group activities (involving two or more individuals per side) not as popular, funded, well attended, or intricately woven into the cultural fabric of society as traditional or mainstream team sports, such as ice hockey or soccer (see Appendix I for examples of each type of team sport). Although various terminologies exist to encapsulate these types of sports (e.g., alternative, extreme, niche, informal), Merriam-Webster's 1 definition of “fringe” as “something that is marginal, additional, or secondary to activity, process, or subject” demonstrates this specific term's capability to be an ideal juxtaposition to “mainstream,” which is synonymous with “normal.” Richard Holt 2 referenced the dichotomy of recreational and elite sport, commenting that “informal physical activity is at the heart of ‘sport,’ located at one end of a continuous spectrum that has elite competitive sport at the other” (p. 62). Similarly, sport type can also be placed on a range from fringe to mainstream as Howe 3 noted that once these alternative sports become popular within a certain culture, they become mainstream within that same context. Each term equates to one side of a dichotomous spectrum where a sport can be understood as different degrees of either fringe or mainstream, but not both simultaneously. For instance, dodgeball could be considered “very fringe” while ultimate frisbee (i.e., ultimate) might be judged as “somewhat fringe.” Conversely, basketball would be regarded as “very mainstream” whereas rugby might be seen as “somewhat mainstream.”
Canada places significant value on winter sports like ice hockey and skiing. At the highest level, the Canadian National Olympic Committee sent the second most athletes (205) to the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, 4 while only sending the 10th most (315) to the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. 5 This is also exhibited by the fact that Canadian-born individuals are more likely to have participated in “winter sports such as ice hockey, skating, skiing and snowboarding, compared with immigrants, who [are] more likely to have played soccer, tennis or basketball”. 6 (p2) Despite soccer and cricket being top two most popular sports worldwide, respectively, based on the total number of fans, 7 they are simply not as culturally ingrained as ice hockey in Canadiana. When contrasting Canadian sport fans, ice hockey was by far the most followed sport by Canadian-born (36%) versus foreign-born (13%) individuals. 8 This trend flipped when examining less culturally significant sports, as immigrants kept up with soccer (21%) and cricket (4%) far more than those born in Canada (4% and 0.1%). 8 Though soccer has been popular to play domestically for many years,9,10 it would be considered less mainstream than ice hockey, while cricket would be decidedly fringe amongst Canadian sport participants. In short, the country, location, or region matters when discussing what can be judged a fringe sport. Therefore, because they are inherently tied to mainstream sports, fringe sports can be defined as those with lower recognition, popularity, funding, and membership than mainstream sports in the context of the country, region, or location where the activity is being performed. Due to this lack of awareness and concern, fringe sports are typically under researched.
Although mainstream sports are considered more popular than their fringe counterparts, national sport participation rates of Canadians aged 15 and older have dipped from 45% in 1992 to 26% in 2010, with participation in the top 10 mainstream sports in Canada (where four of the top five were team sports) having similarly decreased from 42% to 24%. 10 However, this trend has evened out in recent years with a participation rate of 27% in 2016 for individuals aged 15 and up, 11 and has remained steady through to 2021, consistently hovering between 25% to 27% for adults aged 18 and older.12,13 Although rates have stabilised for the past decade, a low overall sport participation rate for adolescent and adult Canadians does not bode well for the fight against sedentary behaviour. Changes to the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults aged 18-64 years 14 shifted physical activity recommendations from a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) per week in bouts of at least 10 minutes to simply 150 minutes of MVPA accumulated over the week, improving the percentage of Canadians who met the guidelines from approximately 19% 15 to 49%. 16 But even accounting for this significant and impactful change to the definition of whom might be considered “active,” roughly 50% of Canadian adults are still considered too sedentary. Although it is not evident that mainstream sport participation has decreased due to the increase in alternatives, most youth and adult Canadians were playing mainstream sports such as soccer, basketball, ice hockey, and swimming in recent years, with only a small minority (≤6%) engaging in less popular sports.6,9 But with over 6.5 million children (aged 17 or less) in the country as of 2023, 17 72% of whom were playing sport, 9 that still equates to nearly 300,000 potential athletes per fringe sport. Therefore, providing alternative options for physical activity to individuals, including sport, could potentially reduce sedentary behaviour and fill the gap in the sport landscape created by mainstream team sports which are not quite cutting it by themselves.
A preliminary search of the literature revealed an amalgamation of North American research on various fringe team sports, including cricket,18–20 dodgeball,21–25 field hockey,26–32 handball, 33 broomball, 34 lacrosse, 30 pickleball,35–37 ringette,30,38–41 ultimate,42,43 and water polo.32,44 These studies covered a wide range of subjects, including Indigenous women in sport, 34 biology, 22 dropout,26,40 gender studies,29,33 physical activity intensity and frequency, 36 physiological characteristics and monitoring,27,31,38 psychological skills and wellbeing,28,37 sport development, 42 and sport nutrition. 41 Interestingly, the majority of articles referenced the fields of physical education,18,21,23–25 sport history,19,20,45–47 and sport injuries.30,32,35,39,43,44 Thus, while some research about fringe team sport development exists, little is known about fringe team athlete development, or a holistic, multifaceted progression of athletes’ skills and abilities over time within or without a sport system through long-term participation, training, competition, and recovery. 48
In sum, because a steep decline in mainstream team sport participation heavily affects the overall participation rate, it is important to explore fringe team sports (e.g., dodgeball, ultimate) to determine if they are viable participation options for sport-oriented Canadians. For context, sports outside the top 25 most popular in Canada as indicated in the Sport Participation 2010 research report (Table 8) 10 could be argued as fringe sports and represent a significant portion (21%, or approx. 1.5 million) of the total sport population compared to 5.7 million mainstream sport participants. Thus, while fringe team sports are less popular, poorly funded, not well researched, and their athletes’ participatory and developmental journeys are relatively unknown, these sports could offer cost-effective, unconventional substitutes to traditionally established team sports and allow more adults to become active sport participants.
