A team in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League will have a new look to go along with a new home next season.
On Friday, December 20, the QMJHL announced that the Acadie-Bathurst Titan had been sold and will relocate to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, for the 2025-26 season. The sale process was initially started in January 2024.
″It’s a sad day,” Titan president and shareholder Serge Thériault told the QMJHL website. “The Titan has been an integral part of the Bathurst community for 27 years. The team gave us great moments and rallied the population. Unfortunately, we were playing in the smallest major junior market in Canada, and attendance dropped over the years. This made it impossible for us, the owners, to continue. I’d like to thank the Titan fans and corporate partners for their support since 1998.″
″I said it last January when the sale process began: The objective of the QMJHL and the Titan owners has always been to find local investors to keep the team in Bathurst,” league commissioner Mario Cecchini added. “However, none of the interested groups had any intention of operating the team in Bathurst in the medium term. My heart goes out to the Titan fans. I sympathize and understand their pain and frustration. ″
The Titan moved to Bathurst, New Brunswick, in 1998 after various iterations in Rosemont and Laval, Quebec. During their time in New Brunswick, the Titan qualified for the Memorial Cup twice, in 1999 and 2018, winning the latter with a 3-0 win over the WHL’s Regina Pats.
When they move to St. John’s next season, the team will play in the 6,300-seat Mary Brown’s Centre. A new name and logo for the team has not yet been announced, but the QMJHL said they and the team will hold an official press conference in January 2025.
This will the second iteration of QMJHL hockey in St. John’s, following the St. John’s Fog Devils, who played for three seasons from 2005 to 2008 before relocating to Montreal (the team is now the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada). But other leagues have also planted flags in Newfoundland, including the American Hockey League’s St. John’s Maple Leafs (1991-2005) and St. John’s IceCaps (2011-2017), as well as the ECHL’s Newfoundland Growlers (2018-2024).
What do you think the new St. John’s QMJHL team’s name and logo should be? Let us know in the comments!
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