LEWISTON – Did you get the memo? There was a hockey game in town Thursday night. Pretty big one.

Sen. Susan Collins and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League Commissioner Gilles Courteau hoisted a couple of championship banners to the Androscoggin Bank Colisee rafters. Two nice ones.

Then the Lewiston Maineiacs went out and stuck it to the Saint John Sea Dogs, skating away with a 4-1 victory. A hard-fought, short-handed one.

Thousands of you are dying for this information. I know this because you weren’t compelled to drag yourselves anywhere near the area. To you, I propose a proper toast and raise a $6 plastic, Molson beer cup. A big, fat, empty one.

I’m ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated and flabbergasted. Our community’s response to this continuing celebration of the biggest thing that’s happened around here since Muhammad Ali floored Sonny Liston was a joke.

Thursday’s showcase should have been a sellout days in advance.

Instead, you could have walked up to the window at 6:55 p.m. and purchased center ice seats for you and a honey or a drinking buddy.

The announced attendance of 2,534 – more than a grand beneath capacity – surely included a smattering of season-ticket holders who were absent but accounted for. Unused ducats stood out like mascot Lewy’s head in every section.

During the banner-raising ceremony, minutes after the advertised starting time, not a single seat in the cluster to the immediate right of the Zamboni entrance was occupied. For a minute, I thought I’d missed the hockey game and walked in on another Molly Hatchet concert to drive this joint a little deeper in debt.

What gives, Lewiston? Auburn? Greene? Mechanic Falls? Minot? Fill in the name of your surrounding community where not another damn thing was going on this peaceful evening.

Go ahead, let’s hear all the excuses.

Yes, Thursday is an odd night for a season-opener.

That’s because the QMJHL wanted to give you, give us, the unshared spotlight befitting a championship franchise. Work and school don’t take that much out of you on Friday. Your kids are involved in every soccer league, karate lesson, church retreat and after-school playgroup known to mankind. Eight hours sleep instead of nine probably wasn’t going to kill them.

Yes, ticket prices are steep and we’re still paying a ridiculous amount at the pump.

Gas must have been free five years ago, huh?

I understand taking a family of four, five or nine to a Maineiacs’ game is a hefty investment. But really, with your pick of 35 home dates between now and March, the season-opener following a President’s Cup championship is one you might circle on your calendar.

Funny how the same people who complain the loudest about the cost of root, root, rooting for the home team are the ones who sat at home watching makeover shows on the digital cable that costs them $75 a month while smoking unfiltered cigarettes that run $15 a day.

Yes, some of the players you know and love are missing due to NHL camps or other hush-hush circumstances.

Even more reason to get out and let your cowbells and air horns be heard. The Maineiacs won’t need you in January or February nearly as much as they will in September and October.

Nine players wearing those fifth-anniversary sweaters had never laced up the skates for a meaningful game in the ‘Q’ until Thursday night. Most of them come from a culture that worships hockey. I’m sure they were taken aback by their first taste of the abysmal ambience in their new surroundings.

Yes, Sept. 13 is too soon to be thinking about hockey.

May 13 is too late to be thinking about hockey, but our community did a smack-up job being no respecter of seasons last spring.

Now this. The contrast is startling.

Hollow explanations aside, I’m afraid Thursday night’s trickle through the turnstiles was the perfect storm of laziness and fair-weather fandom.

Even as the Maineiacs scored three times in the third period to open defense of their title in style, many in the minority that put in face time had already hit the exits.

Your next chance to redeem us comes Sunday afternoon, against Rouyn-Noranda.

No politicians from Washington or Ottawa are expected. No bells and whistles are planned.

I shudder to think what that attendance will look like.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected].