‘I think it’s here to stay’: High hopes for QMJHL’s Regiment to stick in N.L.

Glenn Stanford has seen plenty of hockey teams come and go 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 nearly every major club to call Canada’s easternmost province home — and eventually pack up shop — since the 1990s.

But the momentum behind the Regiment, a new team with more than 2,400 season tickets sold in its first Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League season, reminds the longtime executive of Newfoundland’s best hockey days.

“This one has a special feel to it,” said Stanford, the Regiment’s president. “The only thing I can compare it to is the St. John’s IceCaps. We were sold out for three-and-a-half years, and we’re not there with the Regiment, but the support the community has shown is certainly at that level.

“I think it’s here to stay.”

It’s the province’s second foray into the QMJHL. The St. John’s Fog Devils, an expansion franchise, lasted three seasons from 2005 to 2008 due to heavy financial losses stemming from travel costs and what then-commissioner Gilles Courteau called the worst arena deal in the league.

This time, current commissioner Mario Cecchini says the Regiment are better positioned to succeed.

“We didn’t have basically the right ownership and we didn’t have a good deal with the building. It was not a good lease,” Cecchini said of the Fog Devils. “I don’t think we can have a better ownership local group than we have there, and then the lease with the city and the building … it’s a fair deal.”

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

The Regiment — named after the Royal Newfoundland Regiment — opened with three straight sellouts at the 6,000-seat Mary Brown’s Centre, including an electric 7-5 win Sept. 18 over the defending-champion Moncton Wildcats on opening night.

For Benjamin Veitch and Quinn Norman, two 15-year-olds from St. John’s and the club’s first two draft picks, stepping onto the ice before a raucous local crowd was a moment they’ll never forget.

“Took me back to when I used to watch all the IceCaps and Growlers,” Norman said. “I was in the stands one-time in my life, but now I’m that person playing on Mary Brown’s Centre.”

“It was unreal,” Veitch added. “Just seeing the community come out as one and just pack all the seats in this rink and just such a cool environment.”

Now that he’s in the city’s hockey spotlight, Veitch said fans sometimes stop him to ask for pictures.

“That’s just so cool, and it just shows the level of how much the fans care,” he said. “It’s such a hockey town in St. John’s, and I think there should always be a team here.”

Stanford said fans have always supported teams despite the long line of previous departures. He noted the province’s rich hockey history, with spectators filling buildings for interprovincial games from St. John’s to Corner Brook long before professional teams arrived.

“Hockey has been part of our tradition here,” Stanford said. “It has been a part of history and it will continue to be in the future.”

The St. John’s Maple Leafs of the American Hockey League left for Toronto in 2005 as part of an NHL-wide trend of moving farm teams closer to parent cities. The IceCaps came in 2011 as Winnipeg’s affiliate but left two years after the Jets — initially in the East — moved to the Western Conference. Montreal’s IceCaps were always a two-season stopgap before the Canadiens moved their minor-league team to Laval, Que.

Meanwhile, Stanford said the Newfoundland Growlers, who were expelled from the ECHL late in the 2023-24 season, never recovered financially from the COVID-19 pandemic.

But geography remains a challenge. St. John’s is a flight away from every QMJHL market and sits more than 500 kilometres from its closest rival, the Cape Breton Eagles.

“The biggest line item on your expense side of your budget is travel,” Stanford said. “For all of the teams here, that has been one of the biggest obstacles.”

The Regiment cover airfare for all visiting teams, a travel subsidy that all Newfoundland teams have had to provide. To limit costs, the team hosts opponents on back-to-back nights throughout the season, which Stanford said can be difficult to sell.

Cecchini said the Regiment face “a little” more pressure than other teams to fill their larger arena, but that the ownership group presented a solid financial plan.

“They did the calculations,” he said. “Nobody took that lightly, and I know that these people can count, so we are satisfied with what they did and how they arranged it.”

Based on the early excitement he’s seen, Regiment coach and general manager Gordie Dwyer — who moved with the franchise from Bathurst, N.B. — believes in the team’s long-term future.

“I definitely feel the appetite for hockey here is electric,” he said. “From the community, there’s a real sense of excitement, and there’s a real buzz around the hockey team and in the community.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 14, 2025.

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press