LEWISTON – It makes sense.

That’s the overall theme Lewiston Maineiacs’ president and coach Don MacAdam takes away from the 2009-10 regular-season schedule, released Thursday by the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

“I like the schedule,” MacAdam said. “I like it competitively and I like it from a logistical standpoint. There’s less bad travel, which will mean less wear on the players. I like the balance of pre- and post-Christmas, and I like the balance of the home and away games, with relation to where they fall on the schedule as a whole.”

Like last season, the Maineiacs will play 34 home games and 34 on the road for a total of 68 dates. Of the 34 at home, the Maineiacs will host 10 Friday games, seven on Saturdays and another seven on Sundays, putting 24 of the team’s 34 home games on the weekend.

Of the 10 games scheduled for a weeknight, four of them fall during a school holiday.

The Maineiacs will also host a New Year’s Eve game for the first time, moving the start time up to 2 p.m.

“We can have our fans start their New Year’s celebrations with the Lewiston Maineiacs,” MacAdam said.

Another feature of the new schedule is a heavy load of home games on the back end. The team will play 20 of its road games before the holiday break.

“The scheduling I’ve done in the past, you avoid as many home games early in the season as you can,” MacAdam said. “You’re competing against too many other events – the fall school sports, the college football. You just avoid it. Plus, it’s not really hockey season yet. The people’s mentality is still in summer sports and activities.”

The league mandates that each team plays a set of three games in three nights three times each season, and this year the Maineiacs’ 3-in-3s are spaced out – one in October, one in early January and one in late February.

In addition, the league granted the Maineiacs’ request on a few certain travel arrangements that make both fiscal and operational sense. One of the Maineiacs’ 3-in-3s is actually a four-games-in-five-nights trek to Rouyn-Noranda and Val d’Or. It will be the only time the team has to make the 13-hour bus journey all season.

“You could look on that scheduling as a smart economic decision, but you can also look on it as an overall intelligent way to do your schedule, where you’re not going twice to the longest destination of the year,” MacAdam said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

In another, similar move, Lewiston travels only once to Cape Breton and Halifax, during a four-game Atlantic Canada swing in early December.

The Maineiacs’ first game of the season is on Friday, Sept. 11 at Chicoutimi. The team opens at home on Friday, Sept. 18 against Baie-Comeau, and will close out the season on the road in Drummondville on Sunday, March 14, 2010.