History

Junior Hockey has a long and beautiful story in Drummondville !  Members,  of the Quebec Junior hockey league since 1965, the Rangers won the President Cup and then participated in the Memorial Cup Tournament in 1968.  They then became one of the eleven founding franchises of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in 1969 but the club stopped its operations at the end of the 1973-74 season. The Sabres (Junior B Hockey) took over and succeeded well enough, on the ice and at the ticket booth until 1982.  The team’s story ended when the Voltigeurs were born.

After a preliminary game between the “ Castors de Sherbrooke” and the “Draveurs de Trois-Rivières” at the Centre Marcel Dionne at the beginning of the 1980’s, the former coach of the Castors, Ghyslain Delage, decided to bring Major Junior Hockey to Drummondville. In collaboration with the General manager of the City of Drummondville, Mr. Claude Boucher, he requested to have a MJH franchise. When Mr. Boucher decided to abandon the project due to family obligations, a special committee from Drummondville Olympic took over. Head up by René Martel, the committee also included Mr. Roger Dubois, Gilles Charest, Roger Plamondon, Jean Schooner, René Verrier and Lucien Cournoyer, all businessmen from the region who were not scared of taking risks and taking on a challenge. The group had already sold 800 season tickets and found 50 investors willing to invest $1000 each, when they made their presentation to the Expansion Committee in January 1982 ( in total, 80 businessmen finally invested $1000 each to buy the franchise).

Against all odds, Drummondville and Longueil were both admitted to the QMJHL  January 16th, 1982, as the 10th and 11th franchises.  In the small world of hockey, it was a great surprise.  Instead of choosing between the two cities, the league decided to admit both requests.  Drummondville, who had the best attendance record in the Junior B Hockey, became the geographical center  of the league; 303kms from Hull and 363kms from Chicoutimi.  “ The Expansion Committee seriously studied both franchise requests and they concluded that they did not have any other choice but to accept both cities’ requests because they both constituted excellent choices.”, as explained by the President of the Governors at the time, Yvon Sabourin. 

One month later, the Drummondville franchise offered a contest in the newspaper “The Express” to find a team name.  The contest had four rules to respect: the name must be in French, Drummondville must be clearly identified and it could start with the letter “D” and finally, it must coincide with an important historical event of the city.  In total, the organizers received 350 suggestions, among them these three names were the most frequent; Dauphins, Dynamiques and Dragons.

The Board of Directors finally chose ”Les Voltigeurs”, a name suggested by 21 people, “ because the name touched the region and its history” , explained René Martel.  Led by the Commander Frederick Georges Heriot, remember that the Drummonville Regiment fought in Ontario against the Americans in 1812.  After the war, the regiment was freed and the government gave land to war veterans, which brought about the Drummondville colony in 1815.