To date, there has been no review that has examined fringe team sports, let alone Canadian fringe team sports, and a preliminary literature search has demonstrated that fringe sport in general is not broadly studied, especially compared to mainstream sport. Additionally, an initial search of MEDLINE, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Evidence Synthesis was conducted and no reviews of any kind on the topic were currently underway. As such, to understand the emerging field of fringe team sports, it is important to clarify the scope of extant research in this area through a structured, rigorous, and transparent methodology that can successfully capture its breadth and identify gaps within the Canadian context. Thus, an appropriate exploratory approach in this instance is a scoping review methodology, with its objectives being to assess the breadth of existing fringe team sport literature in Canadian samples and to determine the scope of research that focuses on the development of Canadian fringe team sport athletes. This scoping review will aim to answer the following review questions: what literature exists on fringe team sport research using Canadian samples? And what is the scope of research that focuses on the development of fringe team sport athletes?
Materials and methods
Methods
The proposed scoping review was conducted in accordance with the latest (2020) JBI methodology for scoping reviews. 49 This methodology was chosen due to its transparent, rigorous, and standardised approach to conducting scoping reviews50,51 as it follows a structured procedure that aligns closely to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines 52 to allow for greater reproducibility and consistency.
Eligibility criteria
Participants
All peer-reviewed research included in the scoping review required a sample of participants who were adult (aged 18+), able bodied (i.e., athletes without a disability/impairment) Canadian athletes from a fringe team sport (involving two or more individuals per side), or mainstream team sport athletes if they were being compared to fringe team sport athletes. The rationale for choosing to only gather studies involving Canadian athletes was based on the premise that fringe sports are contextual to their region, meaning that a particular sport in one country could be considered fringe, while it might be mainstream in another. Studies with mixed-location samples were included if they had a distinct sub-sample of Canadian athletes. Research with no athlete samples, non-athlete sport participants, or athlete samples that did not fit the inclusion criteria, such as officials, coaches, or parasport athletes, were excluded.
Concept
Peer-reviewed studies that examined any aspect of fringe team sport athletes, such as their physiology,27,31,38 psychology,28,37 injuries,30,32,35,39,43,44 or dropout,26,40 were included in this scoping review. Moreover, no articles were excluded based on the methodology utilised. Therefore, regardless of whether researchers performed an intervention, measured characteristics of the fringe team sport athlete population, or reviewed past literature, methodology was not a criterion for exclusion. Additionally, special attention was given to articles that discussed fringe team sport athlete development of any type, whether physically, psychologically, historically, theoretically, or any other relevant time- or volume-based comparison category (i.e., tracking retrospective training or competition histories). 53 As such, the number of developmentally related articles was also tracked and compared to the number of papers examining different and unrelated concepts. Any literature that did not reference fringe team sport athletes was excluded.
Context
The primary criterion affecting the context for this scoping review was geographic location. Specifically, this review concentrated on English-language research that emphasised or recruited samples of Canadian fringe team sport athletes. Additionally, there was no date limit, meaning that the review could capture research from any year, enabling a better understanding of the fringe team sport literature's history. Research of sport participants originating outside of Canada or not written in English was excluded.
Types of sources
This scoping review considered a variety of study designs for inclusion, such as experimental, quasi-experimental, observational, cohort, case-control, cross-sectional, qualitative, and mixed method designs. In addition, non-empirical research, such as other reviews, knowledge translation papers, applied papers, and opinion papers that met the inclusion criteria were also considered. However, grey literature (e.g., dissertations, theses, unpublished articles, abstracts, or conference proceedings) and non-English-language articles were excluded.
Search strategy
The search strategy aimed to locate published peer-reviewed studies. Fringe team sports included in the search were those outside the top 25 most popular in Canada as indicated in the Sport Participation 2010 research report (Table 8). 10 Those top 25 most popular sports were cross-referenced with the full list of sports found in Section 9: Cultural Activities and Sports Participation in the Sports Participation Activities (SPA) module, specifically within question SPA_Q110 (pages 116 to 119) of the 2010 General Social Survey, Cycle 24 – Time-Stress and Well-Being. 54 The final list of fringe team sports (involving two or more individuals per side), categorised by sport type, can be found in Appendix II of the Supplementary Materials. Any duplicates were due to some fringe team sports fitting under multiple sport types.
An initial limited search of SPORTDiscus was undertaken to identify articles on the topic. The text words contained in the titles and abstracts of relevant articles and the index terms used to describe the articles were used to develop a full search strategy for SPORTDiscus (EBSCO), PSYCInfo (Ovid), Web of Science (all databases), MEDLINE (Ovid), and CINAHL (EBSCO; see Appendix III in Supplementary Materials for SPORTDiscus search strategy). The search strategy, including all identified keywords and index terms, was adapted for each included database and/or information source. The reference list of all included sources of evidence was also screened for additional studies. The search took place in November 2022.
