Anexos

applying to any Canadian academic institutions. Even more interesting was the fact that nine out of 16 international student-athletes had never heard of the CIS or that Canada had a university sport system. Furthermore, of those nine international student-athletes, eight had knowledge of the NCAA system. Such a lack of knowledge of the CIS was echoed by Karlo, “Before I came to Canada, I never heard of the CIS before, but I heard of NCAA.” The knowledge of the NCAA for the purposes of playing sport and the subsequent lack of knowledge regarding the CIS was explicitly highlighted by Ky:

I was looking for somewhere to play overseas so I wanted to, you know, obviously

everyone wants to go to the States…I didn’t know they had like the same sort of system that they had in the States and what not… like for me, I had no idea that Canadian universities had, I didn’t know what the CIS was, I had no idea about Canadian university sport.

Other international student-athletes reported not knowing that the Canadian interuniversity sport system was on a similar level to the collegiate sport system in the United States. This was supported by Veronica, “I had no idea like I didn’t know…I didn’t know it compared to the States at all.” Overall, the interviews ultimately revealed a lack of awareness of the Canadian interuniversity sport system and of Canada, in general. Furthermore, in some circumstances, the interviews also alluded to the knowledge of the United States and their collegiate sport system as being synonymous with elite sport.

Given the fact that nine out of 16 international student-athletes interviewed reported having minimal knowledge of Canada and its university sport system, it comes as no surprise that these same international student-athletes did not have any perceptions or expectations about Canada, the CIS, or about what life as an international student-athlete was going to be like. More importantly, the findings from the interviews showed that eight international student-athletes already had perceptions about the United States and their university sport system. As an

example, prior to coming to Canada, Peter, in speaking about the NCAA, said, “I knew about it because I watched, I followed it on, back in Rome…it’s the number one in the States…just for basketball purposes cause I know the States is known for basketball so I wanted to go there and play ball.” The desire to play in the United States based on the student-athletes’ perceptions was also echoed by John who remarked, “I always wanted to go to like America and play and Canada was probably the next best thing to it.” Furthermore, perceptions of the United States, for Oscar, were formed because of the predominant social norm. According to Oscar, “in the Caribbean,

there’s a lot of emphasis on the States, so I mean that’s normal because…we have a lot of partnerships with the States.”

When asked for their perceptions of Canada, several of those same international student-athletes constructed their perceptions of Canada based on their knowledge and perceptions of the United States, leading to the assumption that the United States was synonymous with Canada. This was explained by Ky, “yeah I mean, yeah, pretty much sort of met expectations…I thought it maybe might have been a bit crazier like, you know, some comparison to college in the States, I was expecting just like crazy people running around at orientation week.” Perceptions of Canada were also shaped by portrayals of Canada from American media channels. According to Oscar:

We get State TV, like most of the States television shows so anything I knew about Canada was basically what the States had thought about Canada. So I thought it would have been a lot about maple syrup, you know, Mounties, you know, stuff like that.

Aside from the lack of perceptions of Canada and university, nine out of 16 international student- athletes also reported not having perceptions of the CIS and the level of competition. According to Suzanne, “concerning basketball, I didn’t really know what to expect for the level of the CIS and even the level of the OUA so I really didn’t know. I don’t even think I’d seen any video before I came here.” Despite having little previous knowledge of the CIS, Mark was surprised to see such high quality, commenting, “I definitely didn’t expect anything in terms of soccer…I was surprised to see that the soccer level is high here.” Even though there was a predominant lack of knowledge about the CIS and its standard, after having played in the CIS, the

international student-athletes were quick to praise the CIS for the level of competitiveness and quality it offers to its players. In commenting on the quality of soccer, Martin went as far as equating the level to that found in the United States, “When I came to Canada, [I] was surprised

when I see the players here. Because I was expecting it’d be… not as good as the United States, and I honestly think that it’s almost the same.”

The nature of the responses by the international student-athletes indicated a lack of an awareness of Canada and the CIS, a subsequent lack of perceptions, and, in some cases, the perpetuation of stereotypical social and cultural norms through media. It is interesting to note that several international student-athletes had knowledge of the United States and the NCAA, and thus, had already constructed their perceptions. That being said, the majority of international student- athletes were positively surprised with the quality of competition in the CIS as well as the standard of their individual teams.

4.2.2.2 Student-athlete or athlete-student? A major theme that emerged out of the