The Twin City Titans are coming to a rink near you.
That is the name of the high school cooperative team involving the merger of the Bangor and Brewer high school boys teams. Skowhegan High players, who have been playing with Brewer, will also be part of the Titans this winter.
One player from Narraguagus High School in Harrington who plays for Bangor will also be included.
“We’ve gone from rivals to friends,” said Bangor High School Quinn Paradis, who called the merger exciting.
“One chapter comes to an end and another one opens,” Paradis said.
Bangor was a Class A North program and Brewer was Class B North.
The Titans will be a Class A North team, meaning the Brewer and Skowhegan players will be able to play in Class A for the first time.
The Titans will be wearing uniforms with University of Maine colors.
Both coaching staffs will work together and the two schools will share the costs so each will save a significant amount of money, according to coaches and administrators.
It will be a reunion for Paradis and Brewer High School coach Denis Collins.
Paradis was previously the assistant coach under Collins at Bangor High and took over the head coaching position after Collins left.
Collins went on to coach the Old Town-Orono coop team and came to Brewer as the head coach last season.
Both rinks, the Penobscot Ice Arena in Brewer and Sawyer Arena in Bangor, will be used.
Four home games will be played in each arena and practices will also be held at both.
The annual Fill the Alfond game at the University of Maine’s Alfond Arena in Orono between Bangor and Brewer will now involve the Titans against Hampden Academy.
Bangor High School athletic director Steve Vanidestine said the hockey future at Bangor was bleak and a 2026-27 season was in serious jeopardy due to a low number of players.
Paradis said he has 16 players but three are goalies and eight or nine of them are seniors. Three players who could have returned have moved on. One went to play in prep school, another is going to play junior hockey and a third one graduated a year early.
“And we have only two or three players coming in next year,” said Paradis, who called the combination of teams “a necessity.”
Brewer athletic director Dave Utterback said he and Vanidestine have been discussing this merger for several years.
“It was inevitable,” Utterback said.
Vanidestine said it is important to be able to offer hockey players a quality program at the high school level, otherwise they will seek other hockey avenues like prep schools or junior hockey teams.
“This is what’s best for hockey in the area,” said Collins, who is also looking forward to the merger. “I’m anxious to see what we have and how we compete in Class A.”
Brewer has fewer than 20 players, according to Utterback, and most of them are freshmen and sophomores.
The Titans will have a full junior varsity team and expect to have a healthy JV schedule.
Utterback said it’s nice to merge with a partner they are comfortable with like Bangor. One of the things he likes best about the merger is that it “will give players a better chance to develop” thanks to the expanded JV program.
The JV squad will have their own practices instead of just practicing with the varsity.
Practice times will be mid-to-late afternoon/early evening for the varsity and JV teams as well as the Penobscot Pioneers, the girls cooperative team involving players from Brewer, Bangor, Orono, Old Town, Hampden and Hermon.
Since there are now two rinks available, Brewer’s boys players won’t be subjected to early morning, before-school practices from time to time like they had been. The Pioneers also occasionally had to practice in the morning.
Collins said they had a minimum of two morning practices and three afternoon practices a week last season and the before-school practices were particularly “harsh” on the Skowhegan players.
This will be much better for them, he said.
Collins and Paradis said they are looking forward to working together again.
