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Cheerleading association holds coaches conference

Words of Cheer
Cheerleading Royalty Jennifer Power is the Tumbling Director at Cheer Sport Sharks in Ontario. She i
Cheerleading Royalty Jennifer Power is the Tumbling Director at Cheer Sport Sharks in Ontario. She is a 2x World Champion with Great Whites and is now an assistant coach of the team. She is an ICU World Champion with Team Canada. Photo submitted

The Saskatchewan Cheerleading Association held its Annual Coaches Conference in Saskatoon Sept. 21 to 22. The focus of the conference is to provide training for coaches and coaches in training, and to credential coaches in the sport. Some training is online, but every coach needs to pass a one-on-one interview session where they demonstrate their knowledge and technical know-how with an experienced examiner.

There are 130 cheerleading coaches currently certified in Saskatchewan this year, most of whom are practicing the craft in either a full-time or part-time capacity. There were 72 coaches at the conference representing 62 cheerleading clubs, teams and schools. The SCA athlete numbers continue to climb, this year more than 2,600 athletes ages three and up.

A few big announcements from the SCA: 1) Saskatchewan Cheerleading Provincials March 2020 will take place in the north of the province this year, location to be announced in the coming weeks (probably Saskatoon). 2) The High Performance Camp of 2019 was a trial run, but will definitely be repeated in May 2020. 3) Cheer Canada will now govern all cheerleading judging, a task that used to be governed by each province separately. The new national format for cheerleading credentials will roll out starting with 2 judging clinics in Saskatoon and Regina in October. Check out the SCA website for more details: www.sca.ca

Cheerleading royalty was in the room for this year’s conference. Jennifer Power from ABC/Netflix series CheerSquad was a speaker at the SCA Conference. Her high-energy presentations focused on stunting skills, tumbling, and coaching strategies. Nick Verburg is the coach of the Winnipeg Bluebombers Cheerleading Team. He presented on tumbling, stunting dance, and choreography and shared his deep knowledge of the sport. Bryan Todd, Team Canada cheerleader 2012-2014 has recently moved to Lloydminster as the new head coach/program director of Cheer Legacy Lloydminster.