High Hopes For Qmjhl’s Regiment To Stick In N.l. - Beritaja

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Glenn Stanford has seen plentifulness of lucky teams travel and spell from St. John’s. The Newfoundland Regiment, he believes, are built to last.

From the Maple Leafs to the IceCaps to the Growlers, Stanford has worked for about each awesome nine to telephone Canada’s easternmost state location — and yet battalion up shop — since the 1990s.

But the momentum down the Regiment, a caller squad pinch much than 2,400 play tickets sold successful its first Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League season, reminds the longtime executive of Newfoundland’s champion lucky days.

“This 1 has a typical consciousness to it,” said Stanford, the Regiment’s president. “The only point I could comparison it to is the St. John’s IceCaps. We were sold retired for three-and-a-half years, and we’re not location pinch the Regiment, but the support the organization has shown is surely astatine that level.

“I deliberation it’s present to stay.”

It’s the province’s 2nd foray into the QMJHL. The St. John’s Fog Devils, an description franchise, lasted 3 seasons from 2005 to 2008 owed to dense financial losses stemming from recreation costs and what then-commissioner Gilles Courteau called the worst arena woody successful the league.

This time, existent commissioner Mario Cecchini says the Regiment are amended positioned to succeed.

“We didn’t person fundamentally the correct ownership and we didn’t person a bully woody pinch the building. It was not a bully lease,” Cecchini said of the Fog Devils. “I don’t deliberation we could person a amended ownership section group than we person there, and past the lease pinch the metropolis and the building … it’s a adjacent deal.”

Local business group SPS Entertainment purchased the Acadie-Bathurst Titan past December and relocated the franchise to St. John’s this play successful an effort led by Stanford, who did not activity for the Fog Devils.

The Regiment — named aft the Royal Newfoundland Regiment — opened pinch 3 consecutive sellouts astatine the 6,000-seat Mary Brown’s Centre, including an electrical 7-5 triumph Sept. 18 complete the defending-champion Moncton Wildcats connected opening night.

For Benjamin Veitch and Quinn Norman, 2 15-year-olds from St. John’s and the club’s first 2 draught picks, stepping onto the crystal earlier a raucous section crowd was a infinitesimal they’ll ne'er forget.

“Took maine backmost to erstwhile I utilized to watch each the IceCaps and Growlers,” Norman said. “I was successful the stands one-time successful my life, but now I’m that personification playing connected Mary Brown’s Centre.”

“It was unreal,” Veitch added. “Just seeing the organization travel retired arsenic 1 and conscionable battalion each the seats successful this rink and conscionable specified a cool environment.”

Now that he’s successful the city’s lucky spotlight, Veitch said fans sometimes extremity him to inquire for pictures.

“That’s conscionable truthful cool, and it conscionable shows the level of really overmuch the fans care,” he said. “It’s specified a lucky municipality successful St. John’s, and I deliberation location should ever beryllium a squad here.”

Stanford said fans person ever supported teams contempt the agelong statement of erstwhile departures. He noted the province’s rich | lucky history, pinch spectators filling buildings for interprovincial games from St. John’s to Corner Brook agelong earlier master teams arrived.

“Hockey has been portion of our contented here,” Stanford said. “It has been a portion of history and it will proceed to beryllium successful the future.”

The St. John’s Maple Leafs of the American Hockey League near for Toronto successful 2005 arsenic portion of an NHL-wide inclination of moving workplace teams person to genitor cities. The IceCaps came successful 2011 arsenic Winnipeg’s connection but near 2 years aft the Jets — initially successful the East — moved to the Western Conference. Montreal’s IceCaps were ever a two-season stopgap earlier the Canadiens moved their minor-league squad to Laval, Que.

Meanwhile, Stanford said the Newfoundland Growlers, who were expelled from the ECHL precocious successful the 2023-24 season, ne'er recovered financially from the COVID-19 pandemic.

But surface science remains a challenge. St. John’s is simply a formation distant from each QMJHL marketplace and sits much than 500 kilometres from its closest rival, the Cape Breton Eagles.

“The biggest statement point connected your disbursal broadside of your fund is travel,” Stanford said. “For each of the teams here, that has been 1 of the biggest obstacles.”

The Regiment screen airfare for each visiting teams, a recreation subsidy that each Newfoundland teams person had to provide. To limit costs, the squad hosts opponents connected back-to-back nights passim the season, which Stanford said could beryllium difficult to sell.

Cecchini said the Regiment look “a little” much unit than different teams to capable their larger arena, but that the ownership group presented a coagulated financial plan.

“They did the calculations,” he said. “Nobody took that lightly, and I cognize that these group could count, truthful we are satisfied pinch what they did and really they arranged it.”

Based connected the early excitement he’s seen, Regiment coach and wide head Gordie Dwyer — who moved pinch the franchise from Bathurst, N.B. — believes successful the team’s semipermanent future.

“I decidedly consciousness the appetite for lucky present is electric,” he said. “From the community, there’s a existent consciousness of excitement, and there’s a existent buzz about the lucky squad and successful the community.”

This study by BERITAJA was first published Oct. 14, 2025.

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