Old time hockey serves Maineiacs well

Both coaches downplayed all the rough play in Wednesday night's 6-1 Lewiston win over Halifax in a matchup of the defending Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champion and the team pegged by most at the quarter-pole to win this year's title.

Halifax Moosheads coach Cam Russell said it was just nice to see his team stick up for one another for the first time in a while. Counterpart Ed Harding said he was happy for some of his guys who got involved, but no so thrilled to see others become a tad undisciplined.

No matter what was being said in the aftermath of a true, old-time hockey slugfest at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee, both teams were trying to send one another a message. Most importantly, the Maineiacs wanted to serve notice that they are in this to repeat as QMJHL champs.

"We need to bring that to our game, and that's what we did, especially against those guys," Lewiston goaltender Jonathan Bernier said of the team's physical presence -- finishing checks, taking penalties and dropping the gloves when called upon. "All these teams want to beat us, especially because we were the champions last year. We need to battle every game."

In all, there were a total of 8 fighting majors handed out, a series of post-whistle scrums teetering on the edge and a whopping sum of 109 minutes in penalties doled out by referee Guy Pellerin -- including the misconducts that don't count in official QMJHL statistics. For the pundits who crave more bite, more sandpaper in their NHL product, Wednesday's tilt among top-notch junior squads was testament to the way the game used to be played everywhere, at every level.

"It was actually kind of nice to see," Russell said. "We hadn't seen it at all this season. It was good to see the players stick together."

Bernier stopped short of saying the fisticuffs were openly discussed beforehand -- but the 20-year-old veteran of a few seasons in The Q, who said he learned about leadership from the team's run to the Cup last spring, did suggest that the team needed to respond against Halifax.

"We learned how to be a winner last year, and there's nothing better than that," Bernier said. "They have some good players, some skilled guys, so if we can put a body on them it can help us. That's what we did tonight."

Harding saw his team take some steps toward being successful over the course of the long season, too. The fighting and the physical accountability the Maineiacs displayed may prove to be more important to their fortunes in February and March than the 4 third-period goals they scored or their 2 power-play tallies.

"For some guys it was good," said Harding, whose team has split 4 meetings with Halifax and has handed the Mooseheads 2 of their 7 regulation losses. "I really challenged Jakub Bundil (who fought Halifax's Shawn O'Donnell just 41 seconds into the second period). I wasn't real satisfied with the way he had stood up before, and I think I really irritated him. I needed to see a little life out of him, and I needed to see life out of some other guys, too.

"Guys standing up for each other, I'm really happy about that."