For the Love of the Game

by Bouchier, Nancy B.

• ISBN13: 9780773524569
• ISBN10: 0773524568
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

Exploring the complex issues of class and gender relations, community building, and sport reform,For the Love of the Gameanalyses how local culture shapes the meanings of sport and examines the tensions that exist when athletes and sports teams become important symbols for the community. Nancy Bouchier traces the increasing importance of amateur sport to Woodstock and Ingersoll, two small nineteenth-century Ontario towns, revealing its intricate ties to urban boosterism and middle-class culture. Focusing on civic holiday celebrations, the establishment of organized clubs for cricket, baseball, and lacrosse, and the rise of spirited urban sports rivalries, Bouchier shows that small town interest in sports was much more than a pale imitation of the sporting life of Canada's major urban centres.

Author Biography

Nancy B. Bouchier is associate professor of kinesiology and associate member of the Department of History, McMaster University.

Table of Contents

Tables, Maps, and Illustrations	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	3	(6)
Tory Elites to Middle-Class Men: Changing Political, Economic, and Social Landscapes	9	(22)
The 24th of May is the Queen's Birthday: Civic Holidays, Locality, and Sport	31	(29)
From Holidays to Every Day: The Amateur Ascendancy in Local Sport	60	(28)
Cricket and Local Culture: From Centre Stage to the Margins	88	(12)
Baseball, Boosters, and the Amateur Not-for-Profit Approach to Community Sport	100	(17)
Lacrosse: Idealized Middle-Class Sport for Youth	117	(14)
A Respectable Man's World: Amateurism and Local Culture	131	(8)
Appendix: Notes on Methodology and Primary Sources	139	(4)
Notes	143	(34)
Bibliography	177	(26)
Index	203