Developing sports technology programs in Canada will help to engineer a healthier and more prosperous future.
Sports equipment researchers and designers from Canadian universities say increased and prolonged financial support for such programs will aid not just elite athletes, but weekend warriors and industries as well.
Currently, there are no sports engineering programs for students at any level at Canadian universities.
The closest Canada has to any type of institution for sport equipment innovation is the Own the Podium (OTP) program, launched in January 2005.
After Canada failed to win gold at both the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, the OTP program and its estimated $125 million budget pledged to help Canada win not just gold, but the most medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Martin Brouillette, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Sherbrooke, has researched and designed equipment for several large sports equipment manufacturers and Canada’s national speed skating team.
Brouillette explains that though the OTP program invests more in Canadian athletes than in the past and brings together Canada’s 13 winter sport federations along with several other national committees and organizations, it is likely temporary.
“The general feeling is that after the Olympics, all of this is going to die down,” Brouillette said. “My feeling is [the OTP] is a one time thing. There doesn’t appear to be a long term vision.”
For a permanent sports forum or organization to bring together trainers, nutritionists, coaches, and psychologists, Canada should follow the Australian Institute of Sports’ model.
“They actually integrate the entire sports community, including the scientists, into whatever they’re doing,” Brouillette said. “All the scientific aspects of sports are being investigated, including the technology.”
New training techniques are being developed for high performance athletes. The new technologies and products that arise from these interactions could be very lucrative.
“If we win more medals, people are happier and do more sports so they’re in better shape and we sell a bunch of gadgets and make a bunch of money,” Brouillette said. “But [Canada has not] evolved to the point where technology is important at the high performance level to the extent that other countries are doing.”
While on sabbatical in 2001, David Pearsall, lead researcher at McGill University’s Ice Hockey Research Group (IHRG), traveled to Cologne, Germany, where he saw the effect of combining researchers from different aspects of sports.
“[They have researchers] from traditional phys-ed to marketing to broadcast sports to sport medicine and equipment design,” Pearsall said. “So you have 10,000 students employed just in sport-related functions. It’s very viable.”
Pearsall has seen how this works in Canada. The IHRG’s collaboration with Bauer Hockey has led to several of its researchers being hired either by Bauer or another hockey equipment manufacturer.
“So that’s an example where by training people here actually helps draw in industry to stay in Canada,” Pearsall said. “Kind of like if you build [the sports programs, sports industry] may come in terms of huddling around the centres.”
Though there’s no shortage of students showing interest in sports technology programs, an institution’s fate depends on the demand for sports technology graduates from Canada, says Darren Stefanyshyn, a mechanical engineer and associate professor from the University of Calgary.
Working for large multi-billion dollar companies like Adidas and TaylorMade, Stefanyshyn noticed the lack of engineers on staff.
“Because the one thing I would hate is […] to set to up a program, train and educate the students in [sports engineering] and then have no place for them to go or no positions that are available,” Stefanyshyn said.
Graduates from any reputable engineering program would still find work; it just might not be in sports engineering. The disciplines underlying sports engineering are the same as mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering.
“It’s not the field in itself. It’s an application domain. You could be designing a golf club or hockey stick or could be designing landing gear,” Brouillette said. “The science, the technology, and the skills in doing that are all the same.”
Professor Roy Jones, head of Loughborough University’s Sports Technology Research Group in England, agrees with Brouillette.
“If you look around at, for example, how many graduates doing history degrees that we produce; well Jesus, how many historians do we need?” Jones said. “Our graduates— because they’ve gone to a decent university and they’ve undergone a good training program with their mind—they go everywhere.”
Pearsall feels that by combining Canadian and U.S. markets, there will be an opportunity to employ students wishing to work in the sports engineering field.
A top-down initiative would be the most feasible way to establish sports technology programs in Canada. However, developing these types of programs isn’t exactly at the top of any governments’ list.
“It’s not really up there. If you look at things like stem cell research and subatomic particles, they’re putting wads of money to make those things happen,” Pearsall said.
Even more difficult is achieving professional status from schools across Canada and the United States for sporting agencies like the IHRG.
Professional status would give sporting agencies more clout to make change happen, but anything to do with health promotion takes time.
“You’re looking at a generational change; something you need like 20 years to make happen,” Pearsall said.
