Sam Riches

On the barriers faced by aboriginal athletes in professional hockey.

With marijuana legalization on the horizon in Canada, Pacific Standard catches up with Ross Rebagliati, Olympic athlete and prohibition poster boy from the ’90s.

Rawmeat Bill, Young Lurch, and the nicknames we remember.

A Q&A with athlete, activist, and author Gabriel Kuhn.

On the psychology of cycling, and the meanings of possessions.

A new study says it belongs to Barry Bonds, but probably not for the reason you think.

How National Hockey League officials deal with deafening crowds, tough players, and big moments. A Q&A with veteran NHL linesman Scott Driscoll.

What does fandom look like in the home city of Canada’s only Major League Baseball team?

When it comes to the obesity epidemic, athletes are part of the problem.

What a 22-year-old video game can teach us about nostalgia.

What separates “brilliant” athletes from “raw” ones?

The unionization movement, social media bans, and the disempowerment of student-athletes.

Hopeful athletes fight for roster spots in Canada’s budding basketball league.

How attempting the improbable, and chasing the past, led one man to find a community—and himself.

In Toronto, the most expensive Pan Am Games ever just ended. Were they worth it?

What happens when the things we use to define ourselves go missing?

“Brown Is the New Green”—unless you’ve got deep pockets.

How one alternative sport is helping further gender equality, in athletics and beyond.

Rituals of fandom and a night gone wrong in the Motor City.

Athletes from outside major city centers dominate professional sports. Why?

Neuromarketing and the race to unlock the science of fandom.

Just because several studies have failed to find any significant benefits to using Kinesio Tape doesn’t mean it can’t still be effective.

Shannon Miller is out a job, but the reason why is not yet clear.

How politicians use athletics to their advantage.

It takes more than basketball skills to make it to the NCAA tournament.

Stories about athletes with flawed character are endless, but what about those who exceed our expectations?

A new study explores how newspapers and social media framed a historic first.

Could platforms like The Players’ Tribune usher in a new age of activism among athletes? The answer is up to us.

By choice or by circumstance, exiting sport is inevitable. What happens after is less certain.

To cheer for a team, or a sport, is to become part of a larger social phenomenon. Food is another—important—part of that shared identity.

Image and authenticity in the world of celebrity sport.

Athletes, the media, and marijuana: On organizational authority and racial framing in sport.

What if we eliminated the institution of sport—from the high school level to the pros? Ten academics from around the country weigh in.

The shifting relationship of sport as a cultural signifier.

This introductory column is the first in a new running series, where each week a current event in sports will be examined from a sociocultural perspective.

Sam Riches went looking for solitude in nature, hoping to find his Jack London moment—but after half a year, he came back with a slightly different conclusion: self-reliance is overrated.

Why do some of the greatest basketball players ever struggle with an uncontested shot from just 15 feet away?

As one of the only female coaches in all of the four major professional sports, Barb Underhill is carving out an important legacy, both on and off the ice.

For every Michael Jordan, there's at least one Keon Clark. Or an Allen Iverson. Or a Junior Seau. The machinery of professional sports churns through its athletes and spits them out on the other side.

Sam Riches went to the Canadian competitive laughing championship. He met a 103-year-old man, a one-eyed person named Eyeborg, and a bunch of people trying to elevate the pursuit of joy into a sport.