History & Records section - Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League

From the Beauport Harfangs to the Quebec Remparts

QUÉBEC vibrates to the rhythm of its REMPARTS

Had it not been for the involvement of Jacques Tanguay, Michel Cadrin and Patrick Roy who bought the Beauport Harfangs, would the Remparts have had a 2nd phase of existence, to follow up the glorious era of the 70s?

The franchise made its debut in Beauport in 1990. It played its local games at the Marcel-Bédard Centre. It was "The Little Cabin" as the team's head coach Jos Canale had nicknamed it.

In 1995-96, managing director Raymond Bolduc hired Alain Vigneault and the Harfangs reached the grand final for the first time in their history, losing to the formidable Granby Prédateurs; the eventual Memorial Cup champions.

In 1996-97, the financial difficulties of Swiss-born owner Jurg Staubli led the team to consider moving to Lewiston, Maine.

However, the group formed by Jacques Tanguay, Michel Cadrin and Patrick Roy acquired the franchise to keep it in the Quebec City region. This is how the Remparts were reborn!

Eric Dazé

Martin Biron

1997-98

We start at the PEPS of Laval University

And the Remparts are reborn in force! They will win two regular season championships in a row during their first 2 seasons in their new colors of the 2.0 edition of the Remparts.

The 1998-99 edition, led by head coach Guy Chouinard, would give the other teams in the League a run for their money with a 108-point haul in the standings.

Indeed, the Remparts would play 27 consecutive games without losing (from September 27 to December 6, 1998), thus equaling the record that had been set in 1973-74 by the Sorel Éperviers.

Since then, the Rimouski Océanic has broken the record, with a streak of 28 consecutive games without a loss.

Simon Gagné

Eric Chouinard

1999 | THE RETURN OF A TRADITION

The return of the Remparts to the Colisée

During the 1999 playoffs, the Remparts fans are behind their team, and we relive the good years of the "Golden Remparts" of the era of Lafleur, Savard, Locas, Cloutier and company, at the time it was crowded with fans piled up...

While in the 1998-99 regular season, in 35 games, the Remparts welcomed an average of 2,130 fans per game, now in the playoffs, we can feel the enthusiasm throughout the "Old Capital" region.

All the playoff games will be played at the Colisée left vacant by the departure of the Nordiques (NHL) 3 years earlier. The average attendance per game will be 10,701, while in two games, we will welcome full houses of more than 15,000 fans.

The series played against the Rimouski Oceanic (win in 7 games), then in the semi-finals, the epic battle of 6 games against the future champions, the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, confirmed that the fans were back behind "THEIR" Remparts.

The Remparts at the Colisée, from 1999 to 2015, welcomed large crowds of over 10,000 spectators.

The Colisée, in the 70s, was often over capacity at the time of the Golden Remparts!

2002-2003 | 4th place | 90 points

For the second time in their history, the Remparts are participating, this time as host team, in the Memorial Cup round-robin tournament being held in Quebec.

The Quebec team suffered three defeats in three games.

However, a new attendance record was set for the presentation of this tournament, as 84,675 spectators passed through the turnstiles at the entrance to the Colisée to watch the games played by the teams from Quebec, Hull, Kelowna and the champion team from Kitchener.

It would be the end of an era, since general manager Raymond Bolduc, with the franchise since its very beginnings, would leave his position to make way for retired National League goaltender Patrick Roy. Bolduc would move to the QMJHL office for the next 20 years.

Raymond Bolduc - as general manager of the Harfangs and the Remparts, his record shows a winning percentage of .564, with 7 winning seasons out of 10; including four division championships, two Jean-Rougeau trophies as regular season champion and a League final. He will have had under his leadership with Beauport and Quebec 22 future players of at least one game in the NHL.

Josh Hennessy (Remparts captain | 2003-04 & 2004-05)

However, the arrival of PATRICK ROY as general manager, then as head coach at the start of the 2005-06 season, led the organization to once again raise its standards of excellence.

After losing to the Wildcats in the QMJHL finals in the 2006 playoffs, the Remparts would go on to play in the Memorial Cup tournament as finalists.

