KEY WORDS: Regional, social support, ice hockey.

Many elite junior ice hockey players aspire to the professional ranks, with the pinnacle being the National Hockey League (NHL). There are approximately 10 elite junior (termed major junior) ice hockey leagues that NHL teams draft from. Among these, the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) provided 33 and 28 of the first 60 athletes drafted to the NHL in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The CHL consists of three regional junior elite leagues: the Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League, and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Housed within these three leagues (total) there are 50 teams based in 10 Canadian provinces with another nine teams extending beyond Canada's borders into the United States. The CHL is considered an elite junior ice hockey league largely due to its high number of athletes drafted to the NHL, and also because athletes from this level are selected to represent their country at the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.

Relevant to this report, CHL players vary in age from 15 to 21 years (CHL Fast Facts, 2006), indicating that they are also progressing through adolescence while developing their talent as elite athletes. Bloom, 1985 acknowledged that while adolescent athletes transition through stages of talent development, the types of social support they experience modifies. For instance, Bloom found that the style of coaching provided for pre-elite junior swimmers and tennis players (these were the only two sports considered) reflected more emotional support, whereas among elite performers from the same sports, the coaches focused primarily on technical assistance. Adding context to this process, Bruner, 2002 noted that there were unique pressures associated with being elite junior athletes in general and major junior ice hockey players in particular (i.e., balancing educational demands, adjustment to higher performance standards, relocation away from family). Further, as Bruner noted, there are resources that assist these athletes with transitional adaptation to the elite level (i.e. coaches, peers, billeting families).

Among Canadian major junior athletes, there is sometimes one additional contextual pressure that factors upon social support provision beyond age and high standard of sport performance: being located in a physically removed region. Lending credence to this burgeoning consideration, Gauthier et al., 2006 found that among elite coaches, there were contextual / geographic challenges associated with performing out of a physically removed region. For instance, the challenges included extensive travel to tournaments, poor training facilities, and limited access to sport science expertise. Counter balancing these limitations, the coaches indicated that there is a network of community resources to assist with athlete retention. The intent herein, from a larger graduate project where athlete social support was considered in relation to one sport (ice hockey), is to delineate the aspects of social support provision that are adapted to the one removed region, this time from the vantage of athletes' perspectives. To do this within Northern Ontario, Canada, we chose ice hockey, primarily because it provided the highest level of sport participants available in the region. Furthermore, major junior ice hockey players, reflecting the aforementioned details of the CHL, often pursue junior sport careers in remote regions of Canada (CHL Fast Facts, 2006).

Within the present report, the sources and types of social support employed by major junior hockey players during their assignment in one physically removed region were considered. The analysis produced 68 meaning units (MU), with 21 MU falling within emotional challenge support from coaches (4) and teachers (17), 33 MU within shared social reality support from team-mates, and 14 MU within technical appreciation support from the community. The data indicate that the respondents received social support from up to four providers in ways that were unique to their location (Table 3).

Coaches
Coaches were discussed as a provider of emotional challenge support, over and above the more typical technical support provided by elite coaches typically (e.g., technical aspects).

Emotional challenge: Coaches played an integral role in helping the athletes overcome academic challenges by tracking their progress in school. Though such involvement might be regarded as reflective of developmental needs alone, within the present remote region, coaches felt comfortable to monitor their athletes with the assistance of school resources: "I'd say specifically the coaches; they make sure that guys go to class. If guys are missing classes, the schools will call the coaches and they deal with it." (A1) This additional aspect of coach involvement supports Gauthier and colleagues (2006) earlier report whereby coaches from the same region across sports believed that a more general interest and involvement in athlete development were needed to recruit and retain.

Friends within the Team
Team-mates were most frequently discussed with regard to shared social reality. Making friends within the team was considered easy due to the amount of time spent together in sport and non-sport contexts. Though athletes on any team do typically socialize outside of sport, the athletes we elicited suggested that the amount of time spent together in the removed region was above the norm, and consequently contributed to stronger social bonding:

I went to school with about seven or eight guys in high school. So from there we kind of grew relationships there, which we could take right to the rink. I've heard from other teams from down south, like [city] area, that there is so much going on. Even if guys on the team are good guys, I've heard that other teams are not that close off-ice. Here, I think we're so secluded that everyone just sticks together. Anytime we hang out it's as a team. (A2).

