Tuesday, April 19, 2011

REPOST: Renewing a Rivalry

They only play each other a few times a year now, but back in the day, the Saint John Sea Dogs and the Lewiston MAINEiacs had a nice little rivalry going. The rivalry will be renewed this Friday when the two teams meet for Game One of the President’s Cup semifinal at Harbour Station.

Earlier this season, prior to a Sea Dogs – Maineiacs match, we had a post about the fight-filled rivalry. So, here is a repost of that feature with some slightly updated info.

The worst part about the St. John’s Fog Devils departing for Montreal in 2008 was the realignment of the divisions.

It didn’t have a great affect on maritime based teams, but it did take away one of the Saint John Sea Dogs’ biggest rivals in the Lewiston MAINEiacs. Instead of playing six to eight games per season against each other, that total was shrunk to just two or three.

The two teams had created a nice rivalry over the three seasons they spent together in the Eastern Division. Although the Maineiacs were usually the better team – especially in 2006-07 when Lewiston won the President’s Cup – Saint John always put up an entertaining fight against the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s lone American team.

It wasn’t like the epic Saint John – Moncton rivalry from a year ago where both teams were serious contenders for the league title. This rivalry always seemed to revolve around one thing – fisticuffs.

According to HockeyFights.com, the Sea Dogs have dropped the gloves with the Maineiacs 30 times, the fifth most of any opponent.


The following are some visual examples:

"That's what you get when you mess with the Maineiacs"



Notice Travis Fullerton in the first fight in this video:



One of our favourite fights:



No love for former Saint John fighting machine Brett Gallant in this video by the Lewiston broadcast crew. Also features current Sea Dogs Steven Anthony, Simon Despres, and Mike Thomas:



Danick Paquette was kind of a good fighter back in the day:

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