The Game Planners studies the policy-making process in six Canadian national sports organizations, each of which deals with a different high-profile Olympic event. The authors argue that the creation of a "high-performance" sport system in Canada is due to pressure from three areas: the Canadian government, the physical education profession, and the sports community.

Donald Macintosh's profile page

David Whitson is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. He is co-author, with Richard Gruneau, of the widely acclaimed Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, Identities, and Cultural Politics (Garamond Press, 1993).

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"Macintosh and Whitson alert us to the ... relevance of social and political factors to understanding issues of sport management." Trevor Slack, Journal of Sport Management. "A well-researched, perceptive analysis of the sports system Canadians have created. It should be compulsory reading for all those who believe the problems signalled by the Johnson affair can be easily solved." Bruce Kidd, Queen's Quarterly.