Bolton Recreational Sports Club celebrates 10 years of being more than just a club – it’s a community

November 27, 2025 · 0 Comments

By Riley Murphy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

It’s a club where team group chats are more than just game dates and times, but celebrations of accomplishments and support in hard times.

When you walk in the door for a program, you are met not only with an activity that will surely get your heart rate up, but also with conversation and catch-ups with your teammates.

Bolton Recreational Sports Club (BRSC) has spent the last ten years cultivating their club into a community.

When Ryan Richards first moved to Bolton over ten years ago, he says he faced a lack of programming options.

“I wanted to try and do something that matters and do something that lasts,” says Richards.

And so, he created BRSC.

BRSC facilitates a variety of co-ed recreational sports leagues for the Bolton and Caledon communities.

Now, ten years later, they run eight programs, and their current sports range from floor hockey to volleyball, indoor soccer, and pickleball.

But what kicked off BRSC was none of the above.

“I work in education,” says Richards. “As I teach my students, failure is a part of success. My first attempt at starting a program was actually a soccer program that did not take off, and interestingly, I wouldn’t have envisioned it, but our first successful program was a line dancing class.”

Richards remembers he would often sit and marvel at the floor line dancing.

For the past ten years it’s been all about taking the opportunities to try different things, he says, and now they’ve been able to provide the space and opportunities for people to connect in positive spaces.

Richards says BRSC is about getting people out of their homes and connected, and about having participants continue along a path of lifelong fitness.

“We have opportunities for support that run deeper than just playing any game or sport. It’s really those peer-to-peer interactions and the ways that people can support other people within the program that really forms the core of what we’re building here,” says Richards. “It’s not just a league because there are leagues everywhere. The goal is to build something that’s different and unique in Town, and really, it’s about building community.”

Richards notes that people often get together afterwards to chat and hangout, attending and supporting local businesses for food or drinks. He adds that the level of connection is “just as important as somebody scoring a goal or hitting the ball over a net.”

Over the years, he says they’ve worked towards leagues that are social yet still maintain a level of competition done the right way, and he’s very proud they’ve been able to achieve this within the culture at BRSC.

Working in education, Richards notes that a lot of that transfers over to the club.

“It’s about care,” he says. “It’s about seeing what could be if you give people grace and help them to understand.”

“We have a culture that we want to be inviting and inclusive of everybody that we can, and so we give people opportunities to fit in and understand that we’re here to benefit you, but understanding that you’re also supporting the community for somebody else. That’s sort of the larger idea. It’s the same thing in the classroom.”

Looking back on 10 years, Richards says he’s always taking in the small things.

“I see those small things in the small spaces, in the conversations that our people are having,” he says. “I feel pride and it makes me happy when I see people laughing. I’ll look and I’ll see people who are family playing together, there are people that met through our program.”

One couple met at BRSC, got married, and just welcomed their first child this year.

Richards says part of the “small things” is when they’re able to support one another.

The work BRSC does transcends the walls of the gym; they also run social initiatives where they support the community in various ways.

Whether that’s through supporting youth in the community or running various clothing and food drives, BRSC is looking to make a larger impact.

“My goal is that this club will exist long after my bones do,” says Richards. “Not only in the form that it’s started, but it’s meant to be this unique thing where it supports the community in many ways.”

They often support what local schools are running, whether that be book drives, warm clothes drives, food drives, and more.

BRSC also runs various charity tournaments, supporting local organizations such as Caledon Community Services.

Richards’ future goal is to be able to use the momentum to do more positive things in the community, and is already looking forward to future partnerships and proposals to help give back, including youth work opportunities.

Moving forward, he says a big question for him will be “how can we get to the point where we’re supporting more people and providing more opportunities?”

“There’s just so much more that you can do. But again, it’s really about building connections and seeing how you can innovate.”

Monesh Sood joined BRSC five years ago, when they first introduced their ball hockey program.

He says that after working every day Downtown and getting home late, he decided he wanted to try something for himself.

Sood says on his first night, he was just as nervous as he sees newcomers are now.

Now, years later, he shares that it’s not only a great feeling from the sport, but also from chatting with teammates afterwards.

“If this program wasn’t around anymore, it would be a detriment to the community and the town,” says Sood.

He notes that many other leagues and programs can be “transactional.”

“You pay your money, you go out and play, and then you come home and that’s it. There’s more to what we do here.”

He notes that players often come in to help with setup and teardown, and even to lead the programs.

Russ Hoffman says that about four years ago, when his kids were starting to get older, he began looking for “fitness, social and friends.”

He soon joined BRSC’s ball hockey and volleyball programs.

“Very shortly thereafter, getting to know Ryan and seeing how he runs the club, I realized I wanted to be involved in this club more than just as a player,” says Hoffman.

It was just a year-and-a-half ago that Sood and Hoffman introduced the idea of a pickleball program to Richards, which has since grown to four different programs.

“All we really try to do is bring value to what [Richards] is doing and where he’s running it,” adds Sood.

“Bolton Recreational Sports Club is more than just going to play a sport. You’re there for fun, you’re there for fitness, and most importantly, you’re there to make friends, and friends very soon become like family,” says Hoffman.

He notes people are often signed up for multiple programs at BRSC, returning two or three times a week, “it’s truly something special that Ryan has created over the last decade for the Caledon community.”

“The club is the people,” says Richards. “It really is about people coming together, creating the space and enjoying it, and then enhancing it by just looking for ways to support one another – that’s really what the club is.”

“As I go along and I connect with great people that are moving things forward that I can trust to continue to communicate the culture, it’s more of them and less of me, and that’s the way it should be.”

“This is life-changing. And not just for me, but for many of our players,” adds Hoffman. “People have come up to me and said, ‘I don’t know what I would be doing if you didn’t introduce me to this club.’”

“They need this club, they need this community, they need the friendships, and they need the fitness,” he says.

Sood says BRSC has become a space for players who may need a night away from home or work, or need support from their team.

“It’s how busy people are nowadays. There’s less of a focus on social time, especially when people are working as much as they’re working. You hear about things like the loneliness epidemic, this would go a long way in helping those people that are stuck in isolation or in circumstances they can’t control,” he says.

“We’re going to keep doing what we do, because I know that it’s important for people,” says Richards.