Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management
118 Frank Kennedy Centre
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
Phone: 204-474-8312
Fax: 204-474-7634
field@cc.umanitoba.ca
Research interests
My recent work has focused on spectators, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. My doctoral research was a study of hockey spectators at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens and New York’s Madison Square Gardens in the 1930s: who they were, how they spectated, and what the experience meant to them.
My current research examines global sporting events, often ones that are lesser known but take on the form of larger games such as the Olympics, where athletes compete teams under their “nation’s” flag. This program of research includes a number of projects that examine both historical and contemporary examples of global sporting events, including the 1963 Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO) in Djakarta, Indonesia, and more current events such as the VIVA World Cup and the Homeless World Cup.
Finally, my interests as a historian of sport recognize that Winnipeg and Manitoba offer a perfect setting to broaden our historical understanding of the development of Canadian sport and physical activity and I have begun a number of smaller local sport history projects.
Education
Ph.D., University of Toronto (Graduate Program in Exercise Sciences), 2008
Doctoral project: A Night at the Garden(s): A History of Professional Hockey Spectatorship in the 1920s and 1930s (supervisor: Dr. Bruce Kidd)
M.A., University of Toronto (Department of History), 2000
M.B.A., Queen’s University, 1991
B.A., Queen’s University, 1989
Recent Publications
Special Issue/Edited Collection
Kidd, Bruce and Russell Field, (Eds.). “‘To Remember is to Resist:’ 40 Years of Sport and Social Change, 1968-2008.” Sport in Society, 13(1) January 2010.
Kidd, Bruce and Russell Field, (Eds.). ‘To Remember is to Resist:’ 40 Years of Sport and Social Change, 1968-2008. New York and London: Routledge, 2011.
Articles
Field, Russell. "'To Remember is to Resist:' An Introduction." Sport in Society, 13(1), January 2010; pp. 6-11.
Field, Russell. “Constructing the Preferred Spectator: Arena Design and Operation and the Consumption of Hockey in 1930s Toronto.” The International Journal of the History of Sport, 25 (6), May 2008, pp. 649-677.
Field, Russell. “Manufacturing memories and directing dreams: Commemoration, community, and the closing of Maple Leaf Gardens.” International Journal of Canadian Studies, 35, 2007, pp. 61-93.
Field, Russell. “The Ties That Bind: A 2003 Case Study of Toronto’s Sport Elite and the Operation of Commercial Sport.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 41 (1), 2006, pp. 29-58.
Field, Russell. “Passive Participation: The Selling of Spectacle and the Construction of Maple Leaf Gardens, 1931.” Sport History Review, 33(1), May 2002, pp. 35-50.
Chapters and Proceedings
Field, Russell. (in press). Expressions of cultural identity within a dominant culture: The twentieth-century sporting experiences of immigrant Canadians. I S. Darnell, J. Joseph, & Y. Nakamura (Eds.), “Race, ethinicty and sport in Canada: From racism to multiculturalism and back.” Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.
Field, Russell. (2012). Stoic observers or fanatic fans? Women ice hockey spectators in 1930s North America. In K. Toffoletti & P. Mewett (Eds.), Game women: Sport and its female fans. New York and London: Routledge.
Field, Russell (in press). Commonwealth Games, Canada. In J. Nauright (Ed.), Sports around the world: History, culture, and practice. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.
Field, Russell. “‘There’s more people here tonight than at a first night of the Metropolitan’: Professional Hockey Spectatorship in the 1920s in New York and Toronto”. In Andrew Holman. (Ed.). Canada’s Game? Critical Essays on Ice Hockey and Identity. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009).
Field, Russell. “‘Overlooked Participants: Spectators in Early 20th Century Commercial Sport”. In Manfred Lämmer, Evelyn Mertin, and Thierry Terret (Eds.), New Aspects of Sport History: Proceedings of the 9th Congress of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport (Cologne: ISHPES, 2007).
Field, Russell. “‘What it’s all about’: Television, Canadian ice hockey, and the pursuit of gold”. In Proceedings of the XIIth International Postgraduate Seminar (Olympia, Greece: International Olympic Academy, 2006).
Field, Russell. “‘A place where people can take their wives and girl friends to’: Women, Hockey Arena Construction, and Spectatorship in the late-1920s”. In Colin D. Howell (Ed.). Putting it on Ice, Volume III: Women’s Hockey—Gender Issues On and Off the Ice. (Halifax: Gorsebrook Research Institute, 2005).
Field, Russell. “Profits, Playoffs, and the Building of Maple Leaf Gardens, 1931”. In Colin D. Howell (Ed.). Putting it on Ice, Volume I: Hockey and Cultural Identities. (Halifax: Gorsebrook Research Institute, 2002).
Reviews
Field, Russell. Review of coast to coast: Hockey in Canada to the Second World War. Sport History Review, 41(1), 84-5.
Field, Russell. Review of For the Love of the Game: Amateur Sport in Small-Town Ontario, 1838-1895 by Nancy B. Bouchier. University of Toronto Quarterly, 74, 1, Winter 2004-05, pp. 452-454.
Field, Russell. Review of “The Last Round: Chuvalo vs. Ali” (2003) directed by Joseph Blasioli. Journal of Sport History, 31, 2, Summer 2004, pp. 243-245.
Field, Russell. Review of The Girl and the Game: A History of Women’s Sport in Canada by M. Ann Hall. University of Toronto Quarterly, 73, 1, Winter 2003-04, pp. 156-157.
Field, Russell. Review of Freedom for Catalonia?: Catalan nationalism, Spanish identity and the Barcelona Olympic Games by John Hargreaves. Olympika, 10, 2001, pp. 101-4.
Courses taught in 2009-2010
KIN/PHED 3170 – Canadian Sport History
PERS 4200 – Special Topic: The Olympics and Global Sporting Events