Study/source of evidence selection
Following the search, all identified citations were collated, uploaded to, and deduplicated in Covidence, 55 a web-based collaboration software platform that streamlines the production of systematic and other literature reviews. Titles and abstracts were then screened by the principal investigator (PI) for assessment against the inclusion criteria for the review. Potentially relevant sources were retrieved in full, and their citation details imported into Covidence. The full texts of selected citations were again assessed in detail against the inclusion criteria by the PI. Search results are reported in the following sections and the study inclusion process is presented in a PRISMA-ScR flow diagram (see Appendix IV in Supplementary Materials). 52
Data extraction
The PI used a self-produced data extraction tool (see Appendix V in Supplementary Materials) to obtain all pertinent data, including specific details about the participants, concept, context, study methods, and key findings relevant to the review question. However, these data items and its accompanying tool were modified, revised, and updated iteratively during the process of data extraction according to each included evidence source.56,57
The data extraction tool's two major sections comprised of article and sample characteristics. Article characteristics were the criteria extracted from each publication that related to their metadata and broad research and content groupings. Metadata included the journal of publication, its authors and their geographical location, and year of publication, while research and content groupings referred to the research field, data type, study design, whether the authors used a theory or model, and whether athlete development was mentioned in the article. Sample characteristics represented the criteria associated with the article's Canadian athlete sample, such as their fringe team sport(s), specific terminology used in reference to these sports, any other sports reported outside of the designated fringe team sports, as well as the athlete sample size, province of origin, age, gender distribution, skill level, and experience. Salient themes and findings were also analysed to determine any commonalities and differences between included studies.
Results
Data analysis and presentation
Selected studies that met inclusion criteria were synthesised and presented in tabular format (see Table 1), with each data item as a separate column and grouped by sport type (e.g., snow/ice, large team, water, and hand sport; see Appendix II in Supplementary Materials) akin to the categories adopted by Canadian Heritage. 10 (pp116–119) Key findings for each study were organised into another table (see Table 2), with a column dedicated to athlete development outcome measures.
Characteristics of included fringe team sport (FTS) articles, ordered by sport type.
For total sample size (N), brackets () indicate number of male participants.
FTS = Fringe team sport.
FTS terminology are adjectives used to describe fringe team sports that include the word “fringe” and its synonyms.
Standard deviations (SD) for age and years of experience means included when possible.
Dashes (-) represent unreported data.
Single asterisk (*) represents terminology that refers to both fringe and mainstream team sports.
Double asterisk (**) represents sample total with no identified gender.
Athlete development outcomes and key findings.
Overall
This scoping review of Canadian fringe team sport publications uncovered 32 relevant articles that fit all inclusionary criteria. Within these, there were several findings related to the article (e.g., journal, country of origin, data type, and study design) and sample (e.g., fringe team sports, terminology, sample size, and athletes’ skill levels) characteristics, along with important thematic connections between the studies themselves.
Article characteristics
Beginning with the article metadata, there were 26 distinct journals that published at least one paper, with five journals each having published two (Canadian Medical Association Journal, International Journal of Sports Medicine, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, and The Sport Psychologist) or three articles (Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine). Authorship was also spread apart, with 30 unique sets of authors and only three articles with the same lead author.58–60 Geographically, 25 (78%) publications were from Canadian authors, while the other seven (22%) were written by international authors, including two (6%) from American researchers. The publication years sorted by decade, as well as the forecast of prospective articles yet to be issued over the remainder of the current decade, can be seen in Figure 1.
Year of publication sorted by decade (dark gray), including prospective articles for remainder of 2020s (in light gray).
The remaining five article characteristics involve the general classification of each paper's content. Articles’ respective fields of research were grouped into 12 topic categories comprising of: biofeedback (n = 1), biomechanics (n = 1), cultural studies (n = 3), gender studies (n = 1), geography (n = 1), injury (n = 5), nutrition (n = 1), perceptual-cognitive (n = 4), physiological (n = 9), psychological (n = 4), sport participation (n = 1), and weight management (n = 1) studies. Thematic findings from these categories are discussed in more detail in the proceeding eponymous section.
Thematic findings and analysis
Much of the included research (n = 25, 78%) fit into one of five topic categories: physiological (n = 9), injury (n = 5), perceptual-cognitive (n = 4), psychological (n = 4), and cultural studies (n = 3) which, interestingly, had the same single author for all three articles.
Other work examined how professional lacrosse players’ preseason heart screenings found a lack of cardiac abnormalities compared to other sampled sports 66 and how elite synchronized swimmers experience significant ferritin (i.e., protein in cells that stores iron) and hemoglobin loss after intense training. 67 Most studies involved elite athletes and emphasised cardiac health, iron–related markers, and training–based testing.
Some fringe sports (ultimate, dodgeball, lacrosse) had relatively few eye injuries compared to mainstream sports, though authors stressed the need for eye protection. 70 At the 1976 Olympics, Canadian fringe team sport athletes from field hockey, rowing, handball, and lacrosse visited medical staff less often overall, though male water polo and field hockey players exceeded the average. 71 Overall, field hockey, ringette, and water polo appear riskier than other fringe team sports, but data remain limited.
Other studies showed that national bobsleigh athletes excelled at a simulated driving task over non-athletes due to sport–specific knowledge, 74 and water polo goalkeepers reported perceptual–cognitive benefits from VR–based training. 75 All samples in this category involved elite athletes. Findings highlight experts’ superior visuomotor and decision–making skills and the value of representative technology.
Elite lacrosse athletes reported benefits from visualisation and dreaming about their play, though additional sport psychology support could enhance performance. 77 Retired elite rowers described suppressing emotions to meet expectations, leading to overtraining, anxiety, chronic injury, and eventual withdrawal. 78 Across studies, only elite athlete samples were recruited, while psychological support and mental skills training appear valuable for athlete well–being and performance.
