Thinking Outside the Dots: A Professional Sport Team’s Influence on Hockey Participation in a Non-Traditional Geographic Location

Abstract

This dissertation examines how professional sport teams (PSTs) cultivate legitimacy within non-traditional markets by focusing on a case study of a National Hockey League (NHL) team’s youth programming initiatives in Southern California. To maintain confidentiality, this organization is referred to throughout as the “Team.” Although traditionally associated with colder climates and affluent, predominantly white communities, hockey has experienced rapid growth in warmer and more diverse regions. Drawing on a constructionist epistemology and Gramsci’s (1971) theory of cultural hegemony, the study investigates how legitimacy in sport is constructed, contested, and sustained through community-centered practices and emotional resonance.

Through an instrumental case study design (Stake, 1995), the research draws on 20 semi-structured interviews with parents, coaches, school and league administrators, and current and former members of the Team’s Fan Development (FD) department. These interviews are complemented by document review and participant and event observation, yielding a multi-layered understanding of how the Team’s efforts intersect with educational systems, cultural norms, and sport development frameworks. The Social Ecological Model (SEM) (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and Leisure Constraints Theory (Crawford & Godbey, 1987) provide additional analytic lenses to explore structural, relational, and psychological factors influencing youth sport engagement.

The findings are presented across three primary themes: Eliminating Barriers, Delivering Value, and Commitment to Community, which each correspond to cognitive, pragmatic, and cultural legitimacy as defined by Suchman (1995). Cognitive legitimacy is achieved through early exposure and school-based outreach that normalize hockey in the eyes of youth and parents. Pragmatic legitimacy arises from the consistent delivery of high-quality programming and responsive partnership-building with community stakeholders. Cultural legitimacy, the most complex and fragile form, is fostered through affective bonds, symbolic rituals, and community ownership, yet remains unevenly distributed across socioeconomic lines.

This study introduces a three-pronged framework for empirically identifying cultural legitimacy in youth sport: behavioral (e.g., multi-year participation and coaching transitions), discursive (e.g., language shifts that frame hockey as “our sport”), and affective (e.g., joy and pride at community events). These markers suggest that legitimacy is a matter of cultural embeddedness.

By situating sport development in the context of everyday life and community relations, this research contributes to theoretical debates around institutional legitimacy, particularly in youth sport. It advances Green’s (2005) normative model of sport development by showing how legitimacy is culturally negotiated outcome. This dissertation offers actionable implications for PSTs, highlighting the need for long-term, relational investment, inclusive programming design, and a nuanced understanding of community-specific values. In doing so, it positions hockey as a sport to be introduced as well as a cultural practice to be continually co-constructed.