You’d think back-to-back Class A state titles would afford the Biddeford hockey team a bit of respect entering the 2008-09 season. Yet the preseason Class A Hockey Coaches/Media poll had the Tigers ranked sixth.

Sixth? For a team coming off a perfect 24-0 championship season? A team that had won 31 straight games? The Tigers understandably felt a bit slighted.

After Saturday night’s season opener against Bonny Eagle (a playoff team last season), Biddeford should climb in the poll. The Tigers scored early and often en route to an 8-0 dismantling of the Scots (0-1) at Biddeford Ice Arena.

The Tigers were itching to get on the ice to show the state that they (1-0) may again be the team to beat.

“We wanted to get out there pretty bad to prove to everyone that we aren’t a sixth-place team, that we can play with the best of ’em, and we may be the best team out there,” said senior captain Cam Madore, who had two goals and an assist in the contest.

“We won it two years in a row,” Madore said. “We lost a few key players like (Brian) Dumoulin and (Tony) Dube, but (goalie Cody) Petit is playing great, the whole team is playing good. We’ll see where it goes from here”

Derek Reny put Biddeford on the board just over five minutes into the game when he scored short-handed. Less than a minute later, it was 2-0 when Tyler Audie scored, assisted by Scott Callahan and Ethan Pratt.

With 5:55 left in the first period, the Scots had one of their best scoring chances of the night as Sean Walsh broke in all alone, but Petit was there for the stick save, one of the nine saves he made for the shutout.

Madore made it 3-0 with 3:08 left in the first when he stuffed in a pass courtesy of Trevor Fleurent from behind the net.

First-year Biddeford coach Rich Reissfelder said he was most impressed with “the energy we had in the first period. It’s always been kind of a sticking point for us, the slow starts. But these guys came out flying tonight, absolutely flying. It’s nice to pick up three early like that.”

“During those round-robins last week we didn’t put the puck in the net,” Reissfelder added. “It was like, ‘Alright guys, let’s get it going.’ It was definitely nice to come out and score early, which is what we were trying to do. It got their confidence back up and after that you could see the puck movement was great. Their goalie made some big-time saves.”

The Bonny Eagle netminder, junior Chris Smith, did come up with some tough stops. The score easily could have been even more lopsided. He was under fire constantly. The Biddeford scoring barrage continued in the second period, as Reny scored 2:22 in on an assist from Ryan Regis. Five minutes later, Audie added his second goal of the game, again assisted by Callahan and Pratt. In the final minute of the period, Madore converted a breakaway to make it 6-0.

Fleurent scored, assisted by Madore, with 10:27 left in the game to make it 7-0 and freshman Tyson Nadeau put in a pass from Nick Gagne with 3:36 remaining to cap the scoring. Reissfelder was impressed with Nadeau’s play on the first line.

“He held his own physically and scored a great goal at the end,” Reissfelder said. “He worked his way through the zone down there. He was getting pounded behind the net, but he came out and banged it in. For a freshman to be able to fight through there and not lose his head I thought was fantastic.”

With about three minutes remaining in the game, there were some heads lost as a melee broke out at center ice. Five penalties were assessed and a Bonny Eagle player was given a 10-minute misconduct after the referees spent several minutes separating players and sorting things out.