Halifax Cheer Elite was founded in 2003 by longtime school friends, Jill and Alicia. The pair had cheered together at their local Junior Highschool team for years and had a bit of experience with All-Star cheerleading as well. The ladies were faced with the decision to start up their own gym, which they went into full swing with pride naming it Halifax Cheer Elite, or for short - HCE. The colours baby blue, black, and white were chosen and the first three teams were named Cubs (youth level), Coyotes (junior level), and Wolves (senior level).  

 

Elite first started practicing in a church basement, which then moved to a church hall, and then public rec centre. Finally, when our program really started to grow in numbers, Elite found a gym of our own in Ketch harbour. A few years later we decided that somewheres closer to the city would be more accessible to our athletes, and Bedford was chosen for the location of the Elite Training Centre. We now have teams for every age, every skill level and ability which truly was the dream from day one. 

 

 Fun fact: ALL of our coaches have cheered for HCE either past or present, Coaches Kelly and Cymone were athletes of HCE from the very beginning in 2003 on Youth level 3! Two of our coaches have been awarded Cheer Expo's Canadian Coach of the Year (Jill in 2007, Kelly in 2017). Our Junior 2 team was awarded the MAX OUT award in 2013 with coaches Alicia and Angela. 

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Elite teams have competed at prestigious competitions including the Cheerleading Worlds (5x) in Orlando, Cheersport Nationals in Atlanta, Cheer Evolution Nationals in Ontario, UCA Nationals in Orlando, and COA Nationals in Orlando. In 2018 our Open level 4 team 'Ludacris' became International champions at UCA Orlando. In 2019, our IOC5 Global team Blue Crew placed 6th in the world, and was the FIRST Nova Scotian team to ever make finals at Worlds. In 2019, our Senior 4 team 'Mafia' and IO 3.0 team 'Run DM3' placed 2nd at Cheer Evolution Nationals, and our IO4.2 team 'Tupac' placed FIRST in Canada! Tupac also was the first HCE team to ever get selected to compete at Canadian Finals which is an honour for our program. 

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Elite athletes have also been scouted for entertainment opportunities such as Nova Scotia International Tattoo 2016, Stephen Kings: the Mist TV series 2017, CBC news, CTV news, and Sirius XM Radio.

 

It is clear to see that HCE has grown from the ground up, thanks to the founders, past/present coaches, parents and volunteers. The Elite family is like no other. We are thankful to be a second home to many young people in our community,  a fun and happy place for kids of all ages, and an avenue for developing confidence and pride in generations to come. We are Elite - we are family.