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 Unpublished studies, grey literature, and research with non-athlete sport participants (i.e., coaches, officials, and non-fringe sport, parasport, and non-Canadian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.
Mergler et al. (Wed,) studied this question.