Data types
In sum, the data type of articles was primarily quantitative (n = 26; 81%), with the rest falling under the qualitative umbrella (n = 6; 19%). Authors employed a myriad of study designs, including case (n = 3), descriptive (n = 6), ethnographical (n = 3), experimental (n = 2), narrative research (n = 2), nonexperimental / observational (n = 6), quasi-experimental (n = 9), and retrospective (n = 1) studies.
Expanding upon this, authors tended to perform vastly more quantitative (n = 26) than qualitative studies (n = 6) at a roughly 4-to-1 ratio. There were also no authors that utilised mixed method studies. An explanation for this result could be that authors chose quantitative methodologies because their corresponding investigative topic categories called for more quantitative designs. For example, physiological, injury, biofeedback, biomechanical, nutritional, geographical, and perceptual-cognitive studies fit more into the “harder,” objective-truth-seeking, post-positivist sciences. As such, while there is a general need for more studies of all data types, there is clearly a specific need for more qualitative and mixed method studies. Moreover, the top five most common study types (out of eight total) were quasi-experimental (n = 9), observational (n = 6), descriptive (n = 6), case study (n = 3), and ethnographical (n = 3) designs. While quasi-experimental projects were the most commonplace, remaining article study types were relatively varied with between one and six articles in each grouping. Thus, despite the small number of total publications, fringe team sport athletes were being researched from multiple methodological perspectives. However, less exploratory, more rigorous research inquiries of fringe team sport athletes are warranted to further legitimise this field within the sport science literature.
Theories/models
Whether any theory or model was used was also extracted from each text, with the majority of papers (26; 81%) not using either type. The two main theories utilised, which were applied in qualitative articles, were diaspora theory80–83 by Joseph58,59 and Foucault's theory of disciplinary power84,85 by Chapman 86 and Sinden. 78 Similar to the data types of studies, over 80% (n = 26) did not apply any sort of theory or model, whereas those that did (n = 6) primarily constituted of qualitative articles (n = 4). This was an interesting finding and perhaps speaks to the rigour and quality of the included qualitative articles compared to the quantitative studies. Although not all theories or models are created equally, basing one's research off vetted concepts, when applicable, can help to authenticate a project's methodology and perhaps allow one to expand on existing ideas or develop one's own theory or model.
Athlete development
Finally, one additional non-essential inclusion criterion was to record whether athlete development of any kind was mentioned in included articles, however, athlete development was barely cited at all, only manifesting in three articles. Specifically, any athlete development discussions were totalled, with most articles (n = 29; 91%) not having any mention of the topic, and those that did26,31,75 making only brief analyses.
Firstly, in a study that suggested field hockey players typically dropped out due to time constraints, league dissatisfaction, or relocation, Butcher 26 proposed that enhancing field hockey participation hinges on improving coaching quality, stratifying leagues by skill, adding indoor leagues, and increasing playing opportunities. Secondly, Vescovi 31 defined and compared the match activity profiles of two age groups from the Canadian Women's National Field Hockey team. This quantification allowed for a better grasp of training requirements needed to transition across the developmental pathway. And to progress along this pathway, younger athletes were encouraged to increase their volume of high-intensity training to be representative of their current field position and match requirements. Lastly, national level water polo goalkeepers recruited to Richard et al.'s 75 perceptual-cognitive training study believed that the virtual reality activities performed could positively influence their development when used in conjunction with other training specialities (e.g., coaches, therapists, psychologists). Participants ended up wanting to carry out more training activities because they recognised its benefit to their holistic development. All three publications had salient findings, but notwithstanding the fact that so few included articles even mentioned it, athlete development was not even the main topic of these studies. Therefore, if fringe team sport athletes are to ever understand their development and how it evolves over time from an empirical lens, much more research is needed in this area.
Sample characteristics
Continuing with sample characteristics, fringe team sport athlete sample sizes ranged from 3 to 3260 participants, with a median of 16 athletes and a mean of 30.97 (SD = 38.13) after removing the largest outlier. Article samples were recruited from a variety of provinces, including Ontario (n = 9), Alberta (n = 3), and British Columbia (n = 3), but consisted mainly of national level athletes hailing from across Canada (i.e., nationwide; n = 14). Three publications also picked participants from multiple provinces, primarily from Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, but one paper 76 enrolled athletes from Manitoba and New Brunswick. All athletes ranged between 18 and 74 years of age, but the mean of 28.41 years (SD = 12.43) reflected that most athlete samples comprised of young adults. Importantly, however, only 26 (81%) articles reported the age of participants.
Each article contained a sample of athletes involved with at least one fringe team sport. Thirteen fringe team sports were fitted into one of four classifications, which consisted of snow/ice, water, large team, and hand sports. Snow/ice sports included bobsleigh (n = 1), ringette (n = 2), speed skating (team event; n = 1), and synchronised skating (n = 1); water sports consisted of rowing (n = 9), synchronised swimming (n = 1), and water polo (n = 3); large team sports covered cricket (n = 3), field hockey (n = 12), lacrosse (n = 3), and ultimate (n = 1); and hand sports were made up of dodgeball (n = 1) and handball (n = 1). Together these totalled 39 discrete sport mentions, however, it is important to keep in mind that because a few papers (n = 4) sampled athletes from multiple fringe team sports, this aggregate number was higher than the 32 included articles.