Pushing this point further, the respondents indicated the sorts of activities they did together, and how these social events contributed to team bonding:

There's not really a whole lot to do in the North. A thing that we did is if we had a day off, some of the guys would go ice fishing. There are some other guys that live in the North, like me, so they enjoy the outdoor stuff that I've experienced growing up. Whereas guys that live in the South but play in the North, they don't really know what ice fishing, snow machining, tobogganing is. What we do is we get together and show them the things that we do to pass time. (A4)

Teachers
Teachers, both high school and university, were most frequently discussed among the respondents with regards to emotional challenge support. All respondents discussed the level of understanding and support received from teachers. It appeared as though teachers were aware of the regional challenges that could have affected the completion of school assignments, and so rules were bent to accommodate:

I was the only OHL player in that high school when I went. I always had good relationships with my teachers. I hit the OHL in tenth grade. I immediately discussed with my teachers that there would be times when I would be missing class, or there would be times when I wouldn't be able to make a certain assignment deadline. They totally understood, and after a while they really started to get involved and actually even came to games. (A1)

When discussing school attendance while in the region, several of the players identified the help they received from teachers. The following athlete explained the advantage of being enrolled in a smaller school, as opposed to one in a larger urban centre where the schools had a larger student population, and elite junior ice hockey was no big deal:

It was a smaller school so they all knew you. I had a few friends in [larger urban center] and that's a lot different. There you have a school of a thousand people. For me it was pretty easy here. The teachers were supportive and they paid special attention. You weren't there as much, so they would help. (A8)

The involvement of teachers (and university professors) extended beyond the willingness to allow for ongoing extensive travel demands. As indicated earlier, academic teachers also liaised with sport coaches to ensure that the athletes developed holistically, not just as athletes. It was this personal attention that the athletes regarded as reflective of their location.

Community
All of the athletes without exception identified community as a unique source of support to a remote region. The community supported the athletes emotionally, and also in terms of technical challenge. This support was evident in daily life, and also at games.

Emotional support: Within the region, there were few sources of sport entertainment. As a result, heavy community attendance at games was one way that the athletes experienced community emotional support like nowhere else:

Well it [hockey] is a lot bigger in Northern Ontario than say (more centralized locations). In Northern Ontario you have fans in the rink all the time. In other locations, it's empty depending on where you're playing. If there's a (professional) team around the (city) there are no fans, nobody knows who you are. (A3)

So I definitely think [city] has the best fans for that. They're unbelievable, they stand behind you, and they're always cheery. It's definitely a credit to them…the success that the team has is definitely not just a reflection of the guys they have in the room and the coaching staff, but it's the support they get. It's definitely a big thing; it's almost like having a sixth player on the ice or in the stands. It adds weight coming into a building saying, "man I hate playing here". (A9)

Technical challenge: However, as articulated by one athlete, community support could also be a matter of holding the athletes and team accountable. The expectation was for rough and committed blue-collar performance, and when this was not delivered, team members were held to task. The community's message was that remoteness cultivates certain behaviours including mental and physical toughness, and that the athletes needed to reflect these values on the ice:

People are asking all the time "What happened?" or "What's going on?" or "How come things didn't work out?" Everybody's just expecting you, since you've already dominated as an athlete, people just can't seem to understand what's going on and some people just expect too much. (A10)

I think another challenge that some players would face is within the community they're playing in. There are some people that absolutely love the players representing their city. It all depends on how good the team is doing. For example, when I first got to [location], the team wasn't doing very well. So, when you go out in public people that you don't even know on the street would know who you are and they would look at you. (A4).

