Ben Johnson's performance at the 1988 Olympics and the Dubin Inquiry are engrained in the memory of all Canadians. A common public reaction to the news that some athletes had taken steroids was that they had had to do so to remain competitive in a system where such things are the norm. But how has the Canadian sports system once a strong promoter of the amateur ideal of sport for sport's sake fallen to the point where this is considered the norm? Donald Macintosh and David Whitson address these and other questions regarding policy making in Canadian amateur sport.

The Game Planners studies the policy-making process in six Canadian national sports organizations, each of which deals with a different high-profile Olympic event. The authors argue that the creation of a "high-performance" sport system in Canada is due to pressure from three areas: the Canadian government, the physical education profession, and the sports community.