LEWISTON
Full-time junior hockey in Lewiston is dead for another season.
Three months after the Maine Timberwolves announced plans to play their 16-game home schedule at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee as part of the Northern States Junior Hockey League, league commissioner Wayne Sheehan confirmed Thursday that the team’s operations have been suspended.
“From a business perspective, the team has not met its financial obligations,” Sheehan said. “We’ve tried to be flexible, but with the games about to start, we had to take action for the sake of the league.”
The biggest missing puzzle piece was the league transfer fee, a standard legal fee to cover the transfer of ownership within the league. Timberwolves owner Jeff Dupere assumed control of the team in June, purchasing the former Maine Moose from St. Dominic Academy graduate Ben Gray and relocating the team from the Bank of Maine Ice Vault in Hallowell.
“Basically, what happens is, with the transfer in ownership, there is a transfer fee, and it’s relatively small,” Sheehan said. “We’ve been chasing that since June, and we have yet to receive any of that money.”
The Timberwolves’ website, which on Wednesday listed Dupere and Nichole Grassi-Normand among team executives, was stripped of that information Thursday morning, and no contact information for either was listed. The team’s Facebook page, which had been active Wednesday, no longer existed Thursday morning. Emails sent to addresses previously listed for Dupere and Grassi-Normand were not returned.
Chantel Pettengill, who owns Pettengill Academy, an early-learning child care center in Lewiston, had become a team sponsor.
“It’s aggravating,” Pettengill said. “We’re a close community. To have someone dupe the whole community like this, it’s just aggravating. Here we are, trying to support something positive in our backyard, and we got duped.”
The Northern States Junior Hockey League now has 10 active franchises listed on its website. The league was formerly affiliated with the Amateur Athletic Union, but in recent weeks has ended that affiliation and is operating as an independent league.
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