Practicing excitement, aggression and anger in senior leisure sports

Using qualitative interviews and an interpretive lens inspired by relational sociology of practice, this article explores the social practices of excitement, aggression, and anger in senior leisure sports games. The article contributes to the literature with new empirical knowledge about social processes producing and regulating expressions of excitement, aggression, and anger among recreational senior players (aged 60+). Our findings show that even for older leisure athletes, aggression and anger are part of the enjoyment of sports games, but only for athletes with a sports habitus. Although expressions of aggression and anger are constitutive aspects of the excitement for and emotional investment in these games, and although they are more liberally expressed in leisure sports compared to other social arenas, players carefully collaborate to regulate these expressions so that they do not escalate and spoil the excitement of the games.