Dicky & Hutch - Maine Nordiques

April 8, 2026·52 min·3 clips

Hutch Rose says he'll miss the bus rides, the locker room jokes, and the fans of Lewiston-Auburn more than anything about his final season with the Nordiques.

1. Lydia's Lunch Bunch is a Lewiston-Auburn community morning show, and this episode features Maine Nordiques forward Hutch Rose and first-time guest Dickie Robert, a billet dad who has housed Nordiques players for six years. 2. Hutch Rose is a forward for the Maine Nordiques in the North American Hockey League; Dickie Robert is a 70-year-old lifelong Lewiston resident and community fixture who opened his home to players. 3. The episode's central question is what it is actually like to live with junior hockey players — and to be the older man who looks after them. 4. Dickie explains that billeting means housing young players from across North America and the world who arrive without local accommodations; he was recruited personally by then-coach Cam Robichaux around six years ago. 5. Dickie initially hesitated because he is a single man and assumed teams wanted husband-and-wife households, but agreed when directly asked and has since hosted players continuously. 6. Dickie's first long-form billet story is about a Russian player named Sergei whose truck loan ended with the vehicle hung in a tree, requiring workers to cut the tree down to haul it out — Dickie describes it as 'from front to back, top to bottom' damage. 7. Sergei later borrowed Dickie's replacement truck to move furniture in Boston, and Dickie says: 'I said to myself, when he comes back my new truck's going to be damaged too. And that's exactly what happened.' 8. The current household includes Hutch, team captain Damon Myers, and Kazakh player Aslan Zuscha, with a fourth player, Austin Borgard, briefly living in the basement before being sent to Hallowell because the cooking and dishwashing became too much. 9. Hutch describes a Hibachi dinner at C40 for Aslan's birthday where Dickie — who had never been to a Hibachi restaurant — nearly passed out at the open flame and then put his mouth on the chef's sake spray bottle thinking it was a drink. 10. Hutch describes the daily social life as going to Gippers restaurant once or twice a month, watching NHL together, and searching for Dickie by car one night after his phone broke and he left the restaurant before the group arrived. 11. The players cook their own food, which Dickie finds too spicy — Hutch recalls a pasta night where Dickie confirmed it was 'way too spicy' — so Dickie usually eats at his mother's house. 12. Dickie has been a hockey fan since fifth grade and was a season ticket holder for the original Lewiston Maniacs; he served as in-game announcer for that team and interviewed players including David Perron and Jonathan Bernier. 13. Brad Marchand and Sidney Crosby both played at the Lewiston Coliseum during their junior careers, and Hutch says the Nordiques players speak of the building 'with reverence.' 14. Hutch argues passionately that regardless of which team occupies it, someone needs to be in the Coliseum next year: 'The people of Lewiston-Auburn are too good of people. They care so much about the game of hockey.' 15. Dickie fell off a ladder while working on his mother's roof during summer, blacked out, and returned to finish the job — Hutch tells this story as evidence of Dickie's determination, while Dickie simply says: 'I had to finish my job.' 16. Hutch's amazement at a rotary dial phone at Dickie's mother's house — and Dickie explaining that long-distance calls cost extra and phone lines were shared — becomes a generational contrast that both men find funny. 17. Hutch is aging out of the NAHL this season and plans to attend Bates College in Lewiston next year, likely playing club hockey and football, making this a farewell of sorts for his time as a Nordique. 18. The episode has an intimate, warmhearted tone — part community radio, part oral history — with the hosts occasionally steering but mostly letting Hutch and Dickie riff. 19. Fans of junior hockey, community sports coverage, or intergenerational friendship stories will find this episode genuinely moving. 20. Listeners seeking analysis of professional hockey or a conventional sports interview format will find this too local and conversational.

As heard by us

A local hockey segment that turns billet-family banter and Lewiston nostalgia into an easy, warmly grounded listen.

The segment opens with the familiar headlines-and-sponsor stretch before settling into Hutch Rose and his billet dad Dickie Robert for a local hockey conversation shaped by season-end reflection.

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Why you'd press play

A cozy Lewiston hockey hang with a billet dad and a Maine Nordiques forward, plus plenty of good-natured teasing.

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