Word on the cheer street is NCA All-Star Nationals is going to be a three-day event in 2018 opposed to the four-day all star extravaganza we experienced in 2017.

THIS IS 100% TRUE!

Get your calendars out - you'll want to write this down. The 2018 NCA All-Star National Championship will be held February 23-25 AND will now host all star prep divisions on Friday! Justin Carrier, NCA & Varsity All Star VP, confirmed the new dates, and gave us some insight on the decision for the update.

For the past several years, NCA Nationals has been the largest all star event in the world. Adding Prep teams to this competition for the first time ever should easily help us shatter our own records.

Teams have a lot to balance between competition season and school. We want school to be a priority for our athletes, which is one of the reasons we are going back to a 3-day format.

Dallas is the mecca of cheerleading, but NCA is easily considered the 'olympics' of all star. It's where the best of the best come to showcase their skills and measure their talents against the top programs in the nation. The arena is by far the most glamorous and most talked about stages in cheer history. All year there's buzz about the staging and production. Will there be fire? What about pyro? I wouldn't put it past these all star geniuses...

One of the highlights from '17 was the Level 4 presence in the arena (for the first time in a long time), but Carrier is excited to see the rest of the programs have an opportunity to support the upper level teams by bringing the bulk of the event back to the weekend.

Showcasing Level 4 athletes in the Arena this year was one of the highlights of the 2017 competition. Our hope is that those athletes now have a taste of what that experience is like and strive even harder to reach their goals next season.

Running Mini, Tiny, and Prep at the same event this past year was a great chance for us to celebrate those younger athletes and give them the accolades and attention they deserve. In the end, though, we want entire programs to be able to experience the prestige of NCA Nationals together as one gym family.

Do we really have to wait almost 337 days until the 2018 championship? Unfortunately yes, but that just means more time to practice...See you in 2018 NCA All-Star!