With a season of injuries already taking a toll on the Lewiston Maineiacs playoff roster, the team suffered another blow Tuesday when the league suspended forward Nick Cowan for 10-games.
“Nick’s a character player,” said Maineiacs assistant coach Ed Harding on Tuesday night. “He brings a lot of intangibles to the team, and losing him is just another setback. The thing is, we were missing Nick for some games when he was injured a while back, and we plugged along then. We’re going to have to do it again.”
According to the league, Cowan’s suspension resulted from an incident where the Maineiacs forward returned to the ice after being escorted off by a linesman.
“The incident happened near the end of the period at Cape Breton,” said Harding. “The tape doesn’t show it really well, but apparently a linesman restrained Nick and took him out the Zamboni entrance at the end of the period, and (Cowan) came back out looking for action.”
The rule in the league’s handbook says that any player returning to the ice after being escorted off by an official is subject to an automatic 10-game suspension.
“As long as it is done like this for everyone, we really have no problems with it,” said Harding. “As long as they are consistent in applying this rule to everyone.”
Divisional changes
With two new teams entering the league next season, the board of governors met this week to re-configure the division to allow for expansion.
The result?
Two divisions – a Quebec division and a Maritime division. The Lewiston Maineiacs will belong to the eight-team Maritime division, which includes St. John, St. John’s, Moncton, Halifax, P.E.I, Acadie-Bathurst and Cape Breton.
“This was the only way we could figure it out to keep the major rivalries all intact,” said Maineiacs’ vice president and governor Matt McKnight.
“The only other option, to even the teams out, would be to move Rimouski into our division, and that would destroy their big, long-standing rivalries with Quebec, Chicoutimi and Baie-Comeau. The other option, a three-division option, would move Bathurst away from all of its Maritime rivalries.”
The Maineiacs will lose its eight games with rival Baie-Comeau, but according to McKnight, the rivalries Lewiston had formed were young enough so that a separation would not be detrimental.
The schedule will now be weighted, with Lewiston facing each team in the Quebec division twice (once at home and once on the road). The Maineiacs will take on Bathurst, St. John’s of New Brunswick and Moncton eight times each, and the face rest of the Maritimes’ teams six times during the season.
With air travel to Newfoundland necessary, the number of home and away games with the Fog Devils will vary each season, with all teams playing two nights in a row when traveling to St. John’s.
The whole scheme was developed this weekend, and the final vote for approval will be in April at the next Board of Governors’ meeting.
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