LEWISTON – The Lewiston MAINEiacs hockey team visited the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn Campus recently.

They reviewed archival material relating to this community’s hockey history, including the old St. Dom’s Arena, the construction of the facility now known as the Colisee, local amateur hockey teams such as Bates Fabrics and the L-A Twins, and the Maine Nordiques, a professional team that played in Lewiston during the 1970s.

The field trip was part of a course they are taking in Canadian government and politics through Central Maine Community College. The course instructor is Dr. Karl Trautman.

The Franco-American Collection is the largest repository of Franco-American archival material in the state, with material on history, politics, religion, education, industry, business, theater and music.

Located in a modern climate-controlled facility, the collection includes a state-of-the-art archival storage unit designed to preserve the large collection of documents, news clippings, photographs and artifacts about Franco-American history and culture.

In addition, the collection houses the Madeleine Giguere Reading Room, which includes a large selection of books concerning the French presence in North America.

The collection is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursdays. Call 753-6545 for more information or visit the Web site at usm.maine.edu/lac/franco.