Twenty-five hockey players who walked into the Androscoggin Bank Colisee last season as members of a homestanding Lewiston Maineiacs squad are back on the ice this weekend as all of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s training camps have now opened up shop.

But none in Lewiston.

For the first time since 2003, the Colisee is without ice during the third week in August, and greater Lewiston-Auburn is without its hockey team, three months after the QMJHL purchased the franchise, folded it and dispersed its players among the remaining 17 teams.

Three of the players from last year’s Lewiston team — Olivier Dame-Malka, Nick Champion and Antoine Houde-Caron — are ineligible to return to the QMJHL due to age. The remaining 25, including prospects and invited players — have latched on elsewhere. Fourteen of the 17 QMJHL teams have at least one former Maineiac in training camp, as does Saskatoon of the Western Hockey League (goalie Andrey Makarov).

Acadie-Bathurst, Gatineau and Shawinigan each have three former Lewiston skaters on their rosters, though it’s widely accepted that the Cataractes, hosts of this year’s Mastercard Memorial Cup, made out the best in the dispersal draft. Michael Chaput, Cole Hawes and Pierre-Olivier Morin are all now in Shawinigan.

“It’s very different here in Shawi,” Chaput wrote in an email interview Friday. “First of all, everything is in French except for the coaching. I kind of knew a couple guys already and well. Obviously, Morin and Cole are here, so that helped. But the boys are cool and I’m getting along with them very well.”

“It is weird after the last four years to not have a camp in Lewiston this year,” admitted Morin via email. “At least we have three guys from last year’s team here in Shawinigan. It is nice to be with Chap and Cole.”

Invited players Tyler Piercy and Jonah Coonishish-Coon joined Matthew Bissonnette in Acadie-Bathurst this week, while Alex Zafiris, Zachary Evans-Renaud and goalie prospect Antoine Bibeau are all in Gatineau.

Captain Cameron Critchlow joined fellow 20-year-old Jonathan Parisien in Halifax, while Sam Carrier, one of the league’s top offensive defensemen, landed in Baie-Comeau.

“It is different than Lewiston, but it is still hockey,” Carrier said. “Unfortunately, we can’t continue what we started in Lewiston, but we’ve got to do what we have to do to pursue our dreams.”

Cape Breton, PEI and Quebec are the only three teams without a former Lewiston skater in camp, and Kirill Kabanov, whom the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada (formerly the Montreal Junior) selected in the dispersal draft, has yet to officially declare his intentions to play for the team, choosing instead to focus on his chance to make the New York Islanders’ roster this fall.

The players are not the only former Lewiston Maineiacs seeing the league from other benches. Assistant coach Darren Rumble found a home with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League, while head coach J.F. Houle is now the head coach of the Armada, just outside of his hometown of Montreal.

“I’m very excited to come back to Montreal,” Houle told the Sun Journal when he was hired. “For me, this is a great opportunity with a new team.”

The QMJHL preseason’s first weekend is nearly in the books, and the regular season’s scheduled start date is Sept. 8 when the defending league champion Saint John Sea Dogs host rival Moncton in the traditional Thursday opener.