Led by the brilliance of Alexander Radulov, the most explosive player in the Canadian Hockey League, the Remparts won the precious Memorial Cup on Sunday, May 28th 2006 in Moncton. It should be noted that this was the first time in history that two QMJHL teams faced each other in the grand final.

Head coach Patrick Roy would lead the team for 8 seasons from 2005-06 to 2012-13, pushing his players to the highest levels of performance, resulting in 8 consecutive seasons with a winning percentage above .500.

In the summer of 2018, Roy confirmed his return behind the Remparts bench after a stint in the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche from 2013 to 2016, and it was on March 1st 2020, in just his 673rd game, that he became the QMJHL head coach who took the fewest games to win his 400th victory.

Quebec Remparts | 2006 | Memorial Cup Tournament Champions

In the spring of 2015, in a long and exciting final series, the Remparts lost in the 7th game against the Rimouski Oceanic. As a small consolation, Reds forward Adam Erne received the Guy-Lafleur Trophy awarded to the Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs.

On the way to a new home, the Videotron Centre

In 2006-07, the Quebec Remparts set a new QMJHL record for the most spectators at the Pepsi Coliseum during the regular season, well over 300,000 fans.

But it was in 2015-16 when the club moved to the brand new Videotron Centre that all attendance records would fall: the Remparts would welcome 492,597 fans, season and playoffs included, an unprecedented number in the history of the entire Canadian Hockey League.

In 2021-22, the Quebec Remparts won the Jean-Rougeau Trophy for the 3rd time in franchise history (1997-98, 1998-99 and 2021-22), following a 104-point season. On an individual level, Zachary Bolduc shone brightly, beating opposing goalies 55 times, just 6 shy of the franchise record of 61 held by Alexander Radulov (2005-06).

Alexander Radulov

Zachary Bolduc

The 2022-23 season will never be forgotten by Remparts fans due to multiple exploits

• The Triple Crown - the Remparts are regular season (Jean-Rougeau Trophy) and QMJHL playoff champions (Gilles Courteau Trophy), in addition to adding the ultimate Canadian League title in the very last game (Memorial Cup).

• Zachary Bolduc scores 50 goals for a second straight season.

• William Rousseau was rewarded by receiving the Jacques-Plante Trophy, for having finished the regular season with a goals-against average of 2.22. The Remparts also proved to be the best defensive club in the QMJHL (2.31 goals-against average), earning the Robert-Lebel Trophy.

• Franchise record streaks of 14 straight regular season wins at the start of the season, and another streak of 21 consecutive wins (8 wins at the end of the season and 13 more in a row in the playoffs) .

• Head coach Patrick Roy reaches the milestone of 500 wins and 800 regular season games. He now holds the records with the same QMJHL franchise, with 518 wins and 839 games behind the bench.

• The Jean-Sawyer Trophy (Marketing of the Year) was also awarded to the Remparts. One of the reasons for this title is the organization's success in attracting their fans. In the final against Halifax, on 3 occasions, sold-out crowds of 18,259 fans were recorded at the Videotron Centre; an attendance record for a QMJHL playoff game.

• James Malatesta had a thunderous playoff run with 14 goals in 18 games, tying Eric Chouinard's record of 5 game-winning goals in a single season; unsurprisingly, he was named the playoffs' most valuable player, receiving the Guy Lafleur Trophy. At the end of the Memorial Cup tournament, he was again named the competition's most valuable player.

James Malatesta (Memorial Cup Tournament Most Valuable Player | 2023)

Champions | Jean-Rougeau Trophy | 2023

Champions | Memorial Cup | 2023

Théo Rochette (captain) | Gilles-Courteau Trophy | 2023

The greatest names in the history of this franchise:

Eric Dazé, Martin Biron, Simon Gagné, Eric Chouinard, Alexander Radulov, Marc-Édouard Vlasic, Patrick Roy, Zachary Bolduc, William Rousseau, Nathan Gaucher, James Malatesta, Jacques Tanguay…

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