Stefan Fournier has never been at a loss for words.

The 19-year-old hockey player — a former Lewiston Maineiac and now a Victoriaville Tigre — often had people trying to get him to stop talking.

Or they were encouraging him, knowing what often escaped his lips was pure comedic gold.

But as temperatures rose, as hockey’s offseason took hold and as former Maineiacs came to grips with the fact that they won’t be returning to the Twin Cities, for what was to be a go-for-it, championship-contending season, the summer turned somber.

It figures, then, that Fournier was the first to say something, putting fingers to keyboard and drafting a fond farewell to his friends and adopted Lewiston-Auburn area family. These are his own, unedited words:

“It took me a while to figure out exactly what I wanted to write all of you in lewiston, especially all of the fans who stood by us through all the ups and downs. It’s hard to believe that time fly’s as fast as it has. I remember my days in lewiston like they were yesterday, the long days, the short ones, everyday from my first until my last. I was dealt to lewiston in a trade at the begining of my 2nd season and to be honest I didn’t know what to expect. A different country, different culture and to a team that wasn’t in the best of situations with financial issues and rumors of relocation.”

Those rumors about which Fournier writes followed the team from the moment it went to the 2007 Mastercard Memorial Cup in Vancouver. Majority owner Mark Just and minority owner Wendell Young received offers to sell the team following that trip, a sale that would have allowed the businessmen to make a profit on their venture.

They kept the team in Lewiston. They lost money — so much that the team eventually folded after the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League purchased the franchise back from Just and Young.

“In this past month with the official fold of the team, i’ve spent alot of my time reminicing about everything, talking to my fellow teamates from lewiston, and we all share the same feeling. dissapointment. Dissapointement for our fans and for ourselves. Lewiston wasn’t only a place that shapped us all as players but also as people. Moving away from home,leaving your family and friends at 16, 17 is a hard transition but with the help of every single one of you, whether it was in a big or smaller way played a part in making my 2 year stay in lewiston, the best 2 seasons of my life. So whether you waved to me once in Walmart while I was driving in the carts performing my daily stupidity’s or you were the same people that came to every single one of our autograph signings or you would shlep through a snow storm to watch us play or you were even the best billet I could have asked for who put up with my shinanigans on a daily basis, nothing ever went unoticed.”

The Maineiacs became a part of every-day life in the Lewiston-Auburn area for eight seasons. The team members participated in community activities, read to school children, volunteered at various organizations, lived with local families and entertained thousands of people who walked into the Colisee 34 or 35 times during the regular season and a handful of playoff series. It’s easy to remember the impact the team and its players had on the community. But many overlook what the communities gave back to the players. The players did not.

“So to all you fans out there, who will miss watching us play next winter just know that myself i’m pretty confident I could speak and for all the boys as well, we’ll miss it. Because everday I find myself smilling about a memory I made down there in the dirty lew, whether it was cruising on the beach with the boys, greasing in “ball game,” getting chirped for my hands or my tape job by the coaches, prank calling dj, having late night border wars with matty, radio shows with kirill, late night CoD matches, putting armoirs on porches or even walking into the colisee before a game and seeing posters being hung up, leaves me with nothing but good memories. So to finish this up, because anyone who knows me well enough knows I can talk forever and could make a list that you would be finished reading by the new year, I want you to know that I sincerely appreciate and thank you for everything you did.

#22

The Nooch”

Over time, with the advent of perhaps another team to call the Colisee home, as time whithers away the concrete memories of the Lewiston Maineiacs’ eight-year run into the patchy fog of distant thoughts, many in this area will forget how many goals a particular player scored, or how many wins the team had in any particular year.

But those who cared for the team will not forget the players themselves or the impact they had on the community as a whole.

Apparently, those feelings are reciprocated.