LEWISTON — Local hockey fans will have some upper-level hockey to watch next season, and more could be on the way.

Jim Cain, owner of Firland Management, which owns and operates the Androscoggin Bank Colisee, confirmed Friday that the Portland Pirates of the American Hockey League will play some of their home games at the Lewiston rink during the 2012-13 season.

“Seven, I’m told right now, for sure,” Cain said.

The Pirates’ home, the Cumberland County Civic Center, is slated for repairs and upgrades this year. That forced the organization to take a look at its schedule, and find ways to accommodate the renovations.

Cain hinted that more games might be played here, depending on talks between the Civic Center and the Pirates’ owners.

“The schedule is long in the AHL, and we’d love to be able to do something like this every year,” Cain said.

The relationship among Jim Cain, the Pirates and Maine Hockey Group’s Ron Cain (no relation), who is also part-owner of the Pirates, has become friendly in recent months as they’ve discussed the future of hockey in Maine. The agreement among the entities for AHL games to be played at the Lewiston facility could lead to a greater partnership, to potentially include the return to the Colisee of junior hockey.

At the end of the 2010-11 season, the owners of the Lewiston Maineiacs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League sold the franchise back to the league, which disbanded the squad and redistributed the players across the league via dispersal draft. That left Jim Cain without a primary tenant at the Colisee for the 2011-12 season.

“One way or another, we’ll have hockey here next year, full-time,” he said.

The Federal Hockey League played five league games at the Colisee this winter, to gauge the area hockey fans’ and Cain’s interest in the league. They are reportedly still interested in placing a team in Lewiston to begin play next season.

Also in play is junior-level hockey, the avenue Jim Cain has repeatedly said he prefers. One option on that front appears to be the eastward expansion of the United States Hockey League, the top junior hockey league in the United States. The league comprises 16 teams, all based in the Midwest.

“Our joint pursuit of the USHL is really working well,” Jim Cain said. “We’re clearly in the lead, and I believe it’ll happen.”

With that opportunity a year away, though, the word is that Jim Cain, perhaps in partnership with Ron Cain and the Pirates, will bring in a lower-level junior program for 2012-13, and then elevate that program’s status to Tier I — the USHL’s level — the following season.

“We would look at that as a good transition, but it’s not necessary,” Cain said. “They have similar needs, with education, housing, parents, all the things that go with 16- to 20-year-olds in hockey. The transition would be that you’re shifted to a higher gear.”

jpelletier@sunjournal.com

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