Coaching in Ontario in 2025: Values Are Clear, Practice Is Not

Sport plays a powerful role in the lives of young people. For many athletes, it is where they learn confidence, discipline, teamwork, and resilience. Coaches are often at the centre of that experience. The 2025 Ontario Coaching Report makes this point unmistakably clear. Nearly half of youth athletes say their coach is the adult they trust most outside of their family. That statistic alone shows how much influence coaches hold, not just as instructors, but as mentors and authority figures.

At the same time, the report reveals a growing tension in Ontario’s sport system. While values like safety, fun, respect, and inclusion are widely shared, they are not always reflected in the lived experiences of athletes. This gap between what coaches believe they are doing and what athletes actually experience raises important legal, ethical, and policy questions about accountability in youth sport.

Shared Values, Uneven Experiences

One of the most encouraging findings in the report is the overwhelming agreement across coaches, parents, and athletes on what sport should be about. Almost everyone agrees that sport should prioritize enjoyment, physical and mental health, safety, and positive relationships. On paper, Ontario’s sport culture appears aligned with modern safe sport principles.

However, when the report looks beyond values and into daily practice, the picture becomes more complicated. Many coaches report that they regularly check in with athletes about mental health, stress, or life outside sport. Athletes, however, do not consistently confirm this. Only a small percentage say their coach actually asks how they are doing beyond performance.

This disconnect matters. A coach’s duty of care does not stop at physical safety. Psychological safety, respect, and communication are increasingly recognized as essential to a healthy sport environment. When coaches believe they are providing support but athletes do not feel it, that gap becomes a real risk, both culturally and legally.

Hazing Is Not Always Extreme, But It Still Matters

The report’s findings on hazing were not surprising, but they were still concerning. Hazing remains present in many sport environments, particularly in school-based teams, even though most people agree it is harmful and inappropriate. What stood out most was not just that hazing still exists, but that many coaches do not consistently intervene when it happens.

My own experience as an athlete helps explain why this issue is often minimized. I did not experience extreme hazing, and there were no outright dangerous initiation rituals. But as a younger athlete, I clearly remember being treated poorly by senior players. There was an expectation that juniors should tolerate disrespect, exclusion, or humiliation simply because they were new. At the time, it was framed as harmless tradition or “just how things are.”

Looking back, it is clear that even mild forms of hazing shape team culture. They reinforce power imbalances and signal to younger athletes that respect is conditional. Those experiences stayed with me. When I later became a coach, I made a deliberate effort to eliminate that dynamic entirely. Senior players were expected to support younger teammates, not assert dominance over them. Respect was not something you earned by surviving poor treatment. It was the baseline.

This is why the report’s findings are so important. Hazing does not need to be extreme to be harmful. From a governance and legal perspective, allowing even low-level hazing to persist creates foreseeable risks. Organizations that fail to address these behaviours cannot rely on the argument that “it was not that serious.” Harm often begins subtly.

Early Specialization and False Confidence

The report also highlights widespread support for early sport specialization, with roughly half of parents, athletes, and coaches believing it is appropriate before the age of twelve. This belief persists despite clear evidence that early specialization increases the risk of injury, burnout, and long-term disengagement from sport.

This disconnect matters because it reflects misplaced confidence rather than informed decision-making. When organizations encourage or allow early specialization without safeguards, they may be contributing to preventable harm. In a legal context, this raises questions about whether decision-makers are meeting their duty to act in the best interests of young athletes.

Where Policy and Practice Must Catch Up

The Ontario Coaching Report does not suggest that coaches are acting maliciously or without care. Most coaches genuinely want to create positive experiences for their athletes. The issue is that good intentions alone are not enough. Without proper training, feedback, and accountability, even well-meaning coaches can overlook harmful dynamics.

For policymakers, sport administrators, and legal professionals, the takeaway is clear. Safe sport requires more than shared values. It requires consistent practice, clear standards, and the willingness to intervene early, even when behaviours are normalized or minimized.

Ontario’s sport culture is not broken, but it is unfinished. The values are there. The challenge now is ensuring those values show up in locker rooms, practices, and team hierarchies. For athletes, especially younger ones, the difference between a positive and harmful sport experience often comes down to whether adults are paying attention and willing to act.