It is the 30th anniversary season for the Cape Breton Eagles of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) and expectations for are sky high. “They’re building a great team this year, so I said, ‘You know what? I’m buying season tickets,’” said Zachary March, a hardcore fan of the Sydney, N.S., based team. Three decades in, however, the only banner hanging from the rafters inside Sydney’s Centre 200 is a regular season division title from 2003-04, more than 20 years ago. The Eagles have never won a League championship and have never even made it to a league final. “There always has to be somebody with the longest drought and unfortunately, with Chicoutimi making the finals last year, that drought now belongs to the Eagles,” said Will MacLaren, a QMJHL analyst and writer for The Hockey News. Several players who helped the Chicoutimi Sagueneens win last year’s League championship have been traded to Cape Breton for this season, including all-star goaltender Lucas Beckman. There are new players from the United States too, including Easton Anello - a defenceman from Massachusetts. “I heard we have a lot of good players, so I’m excited to get to know everybody and see where we go,” Anello said on Sunday as he watched some of his teammates play a training camp intrasquad game. “I heard that (the building) gets pretty packed. There’s a lot of season ticket holders.” That was the case in the spring of 2024, when the Eagles made a surprise run to the league semifinal and sold out several playoff games. Since then, attendance has tapered off. “I find it’s tough,” March said. “You’ve been here 30 years; you go to the semis one year and then you get knocked out. It’s hard.” Perhaps just as difficult has been watching Maritime rivals lift the big trophies. The Halifax Mooseheads and Saint John Sea Dogs have each brought home the Memorial Cup. The Moncton Wildcats – and Saint John - have won three Q League titles. It all has made the Cape Breton fanbase even hungrier for playoff success. “When they can go far in the playoffs, as the Eagles did two years ago - as even the (American Hockey League’s) Cape Breton Oilers did back in ’93 - they will be fully on board,” MacLaren said of Cape Breton fans. The last championship parade in downtown Sydney was during the AHL days, when the now-defunct Oilers won that league’s Calder Cup in 1993. Back then, March wasn’t born yet – but said if the Eagles could pull something similar off this year, he would be ready for just as big of a party. “I wouldn’t sleep,” March said. “I would be down there all hours of the night, all hours of the day, celebrating and being as excited as could be because this team - they deserve it.” For now, it is about two-dozen more sleeps until Cape Breton’s regular season begins on Sept. 18 against their rivals in Halifax. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
