For the love of hockey: passion-driven American PhD candidate researches how professional sports organizations serve society
Joe Villanueva: PhD candidate, Recreation & Leisure Studies
After an unconventional journey into grad studies, an opportune connection with a À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ professor brought hockey enthusiast Joe Villanueva from Long Beach, California to À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ. Now, he’s becoming a cultural innovator as he researches the ways programs run by professional sports organizations generate positive community impacts while inspiring an organic interest in hockey.
When he graduated high school in 2001, Joe followed the same path as many of his classmates and attended the local community college in Long Beach, California. However, Joe’s plans for success in undergraduate studies didn't pan out the way he’d hoped. Due to his struggling academic performance, he was withdrawn from his program.
It would be about 15 years before Joe would give post-secondary another try. After working in retail and service industry roles to support himself and his family, he applied and was accepted into Penn State University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Leadership. Joe returned home with his degree to an increasingly emergent hockey culture in southern California.
Joe's lifelong love of hockey started when he first began playing the sport at age four. Working for an NHL team was a dream that was now attainable with his degree, so he made a play to get into the American hockey industry and scored a junior position working for the Los Angeles Kings. There, a colleague and mentor Joe knew within the Kings, told him that getting a master's degree would help him to climb the corporate ladder in the world of professional sports organizations. Motivated by his success thus far, Joe decided to pursue graduate studies, getting accepted into a master's program in sports management at the University of San Francisco.
While working on his master’s thesis, Joe stumbled across an article co-written by À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ professor Ryan Snelgrove. Coincidentally, Joe was interested in pursuing a PhD, with À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ being one of the schools he’d considered. Joe reached out to Professor Snelgrove, and from then on, the two had an amicable professional relationship. Professor Snelgrove continued to be a source of guidance while Joe completed his master’s degree. That friendship and mentorship encouraged Joe to apply for the PhD program in Recreation and Leisure Studies at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ.
Making lifelong social connections and falling in love with À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ
From his initial outreach to his arrival on campus, Joe never felt alone in his studies. He encourages students to reach out to potential supervisors to build a friendly and supportive mentor-mentee relationship. With Professor Snelgrove taking Joe under his wing, Joe thrived socially, despite coming to À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ during the Covid pandemic. Joe fondly remembers Professor Snelgrove putting him in touch with other PhD students, as well as connecting him with his colleagues in the department, including Professor Katie Misener and Professor Luke Potwarka. Joe would even be invited to attend a Toronto Maple Leafs game with Professor Potwarka. These social connections kept Joe grounded in what could have been an isolating year abroad. Together with other positive encounters at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ and being particularly moved by the connections he was able to make, Joe fell in love with the University.
During his time at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ, Joe observed just how dominant of a sport hockey is in Canada. Recalling hockey’s slow yet steady popularization in California due to the presence of multiple NHL teams, Joe was inspired to research the growth of hockey culture through social programs run by professional sports organizations. Joe’s meaningful experiences at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ led him to the realization that Canadian schools are often overlooked in America. He encourages American students to branch out and consider Canadian schools, as they just might find everything they’re looking for.
We're so caught up with our own universities down here. … Don't limit yourself just to US schools, because the University of À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ and other universities in Canada are very great at what they do.
Using legitimacy theory to research how professional sports organizations encourage the growth of hockey culture
These days, Joe is working with the Anaheim Ducks while he completes his PhD. His research centres around the legitimacy of social impact initiatives in sports, and whether they can cultivate a sustainable sports culture in areas where hockey may not be popular. Joe is using legitimacy theory to support his research, investigating whether initiatives or programs run by professional sports organizations can maintain legitimacy by aligning with societal norms and values. Can programs run by professional sports organizations promote an interest in hockey, while ultimately seeking to benefit society?
One such program run by the Ducks encourages students in schools across the state to read, with the top performing school getting free items from the Ducks. The goal of this program is not to get kids into hockey or to buy tickets to Ducks’ games; but purely to encourage kids to read.
“They're not asking these students, ‘Oh, come back for a game.’ There's none of that. That said, they're just trying to get these kids to experience the sport and then if they fall in love with it, they fall in love with it.â€
In another program, the Ducks host a yearly field trip where 15,000 fifth graders go to the Honda Center, the home of the Anaheim Ducks. There, the Ducks teach the kids about STEM subjects such as physics, mixed with a little bit of hockey. The Anaheim Ducks are on the ice, but they're teaching, not playing or outright promoting hockey.
According to Joe, his research has found that many kids have realized their own love of hockey through programs run by the Ducks, where previously they’d had no interest in the sport. This organic interest is what intrigues Joe the most, and so his research is concerned with discovering how, where, and if this can be replicated anywhere else.
Hockey is Canada and Canada is hockey, but here in Southern California, it's definitely something that's growing. My research on that, and I feel that my work, is innovative in a sense that I'm looking at things to see: why are they working? How are they working? How can they be improved for replication in another area where hockey isn't big?
Becoming a trailblazer in sports research, and giving back to the academic community
Despite hockey’s limited popularity in California, programs run by the Ducks have contributed to the organic expansion of hockey in the state. Having witnessed the success of these programs, Joe is curious if their success can be replicated in areas of the world where an interest in hockey is scarce like in Mexico or the Philippines.
Joe’s research could also be described as a type of cultural innovation, as his goal is to drive cultural change to make a positive impact on society. His vision is that programs like those run by the Ducks could benefit communities around the world, spurring a love of hockey in unexpected places.
In the future, Joe hopes to give back to the academic community by becoming a professor, where he can support and inspire students the way Professor Snelgrove supported and inspired him to share his love of hockey and become the cultural innovator he is today.
As Joe nears the end of his PhD journey, his diverse interests and unique experiences in academic research and corporate leadership are paving the way for a wide range of future career opportunities and positive impact.