Most studied fringe team sports
One potential method for determining the most studied fringe team sport is simply through the number of article mentions. To first summarise which specific sports were covered by the review, the entire set of publications comprised 13 different sports from four separate sport categories. In order of sport category, the 13 discrete fringe team sports encompassed four snow/ice sports: bobsleigh, ringette, speed skating (team event), and synchronised skating; three water sports: rowing, synchronised swimming, and water polo; four large team sports: cricket, field hockey, lacrosse, and ultimate; and two hand sports: dodgeball and handball. Returning to our original thought, based on the number of article mentions for each sport, the order of popularity was as follows: field hockey (n = 12), rowing (n = 9), cricket, lacrosse, and water polo (n = 3, respectively), and ringette (n = 2), while the remaining sports each had one mention. Notably, the sum of 39 was because some sports were counted more than once due to some papers simultaneously examining multiple eligible fringe team sports.
Another similar organisational method was through ordering by publications that devoted their attention to only one fringe team sport. These had a similar order, although water polo only had one dedicated study, and the trio of dodgeball, handball, and ultimate had none. Both systems of arrangement had analogous ordered lists of fringe team sports, and both demonstrated that field hockey and rowing were considerably more researched than the rest, perhaps indicating that these two sports are closer to mainstream in the Canadian sport sphere.
A possible third, yet dissimilar technique for establishing the most studied fringe team sport would be through sample size. Across all these sports and publications, the number of athletes totalled 4189 individuals. But despite what could be considered a large overall athlete sample, nearly 80% of them were enlisted in Rich and colleagues’ 87 study of Rowing Ontario's membership dispersion within the province. This left 929 participants, or a mean of 30.97 (SD = 38.13), between the remaining 31 articles. Amongst the four fringe team sport categories, water sports, inflated by the aforementioned provincewide study, had the largest number of athletes at 3522 and averaged 21.83 (SD = 17.73) individuals per publication when controlling for the one outlier. Large fringe team sports had the second highest total number of participants with 594 and a mean of 31.26 (SD = 40.30) athletes per article. Snow/ice and hand-based fringe team sports were very close in total sample size, accounting for 37 and 36 athletes, respectively. The average for the former group was 9.25 (SD = 4.57) individuals per article, while the latter had a mean of 18 (SD = 24.04) participants per study. At a glance, aquatic fringe team sports clearly had the largest aggregate sample, however, when Rich et al.'s study was controlled for, that number dwindled to 262, dropping the water sport category to second place. But not controlling for the outlier, the most studied fringe team sport categories, ordered by greatest number of participants, were water, large team, snow/ice, and hand sports.
Taking it one granular step forward, the most studied fringe team sports by total sample size were: rowing (n = 3445), field hockey (n = 505), water polo (n = 68), cricket (n = 48), lacrosse (n = 39), handball (n = 35), ringette (n = 14), bobsleigh (n = 10), speed skating (team event; n = 10), synchronised swimming (n = 9), synchronised skating (n = 3), ultimate (n = 2), and dodgeball (n = 1). Naturally, the sports referenced more often will likely have larger combined sample sizes since there are more athletes from that sport being recruited. Therefore, upon comparison to the previous two ordering methods of total mentions and dedicated article counts, there were similar findings across the board, save for one outlier. Handball stuck out because it had only one article mention and no dedicated publications despite having the third largest average sample size and sixth largest overall sample size amongst included fringe team sports.
Based on the number of article mentions, dedicated publications, and total and average athlete sample sizes, it seems the top five most popular, and least fringe, Canadian team sports include field hockey, rowing, cricket, water polo, and lacrosse. Although field hockey and rowing were tied for first place, if we controlled for Rich et al.'s 87 outlier sample, rowing finished second in the ranking. Additionally, only two sport categories made the top five, specifically three large team fringe sports (i.e., field hockey, cricket, and lacrosse) and two water-based fringe team sports (i.e., rowing and water polo), while the remaining sports from these two groups, along with all snow/ice and hand-based fringe team sports, rounded out the bottom eight. Again, some of the most studied sports will likely have the larger sample sizes, but when we consider the mean sample size as well, we can determine which sports are the “fringiest,” or the fringe within the fringe.
Fringe terminology
Terminologically, articles were reviewed for any of 25 synonymous words for fringe (including “fringe” itself). This list included: action, adventure, alternative, amateur, emerging, extreme, fringe, (high) risk, individualism, informal, less traditional, lifestyle, media driven, new, niche, non mainstream (and nonmainstream), non major, non traditional (and nontraditional), panic, post industrial, post modern, self organised, unconventional, untraditional, and whiz.88–93 Most publications did not use any consistent language to refer to fringe team sports (n = 26; 81%), but a small contingent utilised the words “amateur” (n = 4), “high-risk” (n = 1), and “niche” (n = 1). Most articles also made no reference to other sports (n = 23; 72%), but seven (22%) contained multiple other sports (i.e., mainstream or fringe sports not on the preapproved list as seen in Appendix II in Supplementary Materials), and two (6%) explicitly cited ice hockey as a comparison sport. Thus, no pattern was found based on articles’ usage, but there should be a common language to describe fringe team sports to shorten the catalogue of 25 semantically similar adjectives (see Appendix VI in Supplementary Materials for entire list).
Skill level
Skill level was categorised using Baker and colleagues’ expertise taxonomy 94 that considers athletes’ skill level, level of training, and competition. Athletes in the novice and naïveté skill levels perform very little to no training and have minimal to no playing experience, respectively. Because no athlete samples were completely unfamiliar with their sport, naïveté was removed. Basic, intermediate, advanced, and expert represented gradually increasing stages of skill development, each with greater levels of competition and regular sport-specific training. All these echelons fit with at least one athlete sample and were thus included as skill level options. However, as per Baker and colleagues’ 94 assessment that “eminence” was ascribed only to those inducted or in contention for Hall of Fame status, this stage was removed as there were no athletes present in any of the included articles that fit this description. Thus, given the five skill tiers utilised (i.e., novice, basic, intermediate, advanced, and expert), many samples were considered experts at their fringe team sport (n = 14), whereas the advanced (n = 4), basic (n = 3), and intermediate (n = 2) levels combined only accounted for just under a third of article samples. The bulk of remaining articles consisted of an amalgamation of skill levels that ranged from novice to expert (n = 7), although two articles did not report skill level whatsoever. Finally, despite a mere eight (25%) studies recording athletes’ sport experience, reports ranged between 1 and 16 years, with a mean of 8.17 (SD = 2.87) years.
