Assurancia de Thetford

Thetford Mines is a mining town in the Beauce region of Quebec, and, once that industry faded, on the kind of civic loyalty that keeps a hockey club going under four different names. The franchise arrived in 1996 as the Coyotes de Thetford Mines, a founding member of what was then the Quebec Semi-Pro Hockey League and became the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey in 2004. Sponsors changed the name twice more, to Prolab and then Isothermic, before it settled on Assurancia de Thetford in 2015. Through all of it, the team never left town, and it remains the league's last original franchise still playing in its original city.

Players have moved through here on their way down from the NHL rather than up. Mathieu Biron, who logged over 250 NHL games with the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders, finished his playing days with the Isothermic before becoming a firefighter. Simon Gamache came the other way: a Thetford Mines product who played 48 NHL games before returning home to suit up for the club he grew up watching.

The trophy cabinet holds four Coupe Canam titles, won in 2012, 2015, 2022 and 2024, with the 2022 run also delivering the regular-season crown. None of that carries the weight of the rivalry with Cool FM de Saint-Georges. The two Beauce towns have been trading blows in the league for a quarter of a century.

Home games are played at the Centre Mario Gosselin, 2,500 seats, in the orange, black and silver the club has carried since the Coyotes days.