On February 7, the Sport Information Resource Centre (SIRC) announced the recipients of its Researcher/Practitioner Match Grants. Funded by the Government of Canada, the grants were introduced in 2019 to connect researchers and national sport organizations in advancing Canadian sport and the physical activity sector.
KPE doctoral student Michael Jorgensen is one of the recipients of the SIRC Researcher/Practitioner Match Grants for a project investigating referee experiences managing concussion injury risk in Canadian Amateur Rugby (image courtesy of Michael Jorgensen)
Out of ten projects funded by SIRC this year, four come from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education. Michael Jorgensen, a second year doctoral student at KPE, is one of the recipients of the SIRC grant for a research study that will look into referee experiences managing concussion injury risk in Canadian Amateur Rugby.
“As an active member of the Canadian rugby community I had a good sense of how Rugby Canada was addressing the concussion issue,” says Jorgensen, who plays rugby himself and is also a certified rugby referee and assistant coach with the U of T Varsity Blues men’s rugby team.
“One of the strategies that was being talked about was the Blue Card, which was developed in New Zealand and tested out in a few other countries. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to leverage my academic expertise, community connections and personal, athletic interests into a collaborative project that will serve both the rugby community and other sport organizations that are looking to implement similar processes.”
The Blue Card is a process that lets match officials show a blue card to an athlete with a suspected concussion in the same manner they would hold up a yellow or red card, if appropriate. The match officials then submit a blue card report into a software platform called SportLomo, which triggers a process to ensure the correct return to play protocols are followed.
The Blue Card has been already successfully introduced in Australia, New Zealand and France and piloted at several levels of competition in Ontario, with plans to implement it across all levels of competition this summer.
“This gives me an opportunity to explore the Blue Card process as it is being implemented and help inform Rugby Canada as they look to implement it in other provincial rugby unions,” says Jorgensen, who has already completed a pilot project exploring the experiences of rugby match officials in managing concussion risk using the Blue Card process. The funding from SIRC will help expand that study over the spring and summer and allow him to also examine the specific experiences of female match officials, who make up approximately 20 per cent of referees in Ontario.
“Referees play a critical role in the risk management process,” says Jorgensen. “Understanding their experiences will help address knowledge gaps and misconceptions, and is necessary to improve the overall effectiveness of injury risk management strategies such as the Blue Card.
“If we can increase the chances that a referee will successfully remove a player with a suspected concussion, this will reduce risk for re-injury and ensure athletes follow return-to-play protocols following a concussion.”
KPE Associate Professor and Jorgensen’s supervisor Lynda Mainwaring says the grant provides valuable networking experiences and recognition for graduate students like Jorgensen.
“Michael’s research is the first to examine referees’ experiences in helping to manage concussion risks and will provide evidence and evaluation of risk management strategies in sport,” she says. “It is exciting and Michael deserves all the credit for establishing such a great community collaboration that will benefit rugby, other contact/collision sports and the scientific community. This is a great example of young scholars making a difference and contributing to safe sport initiatives. I am privileged to work with such wonderful students.”
The three other recipients of the SIRC Researcher/Practitioner Grant with ties to KPE are:
Malinda Hapuarachchi, a doctoral student at KPE, who will be working with Field Hockey Ontario and Field Hockey Canada on a research project looking into using the kinetic profile of vertical jumping tasks to identify if differences exist between age cohorts within Field Hockey Canada’s female high-performance development pathway athletes. She will be supervised by KPE Associate Professor Luc Tremblay.
Alexander Mckenzie, a master’s student in the department of kinesiology at Windsor University, who will be working on a project with the Black Canadian Coaches Association to explore race, gender and leadership equity in sport under the supervision of KPE Assistant Professor Janelle Joseph.
Ross Murray, a post-doctoral fellow working with KPE Professor Catherine Sabiston, who will be collaborating with Fast and Female, a registered charity focused on empowering girls through sport, to create an evidence-based impact assessment tool.