Top 5 sports and activities that land Canadians in the hospital

Canadians love to spend time outdoors, but unfortunately, being active comes with some risks: you might get hurt.

In 2016-17, 17,655 Canadians were hospitalized for sports-related injuries, according to data released on Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Sports injuries are much less common than falls, but can still be quite serious.

1. Cycling

Cycling accounted for 4,268 hospitalizations across Canada in 2016-17, by far the most of any sport. Given the activity’s popularity, this maybe isn’t too surprising.

While Ontario has the most accidents, B.C. has the highest rate of hospitalization for cycling: 18 per 100,000 population.

2. All-terrain vehicles

Yes, you can get badly hurt on an ATV — 2,834 Canadians ended up in hospital after an ATV accident last year.

Injury rates are highest in Atlantic Canada, where these vehicles are pretty popular. Twenty-one people per 100,000 population were hospitalized after an ATV accident in New Brunswick, 15 per 100,000 in Newfoundland and Labrador, and 14 in P.E.I. In Saskatchewan, 15 people for every 100,000 were hospitalized after an ATV crash.

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3. Playground

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Kids get hurt on the playground – sometimes badly enough to require hospital care. More than 2,000 Canadians were hospitalized after a playground injury last year, almost all of them children. The injury rate was highest in Saskatchewan.

4. Skiing and snowboarding

More than 1,700 Canadians were hospitalized after a ski or snowboard accident last year. Unsurprisingly, most of these accidents happened where there are ski hills: Alberta, B.C. and Quebec. Ontario also had a high number of hospitalizations but a relatively low rate when you take into account the province’s population.

Men are much more likely to be hospitalized from a ski or snowboard accident than women, a pattern that holds true for most outdoor sports and activities, with the exception of playground and toboggan injuries, where the sexes are more even.

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5. ‘Animal rider’

As the Calgary Stampede gets underway, it’s worth noting that Albertans have the highest rate of hospitalization from riding animals – seven per 100,000 people.

This oddly-named category includes things like horseback riding, or presumably, bull-riding. These activities put 922 Canadians in hospital last year.

Other notable activities:

Snowmobile accidents caused nearly as many hospitalizations as riding animals last year. Canada’s national pastime, hockey, accounted for a mere 711 hospitalizations last year – just a little ahead of the more general “ice skating” category.

Skateboarding put 637 Canadians in hospital – more than twice as many as football and rugby combined. More than 250 Canadians ended up in the hospital after being hit by a ball. And rollerblading is still popular enough to have had 138 Canadians hospitalized last year because of it.

Statistics for this article were taken from CIHI’s hospitalization data for 2016-17, with “falls on ice” removed from the overall count. Rates were calculated by comparing the number of injuries to the province’s population as counted in the 2016 census.