GRANBY, Québec – They say it’s easy to win a championship, but it’s much harder to win another in back-to-back seasons. Players and management of the Pont-Rouge Lois Jeans surely must agree with that sentiment.
Pont-Rouge, a small town of 8,000 people located just outside of Québec City, has a strong tradition in terms of senior hockey. The Lois Jeans (yeah, that’s the name of the team) has celebrated in a beautiful way with the return of Pont-Rouge in the Ligue nord-américaine de hockey (LNAH) by winning the Futura Cup last spring.
But this year, everything has gone wrong in Pont-Rouge. At the midseason mark, the Lois Jeans are in last place in the seven team league (based in the Province of Québec) and have won only seven of their first 23 games. The good news is everyone makes the playoffs in the LNAH. 
The truth is, everything has going wrong in Pont-Rouge since day one of the regular season. Head Coach Bobby Baril was suspended for the entire season, including playoffs, after what Baril said about the referees and the league following his teams first game of the season, a victory against the Thetford Mines Isothermic. He was replaced by assistant coach Éric Morin. Baril was fired as general manager a month later. “We just don’t win,” said co-owner Richard Pageau. “We seriously need to get the fans back at the arena”. Martin Giguère, who put some good teams on the ice in Saint-Georges for many years, was hired as the teams new GM.
Then, three weeks ago, the Lois Jeans was severely punished by the LNAH for not respecting the league’s salary cap, which is $12,000 Canadian per week. Owners had to pay an $18,000 fine and the team lost four points at the standings, plus their first pick in the 2010 draft. Ouch!
“Everybody knew that Pont-Rouge was paying some players big, big money”, said an anonymous general manager. “Now, they have to deal with the consequences.”
“We will pay the fine, that’s not a problem,” said Lois Jeans’ co-owner Benoit Ferland. “And don’t worry, we will finish the season.”
The Lois Jeans made a couple of deals recently but have pretty much the same lineup that they had last season. Forwards Robert Guillet and Steve Larouche, defencemen Jean-Yves Leroux and Christian Laflamme, and goaltender Luc Bélanger, have American Hockey League experience as well as some National Hockey League experience under their belts.
The teams still has 21 games left to play in the regular season. No doubt, there is plenty of time left to save the season but more importantly there is still enough time left to save the franchise. NOTES: Only four points separate the first place team, the Trois-Rivières Caron & Guay, and the fourth place team, the Saguenay Marquis. The Sherbrooke Saint-François and the Saint-Georges CRS Express are tied for second place… Goaltender Maxime Daigneault, who was drafted in the second round by the Washington Capitals in 2002, signed a contract with Saint-François. Daigneault, 25, played in the ECHL and AHL but failed to reach the NHL after having a brilliant junior career with Val-d’Or in the Québec Major Junior Hockey League.
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