Athlete gender
In terms of gender distribution, there were more total female (2604) than male (1567) fringe team sport athletes, with a median of 19 female athletes compared to 16 male athletes. The mean was 30.86 (SD = 39.29) female and 20.23 (SD = 17.02) male athletes per study when controlling for the Rich et al. 87 outlier. However, two articles70,72 did not disclose the gender of participants yet only combined for a total of 18 athletes. Percentagewise, the gender ratio favoured females (62%) over males (37%), while athletes whose gender was unidentified made up less than 1% of total participants. Sports that had predominantly more female than males included field hockey, ringette, rowing, synchronised skating, and synchronised swimming. The opposite was true for bobsleigh, cricket, handball, lacrosse, speed skating, and water polo which had more male than female athletes, while dodgeball and ultimate had no apparent gender asymmetry as neither sport’s athlete gender was reported.
The most recent Canadian Heritage 10 report indicated that males were more involved in Canadian sport than females by a more than 2-to-1 ratio. This was true for all mainstream team sports and most mainstream sports overall. One exception was swimming, which had a similar 2-to-1 ratio, but of females to males, and was the third most popular sport amongst female athletes. If many Canadian females choose swimming as their sport of choice, it is possible that some might eventually branch off to participate in synchronised swimming. Additionally, although not specifically identified, those fringier sports below the top 25 had a more equal proportion of males to females of 1.4 to 1, respectively, which demonstrates that females might gravitate toward more niche sports.
To put this in perspective, 20.8% of the total Canadian sport population 15 years and older participated in fringe sports, 10 but when broken down by gender, 17.8% of total males got involved in fringe sports, whereas 26.9% of total females played fringe sports. Thus, despite not quite being in line with our findings that female athlete samples in included studies were playing fringe team sports at a nearly 1.7-to-1 ratio compared to males, it seems that females might in fact be more attuned to participating in fringier activities, especially team-oriented sports. And although a recent report of Canadian girls in sport revealed that 50% of girls stop taking part in sport by adolescence, it also mentioned that the greatest barrier to sport participation was “alternative interests and activities.” 95 While it is possible that some fringe sports are generally considered sports by participants, others might fall in with these “alternative activities” dividing girls’ time and attention away from traditional sports, when in fact they are lesser-known fringe sports facilitating health and wellbeing.
Furthermore, we can better understand the gender ratio, along with the mean age and skill range of athletes, by looking at the average athlete profile of each sport category (see Table 3).
Athlete profile by sport category.
* Mean age in years; SD = standard deviation.
** (M/F) = ratio of males to females.
The gender proportion of snow/ice and hand fringe team sports were more equivalent and comparable to the Canadian Heritage findings for fringe sports with a 1.31 and 1.19 male-to-female ratio, respectively. Importantly, this ratio changed drastically for water and large team fringe sports. For every two male aquatic-based fringe team sport athletes, there were three females, whilst for every one male playing a large fringe team sport, there were five female athletes. With a greater overall sample size in the water and large team sport categories compared to the other two, these results are meaningful and perhaps exhibit the benefit of fringe team sports in encouraging female athletes to participate and stay involved in sport.
Additionally, the average age of athletes from all categories fell within their twenties save for large team participants whose mean was affected by Joseph's sample of older cricketers.58–60 When controlling for this, the average age of large team sport athletes decreased to 23.92 (SD = 3.74) years, consistent with every other sport category. Relatedly, the skill levels of participant samples were heavily skewed toward the highly adept end of the spectrum as between 40-69% of articles contained expert-level fringe team sport athletes, which is well matched to the ratio of expert-only and mixed (with some experts) athlete samples recruited in studies of talent in sport (i.e., 46.8%). 96 Such a high proportion of expert athletes might also relate to the generally youthful participant age across the four sport types as, for example, many Olympic team sport athletes peak in their early adulthood (i.e., mid-to-late twenties). 97 Thus, these profiles might reflect the average (primarily elite) athlete across all these sports, although this supposition is limited by the small number of included studies.
Discussion
A scoping review of 25 unique fringe team sports in five databases (i.e., SPORTDiscus, PSYCInfo, Web of Science – all databases, Ovid MEDLINE, and CINAHL) with no date delimitation that investigated Canadian fringe team sport athlete literature produced a final sample of 32 articles. This was the most important and striking finding given the sheer scale of the search, yet so few articles were discovered. As such, more research needs to be conducted in this space, not solely because this is a budding area of activity for younger generations,90,98,99 but also given the number of individuals participating in fringe sports in general (Table 8), 10 and likely fringe team sports in particular.
Common themes
Some common themes sprang up across included studies, one being sport-specific injury mitigation, such as targeted warm-ups in field hockey, 68 stricter rule enforcement in ringette, 69 and recommendations for wider use of protective eyewear. 70 Another converging theme was the interplay between physical and cognitive preparation as elite performance hinges not only on fitness level but on how well athletes couple physical actions with split-second decision-making, for instance, via virtual-reality drills for water polo goalkeepers 75 and imagery training in field hockey. 72 A third theme involved the role of supportive environments in athlete health and retention, such as through greater access to sport psychologists in lacrosse 77 and psychological outlets in rowing. 78 Conversely, most differences arose in reference to the research area as some studies prioritised physiological markers, while others delved into psychosocial dynamics or community identity, highlighting the multifaceted nature of fringe team sports.