This report delineated social support in major junior hockey adapted to the removed region. Though the present report overviews unique data representative of social support provision in a remote region, some results are similar to those of Bruner, 2002 in terms of by whom the support was provided, and so they are presented as traditional. Other data are unique findings in terms of providers, and are denoted herein as emergent.

Traditional Resources
Several support resources were matched with those identified in previous sport literature, though only two (the ones we have included as part of the present report) provided assistance that addressed adaptation to the remote region - coaches and teammates.

Coaches: Coaches have been cited frequently within the social support literature as a source of sport-specific social support among aspiring elite athletes. Rosenfeld and colleagues (1989) for instance, found that coaches provide support in terms of sport expertise (technical challenge support and technical appreciation). Bloom, 1985 as well as Durand-Bush and Salmela, 2002 added that as athletes progress in their development to the elite level, coaches increase their involvement in terms of the aforementioned support types to match with increasing technical demands. In major junior hockey, Bruner, 2002, perhaps echoing a more general tendency across sports, indicated why coaches purposefully emphasize sport-related assistance over other more general supportive behaviours (e.g., listening, emotional, shared social reality): to maintain a professional distance. Data from the present report reaffirmed the importance of coaches as a valuable support resource at the elite level, but in ways that extended beyond those identified by Rosenfeld and colleagues (1989), Bloom, 1985, Durand-Bush and Salmela, 2002, and Bruner, 2002. Supporting Gauthier et al., 2006 data from elite coaches located in the same remote region as presently addressed, it seems that the region's coaches are well aware of the challenges experienced by their athletes given the remote region. Consequently, the coaches responded with a wider array of buffering strategies including emotional support and academic guidance. In relation to academic challenges for instance, the coaches knew that extensive time allotted to travel would make or break the academic development of their athletes depending on how that time was used. To ensure athlete adaptation then, the athletes' academic developments were carefully monitored.

Teammates: Within the earlier literature, Rosenfeld and Richman, 1997 noted that belonging to a sport team establishes a strong tie with a formalized social group, as athletes have similar abilities, competitive attitudes, and more general social constraints (e.g., limited time to make friends outside of sport, academic scheduling challenges). Contextualized in relation to elite ice hockey, Botterill, 2004 and Halliwell, 2004 explained that elite athletes support each other because the challenges experienced by one are shared among the group (shared social reality). Given these challenges at the major junior level, Koshan (2004) learned while placed within the context as part of an applied internship that shared training and performance-related demands lead to team socializing outside of sport. In keeping with Botterill, 2004, Halliwell, 2004, and Koshan (2004), our respondents indicated that teammates provided shared social reality and technical challenge support. Even more pertinent to the present report, there is also evidence that physical location might have played a part in relation to increased support from teammates. While it was not unique that teammates became friends, the frequency of shared activities among teammates in the removed region was often the result of forged relationships facilitated in part by extensive travel (e.g., time on the bus, time away from non-sport peers, and time away from family while travelling, relocating, or both).

Emergent sources
There were two emergent sources when data from the present report is contrasted with non-remote social support literature - academic teachers and the community.

Academic teachers: Academic teachers were an emergent support provider for the respondents within the present remote region, for reasons that have just recently been explained within the literature. Recently, Koshan (2004) identified that there is a broad range of challenges associated with balancing ice hockey and school while one is performing at the elite junior level. It should be noted that Koshan's earlier report was written in relation to one ice hockey team located within close proximity to most of the other teams within the Ontario Hockey League (the Ottawa - Toronto - London, Ontario corridor). Even within the more centralized location, it was noted that elite junior ice hockey players struggled with academic demands, mostly because they travel an average of 300 kilometres (return trip) as part of general and post-season demands. Within the remote region of Northern Ontario, travel demands were exceedingly more difficult to manage by the athletes. Athletes were expected to travel 700-800 kilometre (minimum) round trips at least once weekly. As a consequence, the athletes were often absent from school, and required assistance from teachers in order to progress with their studies. Assistance was sought from teachers (high school teachers and university professors alike) in terms of registration, school assignments, obtaining materials, and exam scheduling. Over and above these more technical aspects of academic support, most likely as a result of where the respondents were located, their academic mentors also became interested in the athletes as students and performers. The more general approach to support included ongoing liaising with coaching staff, and so a comprehensive approach to support that contributed to athlete retention given the challenges previously identified by Gauthier and colleagues (2006).

