LEWISTON – The Lewiston Maineiacs will celebrate their 200th home game Saturday night, complete with commemorative jerseys that are flecked either with fireworks or vomited Skittles. Can’t tell which.

Point being, it promises to be a festive, bicentennial celebration. And we should know by then – absolutely no more than seven days later – whether or not that should be spelled bye-centennial.

January is panic season every year for at least one frazzled fan base in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Headhunters from the nooks and crannies of Canada without a junior or minor league team court whichever franchise has emerged as the desperate housewife, starved for money and affection.

The front office nervously twirling that wedding ring around its knuckle this winter resides in the lower level of Androscoggin Bank Colisee. But for how long?

“It’s a possibility every year,” Maineiacs president Matt McKnight said Tuesday, prior to Lewiston’s 4-1 loss to the Drummondville Voltigeurs. “Nothing in life is guaranteed. I can’t say that we haven’t received calls, but that’s not unique to this year. Nothing is in play right now that would lead me to believe that we’re not going to be here next year.”

One’s tone was measured, the other’s miffed, but both McKnight and team owner Mark Just issued a non-denial denial of rampant internet rumors that the Maineiacs’ move or sale is imminent.

Just scoffed (“Denied. Absolutely.”) at the suggestion that a deal already is in place to uproot the Maineiacs to Granby, Quebec, for the 2009-10 season.

His repudiation of other potential suitors – St. Hyacinthe, St. Jerome, Trois-Rivieres and St. John’s, Newfoundland among them – was anything but unequivocal.

“There are people who have contacted me,” Just confirmed. “If they’re so concerned, we ought to get more than 1,592 people to a game, don’t you think? Obviously the people that are concerned realize that attendance is not adequate.”

McKnight and Just both confirmed that four cities have contacted the Maineaics’ brass about relocating and/or purchasing the team. They declined to name the specific locales.

Any official request for a change of address must be filed with the league by Jan. 31, according to McKnight, who denied that Lewiston has filed any such appeal.

Sherbrooke endured this sinking feeling six winters ago, when Just, McKnight and the artists formerly known as the Castors cast their pucks upon greener pastures. Lewiston? South o’ the border? Sacrebleu!

“People who are interested in (obtaining) a team look for teams that financially aren’t doing very well,” said McKnight, acknowledging flirtations past, present and probably future.

Market research told the incoming management team that 70,000 potential spectators lived within a wrist shot of Ye Olde Money Pit on Birch Street. This fertile, new ground, they were told, delivered a history and a passion for hockey that bordered on lunacy.

Wrong and wronger. And now those misconceptions are coming home to roost.

The failed experiment of minor league hockey in the 1970s, dwindling attendance at high school games and an increasingly detached, uninvolved public hinted at a bumpy Zamboni ride for the new venture.

Six seasons, a league championship and a fistful of National Hockey Leaguers later, the Maineiacs preach their gospel to a choir of 1,500 to 2,000 that consistently eat it up. But that promised, built-in cult of thousands more never existed in the first place. Three or four generations have discovered other forms of entertainment in the winter. Lewiston and Auburn are no longer Southern Canada.

If the team was banking on Minot, Mechanic Falls, Greene, Poland, Gray, Lisbon and Sabattus to help meet its bottom line, well, interest in those communities was minimal, in the first place. There are more basketball junkies and recreational skiers there than hockey enthusiasts.

Just’s exasperation Tuesday told the tale of man who finally realizes that.

“I haven’t complained or said anything in six years,” Just said Tuesday afternoon. “People are going to start to say, ‘How the hell can that dummy keep the team here for six years with the attendance we have?’ The team isn’t going to stay here forever if it isn’t drawing. That’s impossible. I’ve been putting money into this, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for six years, waiting for people to support this team.

“Not the 2,000 people who come to every game,” he continued. “We have great, loyal fans. But if those 2,000 people are the ones that are concerned, where are the other 70,000 people in the community? Are they upset that we might be relocating? I don’t think so, because I bet we won’t have anybody in the building tonight for a game against a first-place team in Drummondville.”

Jeremiah was known as the biblical weeping prophet, but perhaps Just is worthy competition in 2009 A.D.

He called it, not that you or I couldn’t have. Hot on the heels of a rare, two-game winning streak at the outset of coach Don MacAdam’s new regime, Tuesday’s announced attendance: 1,657.

Announced being the operative word, because the refurbished Colisee – hey, at least we finagled that out of this deal – wasn’t nearly half-full.

Tuesdays have been a convenient write-off for the ‘Yaks since Year One. School and work nights haven’t needed to be historic inauguration days to be unmitigated box office disasters. By design and request, this was one of only five 2008-09 midweek home games that didn’t coincide with a school vacation.

“Right now there is nothing that would prevent us from playing here next year, other than the fact that we are very disappointed,” McKnight said. “There is no easy out, and the grass is always greener on the other side.”

Green currency and black figures might be more palatable to Just, who indicates that his baby has been stained with red ink from the beginning.

“I don’t know what’s going on right now. I have been approached by several people. People aren’t stupid,” said Just. “There are other cities that want this team. I have listened to people for six years, and I will continue listening to people because I am not happy with the support we’ve had here. If a location is better than where we’re at for many, many reasons, I would consider that.”

The frightening truth for Lewiston’s loyalists: Even if each of them brings a friend and produces two unlikely sellouts this weekend, it wouldn’t be enough to stop any move that might be in the works.

Saturday’s a shirt-off-their-backs night. Twenty fans will go home with one of those commemorative, milestone sweaters.

They’d better keep it tucked away. It might be their last chance to grab a souvenir.

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