Now that the Fog Devils are officially kaput in St. John’s, Newfoundland (though it took a nearly five-hour conference call to make it so), the proposition of a team in Verdun sounds appealing, at least on the surface.

On the top of the list of good things to come from the move is that the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League gets a team back in the prized Montreal market.

The league has tried – and failed – on many occasions to field a team in the Montreal metro area. Teams in Verdun (four times), Longueuil (twice), Laval, Montreal (twice) and Granby, to name a few, have tried and folded.

The league’s latest foray into Montreal was with the Rocket, who are now in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

But the market is lucrative in terms of advertising, and for exposure to the major Canadian media.

Maineiacs’ principal owner Mark Just was sincere in his hope that that team will succeed, saying he was “surprised, but (he) hoped for nothing but the best for the franchise.”

Montreal is a key market for the league. Other major junior hockey leagues in Canada have teams in their bigger markets, including Vancouver (the Giants), Edmonton (the Oil Kings), Calgary (the Hitmen), Seattle (the Thunderbirds) and Ottawa (the 67s).

In each of these other cities, with the exception of Seattle, there is also an NHL franchise, and their coexistence is more than just possible. It’s a reality.

So why has Montreal been such an issue? It’s not like there aren’t enough people with enough money to make coexistence there plausible.

Perhaps the Montreal Canadiens’ draw is so great, that fans are spoiled by that level of hockey. There does not exist a more rabid, loyal fan base than that of the Canadiens.

On the flip side, moving a team to Verdun will be a problem, too.

On top of that list is the question of realignment, which, for the second time in five years, will likely give the Maineiacs a new set of teams with which they will be forced to form rivalries.

It could end up being a case of history repeating itself.

When the Maineiacs first came on the scene, the league redivided the divisions into three groups. A six-team Western Division had Gatineau, Rouyn-Noranda, Val d’Or, Drummondville, Victoriaville and Shawinigan together. The Central Division had Baie-Comeau, Chicoutimi, Lewiston, Quebec and Rimouski, and the Eastern Division included Halifax, Cape Breton, Moncton, PEI (which also moved that year) and Acadie-Bathurst.

Before that, there were two eight-team conferences and two four-team divisions within each conference.

With the addition of Saint John and St. John’s, the league went back to the two-conference format, though they left them two uneven, giving the Eastern Division eight teams (those from the Atlantic Provinces plus Lewiston), and the Western Division the 10 Quebec-based teams.

The addition of the two teams also allowed for a better playoff format, with easier travel.

The shift from St. John’s to Verdun throws the balance off. Now, there are 11 Quebec-based teams, with just seven in the Atlantic Provinces plus Maine.

There are two logical solutions to the problem. The first would be to go back to three divisions, returning Lewiston to its original group while also adding Victoriaville, the closest to the Quebec City region.

This would leave six Atlantic Province teams in one group, and it would place Verdun with Rouyn-Noranda, Val d’Or, Gatineau, Drummondville and Shawinigan.

The problem with this one is the playoff format, which would undoubtedly return to a league-wide, 16-team playoff, causing a massive travel cluster-you-know-what.

The other option would be to keep the two conference format. There are a couple of ways to approach this one. You could keep the 10-8 split, and shift one team from Quebec (likely Rimouski) into the fold with the Atlantic teams.

You could also make it 9-9, and move two teams into the East, likely Rimouski and Baie-Comeau.

But that would destroy some long-standing rivalries involving Rimouski and Quebec, Chicoutimi and Baie-Comeau.

Perhaps a return to a no-conference, four-division format with an unbalanced schedule would work.

Group the teams into four sections. Group 1 would include Rouyn-Noranda, Val d’Or, Gatineau, Verdun and Drummondville. Group 2 would get Victoriaville, Shawinigan, Quebec and Chicoutimi. Group 3 would see Baie-Comeau, Rimouski, Acadie-Bathurst and Lewiston together, while Moncton, PEI, Cape Breton, Saint John and Halifax would make up Group 4.

I can’t guarantee that scheduling these teams evenly would be possible, and it may require the league to think about adding a pair of games, or maybe subtracting a pair, to make it work.

Either way, while the shift from St. John’s to Verdun is likely going to help advertising revenue and exposure, it’s going to create a lot of headaches in coming months to those who make the schedule.

Good luck.