Community: Within the social support literature, general community resources have only started to surface. Earlier, Gauthier and colleagues (2006) identified that community resources are an important support provider at least within the present remote region. The providers identified by Gauthier et al. contributed audience support at games and during daily encounters, and corporate and personal sponsorship. Within the present report, community resources were identified once more as a pivotal among aspiring elite athletes located within the same region. From the perspectives of the elite junior ice hockey players (respondents), community fans were identified most often as synonymous with community support. The constrained parameter set on "community" by the athletes is understandable given that elite junior ice hockey players do not seek out local sponsorship, at least not until they have already been drafted to the senior professional levels. Instead, teams and team management benefit from community sponsorship within major junior ice hockey. Consequently, what was noticed most among the respondents was fan involvement, at games and also during daily life away from the sport context. While at home games, fans expected a blue- collar work ethic, and also appreciated highly skilled performance. Games were described as heavily attended, and fan behaviour was described as highly supportive to the point of rowdiness. Away from the sport context, the athletes were regarded as celebrities within the remote region, and thus were recognizable to fans, daily. Counterbalanced with high status, when performances were regarded by the fan base as sub-standard the athletes were held accountable. The involvement of community members to some extent (attendance at games) resembled the experiences of professional athletes within the National Hockey League as identified by Schinke and colleagues (2007, in press). Within the remote region however, major junior athletes were the highest standard of performance available, and so community members considered them as the sport representatives from the region.

Limitations of the study
There were several limitations that pertain to this study. The first concern relates to participant recruitment. Previously, Bruner, 2002 noted that team management and league executives refused to endorse his study "for fear of exposing a weakness in their organization or the OHL [larger governing body]" (p. 60). This was true for the present study as well, which led to difficulty recruiting participants despite assistance from an expert panel. As such, the first author was constrained to a limited pool of athletes, recruited by word of mouth, in place of formal endorsement. Second, retrospective interviewing does not always allow for accurate insight into respondents' experiences. This is attributed to the higher level of critical thinking required as well as the level of detailed recollections of past experiences. It was plausible that what was relevant during the moment of recall reflected one's current stage of development as opposed to an earlier point in time. Third, the present study was limited in that remoteness was considered in relation to one region in one country. Non-comparative studies such as the present have been shown to be beneficial to understanding a particular theme or phenomenon (Côté et al., 1995; Gauthier et al., 2006). However, while this study does identify several characteristics of social support in one removed region, future studies should include a comparative aspect across regions.

Recommendations for practice
The goal of this research was to learn from the players' perspectives, social support resources at the major junior level within one removed region. From the report, as well as research conducted by Gauthier and colleagues (2006) it seems that within Canada, elite athletes can, and sometimes do pursue their sport careers while located in removed locations. Both reports suggest that social support involvement within such settings is necessary. Precisely, there are challenges associated with being further from family, a change in social reality, and extensive travel to more centralized opposing teams and the logistical challenges associated with such travel (e.g., less time with non-sport peers, absenteeism from school). Consequently, from the current report it is proposed that athletes performing in physically removed regions and facing similar challenges might require additional support providers (e.g. player agents), or atypical support from well-documented providers (e.g. coaches). Further, there is indication that the athlete's adolescent stage should also factor within the larger discussion of service provision. All said, the coach or sport scientist assisting athletes from or within remote locations, should at least consider whether similar challenges exist within their context, and if they do, how best to assist aspiring athletes while they mature as elite athletes.

• The study extends knowledge about the sources and types of social support resourced by elite major junior ice hockey players located in one physically removed Canadian region.
• From the respondents' views, three types of social support were sought from four different sources.
• Implications are considered in terms of sport psychology research and applied practice.