Across all categories, nearly every study recruited national-level, Olympic, or high-performance athletes. Elite fringe team athletes dominating samples reflected a performance-centric research bias that offered deeper insight into peak adaptations, but little could be inferred about developing, recreational, or master-level athletes. Methodologies also varied by sport context, such as lab protocols for rowing, field-based monitoring for field hockey, and qualitative interviews in cultural studies, yet all converged on the need for tailored interventions. As such, there was a consistent need for individualised and sport-specific interventions, whether physiological, psychological, or cultural, though a few studies attempted to bridge macro-level trends (e.g., geographical participation) with micro-level athlete experiences (e.g., injury tracking, emotional health).
Potential implications for practice include holistic athlete development, diversified research samples, cross-sport knowledge transfer, and context-sensitive interventions. Firstly, Canadian fringe team athletes’ training programs should attempt to weave together cardiovascular conditioning, injury prevention, perceptual-cognitive drills, and psychological skills, mirroring the mixed nature of high-performance fringe team athlete research. Further, investigators should aim to expand future study recruitment to incorporate developmental, recreational, and underrepresented athlete groups which might surface new injury patterns, performance barriers, and cultural needs. Additionally, techniques proven in one fringe team sport (e.g., VR anticipation drills in water polo) could be adapted to others (e.g., field hockey goalkeeping), fostering innovation across disciplines. And lastly, regional spatial findings and cultural case studies underline the necessity of bottom-up program design, ensuring interventions are context specific and resonate with local communities, genders, and cultural identities.
Final fringe team sport ranking
In an attempt to organise all 13 fringe team sports on a spectrum from least to most fringe using the average rank between all four previously noted sorting methods, Figure 2 is the result.
Spectrum of included Canadian fringe team sports in descending order from least to most fringe.
Identifying field hockey, rowing, cricket, water polo, and lacrosse as the most-studied fringe team sports reveals insights that can guide research priorities, policy, and practice across the broader landscape of under-researched team sports. Their prominence in the Canadian fringe team sport literature was a large component as to why they straddle the boundary between “fringe” and “quasi-mainstream.” For instance, greater research representation could signal better existing national infrastructure, meaning these five fringe team sports might benefit more from organised governing bodies, standardised competitions, and established performance metrics, conditions that make rigorous studies feasible. Furthermore, these more well-researched fringe team sports could offer transferable best practices, including how physiological profiling for field hockey athletes could inform injury-prevention programs in sports with similar movement demands (e.g., lacrosse, ultimate), or how water polo's virtual-reality anticipatory drills showcase the power of versatile tools that any fringe sport could adopt. This quintet also collectively skew female in terms of participation and research samples, which contrast sharply with many mainstream sports. 10 Understanding why fringe team sports consistently attract and retain women can inform strategies to boost female involvement in other fringe and mainstream sports alike.
However, what Figure 2 really illuminates is that, although some more than others, all these fringe team sports require more research performed with their athletes. Taking it one step further, the spectrum represents the degree to which each individual fringe team sport requires investigative attention, with field hockey and rowing on the slightly less pressing end, while dodgeball and its compatriots sit firmly on the dire-need-for-more-research side of the continuum. Overall, there is a clear lack of awareness and care for fringe team sports in the research realm. Revisiting our definition of fringe sport, the findings here demonstrate and validate that lower recognition and popularity within the Canadian context, in addition to less funding and fewer individuals concerned with or able to conduct research on fringe team sports allowed this field to become under researched as a whole within the country.
Coaching implications
The breadth of findings in this scoping review offers fringe team sport coaches a rich evidence base to refine different aspects of their practice, from improving training design to athlete wellbeing and long-term development. However, while it is important to use this existing research to update current training regimens to better align with mainstream sports, fringe team sport coaches should aim to adapt their programming to their respective sport context. The idea is to improve athlete development by utilizing a dual approach that combines the best practices from mainstream sport while customizing them to the uniqueness of fringe sport. For example, because they typically make up smaller communities, fringe sport athletes often form tight bonds over a shared passion, are open and inclusive to newcomers, and are quicker to adjust and innovate.
Given this, coaches could design and implement evidence-based training protocols, such as sport-specific, dynamic warm-ups 68 and conditioning sessions to mirror sport demands 61 while opening the doors for other community members to join and learn. Virtual-reality technology could be purchased by a fringe sport organisation and loaned out to various fringe sport teams to collectively sharpen anticipation through cognitive drills. 75 During the season, injury prevention and management could manifest in the form of concussion protocols, 32 through demonstrations of proper sport-specific techniques, 100 and by encouraging supplementary protective equipment (e.g., polycarbonate goggles). 70 This information could be distributed across different fringe sports via shared knowledge transfer. Enrolling a sport psychologist to run a session for an entire community could also support mental skill development and preparation, 77 healthy communication, 78 and foster inclusivity and belonging 101 while ensuring budget friendliness.
Moreover, on a broader scale, fringe team sport coaches could push for more structured athlete development pathways through skill- 26 and/or age-stratified divisions 31 to bridge formative gaps or help create specialised programs for newcomers to build community engagement, strengthen integration, and reinforce club loyalty.58,59 Relatedly, coaches could also tailor their programming to the predominant context, 87 culture, and gender of their fringe team sport athletes to design targeted training, mentorship, and pedagogical programs. Overall, by weaving these research-backed strategies into coaching curricula, practitioners can deliver holistic, sport-specific, and culturally attuned programs. This not only elevates performance and safety, but also promotes inclusive, sustainable athlete development across the spectrum of fringe team sports.
Limitations
As with any review, there were some major limitations. Of course, a larger number of fringe team sports could have been incorporated into the search, but the existing list was taken from an official interview question on the General Social Survey, Cycle 24 – Time Stress and Well-being, 102 meaning that these particular sports were recognised by the Canadian federal government. We could also have stretched the search beyond five databases, however, our initial exploration of three databases, including the major source Web of Science, and eventual expansion to integrate two more evidential sources, were all in accordance with the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. 103 Other important limitations were that included articles were restricted to those written in English with Canadian samples. While the review was primarily focused on capturing a glimpse of the Canadian fringe team sport environment, the search could have integrated other languages such as French, especially given that Canada has English and French as its official languages. Other similar English-speaking countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand could also have been incorporated into the search criteria, especially because some researchers hailed from those regions, although this review was attempting to learn more particularly about the Canadian context.
Additionally, fringe team sport non-athlete participants (i.e., officials, coaches), parasport athletes from adapted fringe team sports, or youth fringe sport athletes could also have been included, but the idea was to examine the probable largest segment of fringe team sport participants. Adult athletes were also likely to be more experienced, abundant, and to have travelled farther down their development pathways. Furthermore, the search took place in November 2022, which could have created a potentially significant delay between the search and publication dates and excluded some pertinent research from this review. But perhaps most contentious to the JBI methodology for scoping reviews, 49 the PI performed all searches alone and did not have a secondary or tertiary reviewer when deciding whether to include or exclude relevant articles, thus personal bias in article selection might have been more of a factor in this review.
Practical implications
To sum up the findings in four words: more research is needed. As a greater number of individuals join fringe sports (Table 8), 10 particularly more youth,90,98,99 and with a positive trend indicating an increase in fringe team sport inquiries, this area remains ripe for additional empirical research to be conducted. Studies should aim to diversify their methodologies by using qualitative and mixed method designs that utilise a theory or model as a grounding mechanism and to improve rigour. Canadian authors should also direct their efforts to streamline their fringe sport terminology to simplify the jargon. Furthermore, with the majority of Canadian fringe team sport literature having been performed with elite and female athletes, more research on novice and grassroots participants’ fringe team sport and training progressions is necessary, especially in comparison to expert fringe team athletes’ development. Broader investigations of gender-diverse and racialised groups are also required. However, it is noteworthy that until recently, paid opportunities in mainstream sports for female athletes have not been widely available. Though this has changed with the arrival of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL), the Northern Super League (NSL), the Toronto Tempo (WNBA), 104 and the Women's Pro Baseball League (WPBL). 105 A current valuation of the Canadian pro women's sport market (along with tennis and golf) is sitting at $380 to $400 million CAD, with a $570 million valuation projection by 2030, 104 meaning that Canadian female athletes could see more opportunity within these new elongated and lucrative developmental pathways and potentially transfer out of fringe team sport.
In practice, coaches should avoid generalizing elite-focused findings to recreational contexts, sport educators could use demographic insights (e.g., high female participation) to develop inclusive and tailored outreach programs, and federal/provincial funding agencies could support research mandates that target underserved athlete groups and fringe sports with minimal empirical data. Importantly, with only three studies explicitly discussing athlete development, there is enormous opportunity to begin charting training pathways, dropout risks, and late-entry trajectories across fringe team sports. Fringe team sport administrators should aim to develop sport-specific development models and invest in bottom-up, grassroots development programs as opposed to simply adopting mainstream templates. Lastly, greater recognition is needed that fringe team sports seemingly attract more and are vital spaces for female athletes. Offering female role models and targeted funding streams for programs that boost access for women, girls, and gender-diverse athletes could further nurture these already-inclusive environments.
Finally, in reference to Figure 2, some fringe team sports warrant more investigative attention than others, however, the sport at the “fringiest” end of the spectrum is dodgeball. Policymakers can look to these “most common” fringe team sports as proof that a larger research library yields more actionable insights, while the absence of comparable data for the “fringiest” sports highlights critical gaps, but also signals opportunity to balance the evidence base. Lessons learned in more mainstream sports could also be road-tested before being adapted for less structured sports. Therefore, while fringe team sports in general require an abundant amount of research to improve their standing amongst other mainstream sports in the eyes of academics, policymakers, and consumers alike, dodgeball and other similarly fringy team sports at the lower end of the continuum are seemingly in dire straits regarding their legitimacy and are most deserving of any research consideration.
Conclusion
A scoping review of the Canadian fringe team sport literature was performed to develop a better understanding of not only how much research exists in this field and context, but also to determine the scope of which that focuses on fringe team sport athlete development. A broad search yielded less than three dozen relevant articles, establishing the fact that more research is required in this area, specifically as it relates to Canadian fringe team sport athlete samples.
Fringe team sports might be understudied, but they are as similarly rich ecosystems as mainstream team sports where athletes forge identity, build skill, and find community. Regardless of the sport's status, to the athletes that partake in them, they are very meaningful. Thus, by translating these research findings into thoughtful coaching, inclusive programming, and forward-looking policy, we could help fringe (team) sports thrive and diversify the future of sport in Canada.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-spo-10.1177_17479541261447095 - Supplemental material for Fringe team sport athletes in Canada: A scoping review
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-spo-10.1177_17479541261447095 for Fringe team sport athletes in Canada: A scoping review by Jason Mergler and Leisha Strachan in International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching
Footnotes
Ethical considerations
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Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data availability
Data available upon request from the corresponding author.
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References
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