Montreal Alouettes cut dance squad for 2026 season

Montreal Alouettes dancer Amanda Marsillo said the team was shocked to learn that the Alouettes were replacing the dancers with the Carabins cheer squad.

There will be a change on the sidelines at Molson Percival Stadium during Montreal Alouettes games next season.

The team announced last week that the Alouettes dance crew is being replaced by a cheer squad from the University de Montreal (UdeM) Carabins for the 2026 season.

The Alouettes dance team, which has been part of Alouettes games for the past 25 years, will no longer exist.

‘My dream was to be part of the Alouettes’: dancer

The news came as a shock to Amanda Marsillo, who was on the team for the past two years and served as social media manager for the squad.

“The way we feel is more unheard, unseen. We didn’t have a say or anything, not to convince them to take us back, but more just to understand the repercussions that come with it and the past we’re leaving behind,” she said.

Losing the team is like losing a lifelong dream, said Marsillo.

“I’ve been training as a dancer since I was three years old,” said Marsillo. “It was so exciting. My dream was to be part of the Alouettes since a very young age, [and] I had family members on the team. So for me, it was everything I could imagine, and it was quite an opportunity.”

Switching to a university squad, Marsillo said, removes the audition process and the chance for professional dancers to perform alongside the professional quarterbacks, guards, and receivers.

The audition process, she said, allows for anyone to try out for the team, so that Montreal has its unique squad of professionals.

“We see the CFL and the Alouettes as a professional team,” she said. “So to bring on a university team to cheer on a professional team kind of takes away the pride of us who took those auditions and tried our very hardest to be there.”

Not a budget decision: Als

Dance teams are on the sidelines of most CFL and NFL teams. Many also have cheer squads or stunt teams, which perform acrobatic flips and tumbling routines at many games.

The Alouettes cut their cheerleading squad in 2020, going with a dance squad exclusively. Marsillo and others on the dance team would have preferred to have both back in some form.

The team said the decision to work with the Carabins cheer team going forward wasn’t for budget reasons, but instead is part of a bigger plan to reconnect with the community and grassroots football in Quebec.

“We decided that cheerleading and football are synonymous with one another, so the decision was made to join forces with the really talented people at the University of Montreal and the Carabins,” said Alouettes director of communications Joey Alfieri. “We want to help develop the sport of cheerleading, and we think this gives them a great platform and a great opportunity to do so.”

Marsillo said she understands it wasn’t an easy decision.

“When it comes to decisions, it’s never easy. I don’t think it was an easy decision on their part, or for any one part of the organization,” said Marsillo.

She and the other dancers are holding out hope that the dance squad will return and that the organization will realize what they’ve lost.

“We’re all these amazing, passionate dancers that want to bring something to our city,” she said. “It brings the energy to the crowd. Everybody’s into it. We get to feel the crowd as well as our energy bringing it to them.”