Like he always does, Jamey Bourgoin set up the Lewiston Maineiacs’ bench prior to game time last Friday. He wheeled the cart of sticks over from the locker room, set up the water bottles and made sure all of the players’ skates were sharp and the blades screwed on properly.

As the team’s equipment manager, no one blinked twice during the game as Bourgoin patrolled the bench with his towel and his tools, helping players as they came off the ice with a loose skate, a foggy helmet or a broken stick.

No one, that is, except maybe Bourgoin himself.

A day earlier, Bourgoin’s father, Normand “Boogie” Bourgoin, had passed away after a long illness. Still, during the game, Jamey, 37, looked over to the wheelchair seating area, where his father usually sat to watch games.

“I’ll probably be doing that for a while,” Jamey said Monday. “It was very, very hard to be here, but I think it was a place I had to be. He would have wanted me to be here with the fans, with our friends.”

Jamey’s love for the game no doubt came from his father. An avid sports fan, and benefactor in both time and money throughout his life, Boogie represented to many people in the Lewiston-Auburn area just what the area was all about.

“Hockey was such a part of his life,” said Jamey. “Over the past few days, so many people have come up to me, remembering him in his tux at the Lions Tournament, or from coaching.”

And while Boogie didn’t officially found the Lions Tournament, it was hard to imagine any tournament through the 1980s and early 1990s without him handing out awards in his full tuxedo to wide-eyed mites and squirts.

Boogie’s legacy with the Lewiston-Auburn Youth Hockey League didn’t end at the tournament. He was also the league’s scheduler for many years and Maine’s director of coaches for the American Hockey Association of the United States.

Boogie also opened the first pro shop at what was then the Central Maine Youth Center.

Roland Landry, who took over the Central Maine Pro Shop from Bourgoin in the late 1980s, knew long before then of Boogie’s generosity and dedication to the area’s youth.

“Carlton (Gagnon, whom Landry helped raise) wanted to be a goalie,” said Landry. “I couldn’t afford it, and goalies have the most expensive equipment out there, but he gave me the equipment and told me to pay as I could. Carlton would never have been a goalie.”

Gagnon went on to backstop St. Dom’s as its varsity goaltender in the early 1990s.

But, as always with Boogie, there was much more in store, and it almost always involved helping the community’s youth. Boogie was the founder of what is now the South Lewiston Little League and was the organization’s first president. He also had the original lights installed at the fields for night games.

But Boogie’s love was hockey.

In 1990, Boogie formed the L/A Rapids, a semi-professional men’s team that skated out of the Central Maine Civic Center, helping to renew for a few years a rivalry with Berlin, N.H., that had been dormant for years following the demise of the L/A Twins.

“It was pretty much a place for me to play,” said Jamey, who had been drafted into the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in the 1980s by Drummondville. “I went to Iowa to play, but I came back here to help out after he had his first heart attack. I had a chance to go play in Berlin, but the traveling would have been too much, so I asked him what would stop us from putting a team here.”

Boogie was the team’s coach, general manager, treasurer, scheduler and promoter, and the team lasted for four seasons.

Boogie even followed the Lewiston Maineiacs the best he could, understanding what they, and hockey in general, meant to the community. Of course, it also helped that Jamey was working for the team.

“He was even here two weeks ago,” said Jamey. “He actually had a heart attack at 4:30 in the morning one morning, and was home at his room (Boogie recently lived at Maison Marcotte) by noon. His only concern was resting up enough to be able to go to the Maineiacs’ game the next night.”

Sure enough, Boogie was there.

“He had to be there and have his hot dog, french fries and soda,” said Jamey.

It would be his final game.

Jamey, meanwhile, continues to work for the Maineiacs. He also recently opened a pro shop at the Colisee.

“It’s kind of come full circle, really,” said Jamey. “He taught me the skill to operate and run a pro shop and for that I will always be thankful. Just last week he told me how proud he was of me. Sometimes I couldn’t understand why, but I know he was happy that I had opened this shop.”

Jamey will be at the Maineiacs’ game against Rimouski tonight, and he will undoubtedly look over from his perch on the home bench toward that spot where his father used to sit. Boogie won’t be there in person, but there is little doubt he will be there in spirit, watching as Jamey carries on, in part, his legacy.

But Jamey is not alone. Boogie will forever be remembered as one of the greatest supporters of youth sports in and around the Twin Cities. This community will miss him dearly.

Justin Pelletier is a staff writer. He can be reached at [email protected]