Bataillon St-Hyacinthe

Guillaume Latendresse did not come back to Saint-Hyacinthe to coach a bench; he came back to own one. In 2024 the former NHL forward and fellow former NHL player Maxim Lapierre put up an expansion franchise in the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey and named it Le Bataillon, after the 6th Battalion of the Royal 22e Régiment, the army reserve unit still based in the city. The crest carries the reference through, with camouflage in olive green and earth tones worked into the club's cream and dark grey.

Latendresse bought out Lapierre's share in 2025 and now runs the operation alone. The roster he has assembled leans on players such as Philippe Hudon, Zachary Gravel and Nathan Ouellet, with former NHL defenceman Simon Després also part of the group.

Saint-Hyacinthe has had LNAH hockey before, under the Cousins, then Cristal, then Top Design, then the Chiefs, each name folding into the next until the last one shut down in 2009. The Bataillon is the city's fifth attempt at the league inside a quarter-century, this time playing out of the Stade Louis-Philippe-Gaucher, which holds 2,048 for hockey and can be pushed to 3,000.

The inaugural 2024–25 season closed with a sixth-place finish and 38 points, no championship yet to speak of. The team most likely to spoil that ambition is Rivière-du-Loup 3L, an increasingly bitter fixture with no name of its own but no love lost either. For now the Bataillon's task is the same as any second-year expansion side in Quebec's semi-pro league: hold onto the ground gained in year one and see whether Latendresse's roster is built for a longer campaign.