What a STUNT!

The crowd cheers as Team Paul Kane takes to the mat. The athletes are on foreign ground here at Edmonton's Victoria School of the Arts, and their opponents outnumber them almost two-to-one. Still, they exude confidence as they head into this first and final match of the season.

These nine students are about to make history – what they do now, no one in Canada has ever done before.

The music starts, and the kids spring into action, counting “one, two, three, four!” as they go. They're stepping, flipping, tumbling, lifting, and tossing each other into the air – the mirror image of Team Victoria on the other side of the gym. After 40 seconds of intense cheerleading action, they step off the mat and await the judges' verdict.

The referee raises his right arm.

“Two points, PK!” he says.

The crowd goes wild.

It's May 31, 2016, and Paul Kane and Victoria School are facing off in the first-ever official STUNT game in Canada. The new sport is catching on in North America as a twist on cheerleading, and a Paul Kane coach is hoping to take it nationwide.

What is STUNT?

Cheering from the sidelines is coach Jennifer Guiney, head of the Paul Kane cheerleading program and the one who spearheaded this event.

STUNT is a new sport created by the USA Federation for Sport Cheering (USA Cheer) to meet America's gender equality rules for school sports, Guiney says.

“They've taken the best parts of cheerleading – the tumbling and the stunting – and they've put that into a football format.”

Traditional cheerleading is a lot like figure skating, Guiney explains. Teams go out and perform a 2.5-minute routine one at a time, with judges awarding and deducting points based on mistakes, creativity and skill. It's complex and subjective, making it tough for audience members to see why any one team wins.

STUNT is more like a dance-off. Instead of one team at a time, you have two performing simultaneously, and instead of different routines, they both do the same one. Teams are smaller – eight a side compared to a whole squad – and the routines shorter. And instead of learning and doing one routine for a match, you're learning 18 and doing 15.

The official rules say that STUNT is played over four quarters, with each quarter containing three to four rounds. Teams perform one routine a round, with the winner of the previous round or the opening coin toss picking the routine from a list of six. Each quarter has six routines available based on a different theme – partner stunts, pyramids and tosses, jumps and tumbling, and team routines (which are combinations of routines from the previous quarters).

Judges award zero to three points per round to the team that best performs the chosen routine. No points for artistry here – it's pure skill.

“They're looking for precision, they're looking for perfect timing, they're looking for no mistakes, no falls,” Guiney says.

Since both teams perform side-by-side, it's easy for the audience to tell which team wins each round, she continues.

Whichever team has the most points after four quarters wins. (Note that the May 31 game used a modified version of these rules, having fewer routines and a simplified score system.)

Guiney says she first encountered STUNT at a showcase of it in Florida. Impressed by what she saw (American cheerleaders blow us out of the water, she says), she got in touch with USA Cheer to bring the sport to Canada.

Guiney says she put out an invitation for Alberta schools to try the sport this year, and Victoria School stepped up. Both teams spent the last month practicing the same routines in preparation for the big game.

As far as she, USA Cheer, and Canada's provincial cheerleading associations can tell, last May 31's game was the first STUNT match held anywhere in Canada.

A new kind of cheer

Cheer and STUNT appeal to people who don't fit into that traditional athletic mould, Guiney says.

“I could never catch a ball in high school – I always got hit in the face with one every time a volleyball came out,” she says, but she could catch a flying person.

“It's a great sport for those people who might not try other sports.”

Although the routines in STUNT are pre-made by USA Cheer, that doesn't mean they're boring, Guiney says.

“These STUNT sequences are different from any that (the students) have tried before,” she says, and they have just weeks to learn them. Squads learn more material in a month than they typically do in a six-month cheer season.

Many members of Team PK, such as Derek Wilkins, are current or former cheer team members.

Wilkins sticks out not only due to his fancy pompadour and ninja-flips on the mat, but also by virtue of being the only guy on the STUNT squad. A 12-year gymnast, he says the got interested in cheer after seeing it at Sir George Simpson.

He's one of the back-spots on the team, meaning it's his job to lift and catch his teammates during stunts.

Soaring through the air is Kimmy Peever, a petite three-year veteran of the PK cheer squad and a flier on the STUNT team. Fliers do the aerial work, standing atop and getting hurled skyward by teammates.

“I stand on top of stunts (such as pyramids) and look pretty,” she jokes.

Peever says she got into cheer by watching cheerleaders at Edmonton Eskimo games.

“I've always been small,” she says, so she knew she would be the one doing the high-flying stunts as a cheerleader.

STUNT involves a lot of drills, communication and teamwork, and puts a heavy emphasis on safety, Guiney says. Players are all trained in basic first aid and perform on a feather-soft mat.

You need a lot more strength and speed in STUNT than you do in many other sports, Wilkins says.

“A football player throws a two-pound ball across the field. I'm throwing a hundred-pound girl into the air.”

Peever says teamwork is the most important skill, as you need it to land stunts and stay safe. She's had several concussions and ankle injuries in her cheer career due to poor teamwork.

“You also have to have a lot of trust in your teammates, as you basically put your life in their hands,” she says.

Start of something big

The crowd at Victoria School is small but enthusiastic. Paul Kane wins the coin toss, and both teams are soon dancing and somersaulting across the mat to thumping rock beats.

Neither team is perfect. There's some wobbliness in some of the lifts, a few flubbed flips, and a near face-plant by one Victoria School athlete who loses her balance while on her partner's shoulders. But both squads put on a stunning show with their snappy flips and towering pyramids.

Victoria takes an early lead, and Paul Kane and has to forfeit one round entirely. Team PK stages a mid-game rally, but it's not enough – Victoria takes the crown 16 to 7.

“Fatigue was our biggest weakness,” Guiney says – Victoria had 16 people to Paul Kane's nine, so they were able to rotate members out more frequently.

Still, she was immensely proud of her team, and told them such in the post-game huddle.

“They went out there and they stuck their stunts, which is incredible,” she says.

Both teams are in high spirits at the match's celebratory post-game pizza party.

“It all went by so fast,” Peever says, but they did their best, and the crowd was super-supportive of both teams.

“It was really fun, I'm really glad I got to be a part of it this year.”

Guiney hopes that STUNT will eventually spread across Canada and become a high school sport open to anyone. For now, she's working to start STUNT squads at several other schools and get enough teams for a provincial tournament.

“Next year (in the) tournament, we'll get Vic back.”