The rumors of an impending sale related to the Lewiston Maineiacs have been put to rest, at least for now.

Current majority owner Mark Just has no intention of selling the team. He’s said so. Team president and governor Matt McKnight said so.

But Just isn’t the only owner, and this is where the confusion began.

“(Minority owner) Wendell Young is selling his shares,” McKnight said recently. “That’s where this all started, I guess.”

Young, a former NHL goaltender and a current coach with the Chicago Wolves, has had a partial stake in the team since before it moved from Sherbrooke, Quebec, to Lewiston.

Just has even offered to purchase Young’s shares, McKnight said, but Young said he prefered, at least for now, to test them on the open market.

Striking similarities

The Lewiston Maineiacs’ top three skill players were taking more than their fair share of penalties. The team struggled out of the gate, and was a .500-level team at best all season.

There were discipline issues, and fans grumbled about the team’s new coach.

That was in 2004.

“We took a lot of dumb penalties that year, if you remember,” Harding said. “The guys who were our leaders were in the box all the time, in (Alex) Bourret, (Alexandre) Picard and (Jonathan) Paiement. We think that’s similar (to this year), and we have to put a stop to it. That year, we didn’t really put a stop to it.”

This year, three of the team’s five leading penalty-minute earners are Danick Paquette, Max Gratchev and Michael Ward.