This was after an hourlong hockey practice.

And before school.

At least for the St. Dominic Academy hockey players, going to school after an early-morning skate doesn’t take very long, nor do they have to travel very far.

For the first time since 1959, St. Dom’s will call a new arena — the Norway Savings Bank Arena in Auburn — home, eschewing history and tradition in favor of modern amenities, proximity and convenience.

“It will feel a little odd, obviously with a long history, right down to laying the bricks and building the place, essentially,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said. “Fifty-plus years. In that regard, yes, it will (feel a bit strange).”

“The place” is the Androscoggin Bank Colisee, built in the late 1950s as St. Dominic Arena to replace a previous building by the same name that burned after eight years of use on the same Birch Street, Lewiston, site. Since then, the Colisee has been home to the Saints and to Lewiston High School’s Blue Devils. The teams had their own locker rooms — St. Dom’s to the left, Lewiston to the right — and many of their games through the 1960s, 70s and 80s packed the building to the wooden rafters.

Several years ago, St. Dom’s left its Lewiston home for a new campus in Auburn.

This year, the hockey team has followed suit with the opening of Auburn’s new dual-sheet arena.

“We’re six-, seven-hundred feet from the school. So from a student perspective, a family perspective, it’s good,” Ouellette said. “From a game perspective, it’s going to be a nice atmosphere. Three-hundred people is going to feel like a lot of people in this building.”

Proximity has its downside, too.

“Stinks that we don’t get out of school early anymore,” senior defenseman Mike Richard quipped.

Other than that, he said, the new digs are treating everyone well.

“New ice, new locker rooms, changes the attitude of the team, and we’re looking for a fresh start,” Richard said.

Part of the allure of the smaller venue — the arena has two sheets of ice but neither sheet has seating for more than 1,000 people — is the atmosphere the fans will be able to create.

“It’s awesome already,” senior forward Chase Hainey said. “Just at the Black and White game, there was so many people, the atmosphere was awesome. You can hear so many more people here than at the Colisee. It was like crickets chirping sometimes there, and here, it feels like a lot more people.”

St. Dom’s is hardly the building’s only hockey tenant. The arena replaced Ingersoll Arena at Pettengill Park in Auburn, a single-sheet facility once shared by four varsity programs — Edward Little, Poland/Gray-New Gloucester and Leavitt boys, and Leavitt/Edward Little girls. All four of those programs, along with youth organizations the Twin City Titans and Maine Gladiators, will share time and space at the new facility, as well.

The close proximity to the other programs will give the Saints a chance to forge a new rivalry or two, particularly with Edward Little, with which the Saints already share a city.

“That will become a little more heightened,” Ouellette said. “First of all, because their program is getting a little bit deeper, and also, our doors face each other now. We haven’t seen them here at the same time in the rink because of the practice situation, but once the two rinks are up, I think we’ll start running into them more. But yes, I think once we play against them that first game, and we’re opening our door and they’re opening theirs, it’s going to start getting loud.”

The Saints’ traditional rivalry with Lewiston — the two programs have combined for 44 Maine high school hockey titles, with 24 going to St. Dom’s — isn’t likely to take much of a hit, either.

“It’s never going to go away, no matter what,” Hainey said.

“At the end of the day, I don’t think it loses anything,” Ouellette said. “Blue is still blue, black is still black, and I think there’s too much there, and too many kids know each other from both sides that I think that rivalry will be fine. I’m still expecting tight game after tight game with them.”

Nor does Ouellette expect the players to lose much by not skating full-time at the Colisee.

“These guys probably don’t remember the school ever being in Lewiston to begin with,” Ouellette said. “They were little guys at that point. But they’ve almost all played at the Colisee quite a bit and know that history there and know the atmosphere walking in.”

And while the Colisee was for generations a distinct advantage for both the Devils and Saints, recent years have been unkind in bigger games. The Class A state finals continue to be played at the Lewiston facility, and despite multiple finals appearances, neither Lewiston nor St. Dom’s has won the state crown since 2002.

“I think it’s been a while since the Colisee was really home-ice advantage for us,” Ouellette said. “I think the smaller atmosphere here is going to create more of that for us.”

One piece of the Saints’ history that is still apparently in transit from one rink to the next: the team’s state championship banner with its extensive list of state championship seasons.

“It was taken down at the other place, and I don’t know where it is,” Ouellette said.

But forget banners for a minute. The real question is, “Do the famed ‘ghosts’ of the past follow the team over the river?”

“No,” Ouellette said quickly. Then he thought about it.

“Only if they’re good ghosts.”