They weren’t overturning cars or torching couches on Bartlett Street last night, so championship fever didn’t send the city into a total frenzy like it does some places.

But there was an unmistakable electricity in the air in Hockeytown, um, Titletown when the Lewiston Maineiacs became the first American-based team to skate with the President’s Cup.

Take that, Canada. We got your Cup. We’re coming for your Molson next.

At 9:26 p.m., the packed house watching at Dudley’s in the Lewiston Ramada Inn gave the Maineiacs a standing ovation. Soon, a chant of “Sweep, sweep, sweep” went up, as high-fives were exchanged and beer bottles clanked together in salute to the victors.

“Now everybody’s going to ask how to get to Vancouver,” said Ray Cloutier of Lewiston, referring to the Maineiacs next step, the Memorial Cup.

“I can’t believe they swept ’em,” Maineiacs season-ticket holder Wayne Kyllonen of Poland said while turning to his friend, David Gagnon.

“Nobody believed it was going to be a sweep,” said Gagnon, from Hebron. “This is the best team I’ve ever seen.”

It may be the best team Lewiston has ever seen. Fifty wins during the regular season, 16-1 in the playoffs, and they could beat you any way you wanted to play them.

“Do you remember seeing them lose a game?” Gagnon asked Kyllonen. “I can’t remember seeing them lose a game.”

Not many people can. Certainly not those who waited until the third or fourth round to jump on the bandwagon.

Roger Knapp never saw them lose. He never saw them win, either, until last night. Visiting on business from Houston, he’d never watched a hockey game until he sat down at the bar.

“How many points is a goal worth?” he asked only half-jokingly to a patron seated next to him.

Knapp was one of the few who didn’t join in when a round of “Let’s go, Maineiacs” chants sounded with about seven minutes left. Lewiston fans were relaxed and confident, at least until penalties called a minute apart on Kevin Marshall and Stefan Chaput put the Maineiacs two men down with just over four minutes to go. Lewiston killed off both penalties, and the countdown to the Cup began.

Gagnon, who owns and operates the Minot Country Store, had his cell phone ready to call the store once the final horn sounded.

“I talk about it all the time at the store. I keep the score posted on the freezer,” he said. “Even the people that don’t know anything about hockey are asking me about it. All of my employees are wrapped up in it. I know when I call them, they’re going to go ‘Wooo-hooo!!!'”

A cluster of opened cell phones lit up Dudley’s as boisterous but well-behaved fans filed out of the bar and into the parking lot. Someone asked Kyllonen if it was a little bittersweet that the Maineiacs didn’t clinch the championship, or any of their playoff series, at home.

“I know they could do it if they got here, but why jeopardize it?” Kyllonen said. “Get it over and get it done.”

Now it’s time for Maineiacs owner Mark Just to get it done. It’s time to strike while the iron is hot. Take a page from the Boston Red Sox and take the Cup to Maineiacs Nation. Put it on display at Ingersoll Arena, Kennebec Ice Arena, every hockey arena in the state. Even take it to a few makeshift pond rinks next winter. Don’t bother taking it to Roger Knapp in Houston, though.

Take it to every school, hospital and veterans home that will have you. Take it to some Fourth of July parades. Take it to the Great Falls Balloon Festival. Take it to the Minot Country Store. Take it to every other country store and diner you can find in the phone book. Let people see it, touch it, learn the history of it.

And don’t give it back to Canada until they take it by force. That cup is Lewiston’s now.