For the Love of the Game: Amateur Sport in Small-Town Ontario, 1838–1895

C.E. (Kit) Lefroy is director of the School of Sports Administration at
Laurentian University.

Most sport histories look at amateur sport from the perspective of
Canada’s larger cities such as Toronto and Montreal. Nancy Bouchier
has taken a different approach in two respects. First, she describes
sport events and development in two small Southern Ontario towns,
Woodstock and Ingersoll. Second, she uses those descriptions to
illustrate the relationship between sport and social issues such as
race, ethnicity, gender relations, community building, social class, and
sport reform.

The book’s core thesis is that sport is a reflection of the society
within which it exists; in a sense, sport tells the world who and what
we are. In the case of 19th-century Ontario, the author suggests that
sport functioned as both a conservative influence and an agent of social
change. Individual chapters deal with sport and civic holidays; how
sport became a tool for urban boosterism; the rise of amateurism in
local sport; and the impact of cricket, baseball, lacrosse, and other
sports on the community.

Bouchier’s meticulously researched book will appeal to both sport
scholars and general readers.