LEWISTON — A jacked-up crowd, a flare of pink on their jerseys and motivation to creep above .500 for the season were plenty to drive the Lewiston Maineiacs on Friday.

Twelve different skaters recorded at least a point and Nick Champion stopped 14 of 16 pucks as the Maineiacs lit up the visiting Victoriaville Tigres 7-2 in front of more than 2,200 during breast cancer awareness night at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“It’s pretty cool to be able to do something special like that for a good cause,” Lewiston captain Cameron Critchlow said. “There were more people here, they came out to support the team and the cause, and we’re happy we could get a big win for them.”

Critchlow had a particularly close personal attachment to the special evening. He wasn’t able to get a goal to honor his father, but an assist and, more importantly, a team win, were close enough.

“I wasn’t able to pop one in there for the old man,” Critchlow said. “Some nights it happens, some it doesn’t, but the important thing is that we won the game.”

Olivier Dame-Malka was the game’s star for Lewiston. The 20-year-old defenseman netted a pair of goals, added an assist and was a physical presence all night.

“They had one good line out there, and (defensemen Sam) Finn and (Sam) Carrier took care of the really good,” Dame-Malka said. “Their defense was weaker so we knew to get the puck in deep and went after them.”

The largest crowd to date this season didn’t take long to get fired up. Already buzzing after a stirring pregame tribute to breast cancer survivors, the masses erupted just 35 seconds after the puck dropped when Etienne Brodeur tallied his ninth goal of the season on a slow-developing 2-on-1 break with Jess Tanguy, who fed Brodeur at the right post after faking a shot.

Antoine-Houde Caron added the Maineiacs’ second goal at 10:52, barely two minutes after Victoriaville keeper David Honzik denied him on a breakaway. This time, Houde-Caron capped a 2-on-1 with a snipe to the top corner using Brodeur as a decoy.

Tanguy set up another, this time on the power play, at 15:01 when he slid the puck back to Olivier Dame-Malka at the point. The powerful defenseman let a slapper fly that hit something on the way through and found the cage behind Honzik.

“We are missing three guys on the top two lines and a top four defenseman,” Victoriaville coach Yanick Jean said. “We knew Lewiston was going to be coming out flying on breast cancer night here. We expected it, and the last thing we needed to do was go down early. But that’s what happened. We can’t expect to win a game being down that early and allowing so many quality scoring chances in the first five minutes.”

Lewiston chased Honzik in the second. Dame-Malka fired an innocent shot from the left point along the boards and the puck waffled on net and found its way through the struggling keeper at 2:55 of the second. Tanguy then made it 5-0 at the 10-minute mark when he caught Honzik napping on a dump-in and poked the pouck over the line between the keeper’s legs.

Honzik’s replacement didn’t fare much better. Sam Henley stuffed the puck through Antonio Mastropietro’s pad on a scramble in front to make it 6-0 at 13:37.

The Tigres snapped Champion’s shutout bid on a 3-on-0 shorthanded goal as Dame-Malka lay writhing on the ice, bleeding from the lip from an un-called high stick, but the Maineiacs replied quickly when Sam Carrier finished a volley of shots in front at the right post to put the home team ahead 7-1.

Victoriaville added a third-period goal on a power play after the game started to get a bit rough.

“It’s all about not giving up,” Jean said. “That happened to us in Montreal last week, too, and we had a strong third period.”

The teams will square off again Sunday at the Colisee at 4 p.m., and the Maineiacs are ready for things to stay chippy, just in case.

“It’s kind of fun at times, when it gets rough out there, but you have to make sure you stay disciplined and fight through it,” Critchlow said. “We know they’re going to be charged up, but we have to be ready to play Sunday like we were today, and we’ll be fine.”