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Responding to a pressure to increase athlete enjoyment and improve athlete development, governing bodies in sport have sought to adapt policies and programs. This study describes a governing association’s failed attempt at selling an optional change to some local associations. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with coaches and board members within two local minor hockey associations and executive decision makers in a provincial governing association (Ontario Minor Hockey Association) in Ontario, Canada. The Ontario Minor Hockey Association sought to maintain the institution by influencing local associations to change the way minor hockey was played (i.e., adopting cross-ice play). They attempted to influence local associations through education, local change champions, and the success of other hockey associations that underwent the change. The two local associations in this study ultimately resisted a shift to cross-ice play, citing history and tradition, constrained organizational resources, operational challenges with change, and change not being mandated.

The purpose of this study was to examine the process of change at the level of youth sport by identifying the impetus for change, responses to change by stakeholders, and factors that constrained or aided the change process. Theoretically, this study builds upon an existing integrative change model. The context of this research is two youth soccer associations in Ontario, Canada, undergoing a long-term structural redesign mandated by the provincial soccer association. Stakeholders from local soccer clubs, as well as the Ontario Soccer Association (N = 20), identified key factors influencing the implementation and success of change. Pressures to change and individual efforts made by board members, coaches, and parents were noted as aiding the change process. Limited collaboration with stakeholders, poor communication, misunderstandings of the change, and constrained organizational capacity negatively affected the change process.

Large-scale qualitative-temporal research faces significant data management and analysis challenges due to the size and the textual and temporal nature of the datasets. We propose a systematic methodology that employs visual exploration to produce a purposive sample of a much larger collection of data, followed by a combination of thematic analysis and visualization. This method allows for the preservation of the whole, producing thematic timelines that can be used to elucidate a narrative of incidents or issues as they unfold. We present a step-by-step guide for this methodology and a comprehensive example from the domain of social media analysis to illustrate how it can be used to reveal interesting temporal patterns among tweets relevant to a noteworthy incident. The approach is useful in sport management, particularly for research related to fan behavior, critical incident management, and media framing.