Community Profile: West Halifax Cheer

hfx-west-cheer-logo We’re West Halifax Cheer
We’ll stop and make you stare
Let’s introduce you to our family
We’re Comets and Galaxy!!!!

Many in our community may not be aware that the Prospect Road Community Center is the home of West Halifax Cheer, one of Nova Scotia’s newest competitive Power Cheerleading Clubs. But don’t ask us what team we cheer for, because we cheer for ourselves. Power Cheerleading is a physical activity, and a very competitive sport, using organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, and stunting.

When the club was started in the summer of 2008 by Erica Royal of Whiteslake, it was just a rec program with HRM. With the help of Jana Nickerson, she helped a small group of girls learn the basics of cheer. Erica wanted to see if there was an interest in the community for such a club. The program was a success and she held “tryouts” in September. Many curious girls in the area came to try us out. Fifteen girls liked what the sport had to offer and signed up for our very first season. This small team competed in 5 weekend events. We were small, but with our bright orange, yellow and white uniforms, we were hard to miss. We made people stand up and take notice that year. We received many awards, including a first place finish at the Annual Cheer for Wishes held in Truro.

Last year in our second season, we grew! We increased ourselves to 42 members and two more coaches came on board. Ashley and Allison Garroway joined to coach Comets (youth team), while Erica and Jana moved on to coach the new senior team, Galaxy! Both teams were still small, but our skills and achievements grew.

The 2009-2010 season had us compete in even more competitions and we even had an “away” trip to Cape Breton in the Island Explosion hosted by Cape Power Cheer. But our biggest achievement for last year were our first place finishes at the Full Force event held by Dartmouth Cheer Force for both Comets and Galaxy. Galaxy also received first place at Nova Scotia Provincials held in Truro. An amazing accomplishment for Galaxy’s fist year.

And now we begin the 2010-2011 season. Year three and we have grown again! Both teams have grown with some of our members taking on positions with both the Comets and Galaxy! We will now be competing in large divisions, in nine competitions this year. We are even hosting our own event this year, to be held in March at the Exhibition Park.

So stop and stare, clap and cheer us on; We are West Halifax Cheer and we are so excited about showing the community what power cheerleading is all about!

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