A star departs

 And now comes word that the greatest player ever to turn a blade for the Fort Wayne Komets has died, but that's not how I remember Len Thornson. I remember him for a certain phone call years ago, when he kept poke-checking my attempts to write a feature about him.

I'd ask a question; he'd parry with his usual impenetrable humility. About the most I could wring out of him, in speaking about his prowess, was "Well, I could always see the ice," or words to that effect.

This was not Lenny's fault, mind you. It was simply part of his weave not to talk much about his abilities as a hockey player, immense though they were. You'd never know, unless you knew, who he was or what he'd done if you met him somewhere.

I got the feature anyway, mind you. There were plenty of other people more than willing to talk about Lenny, about his deft stickwork and his ability to see plays develop before they developed, and his deceptive speed.

He skated with the Komets until he caught a stick in the eye and had to retire at 36, and he was with the Komets only because of the times. Coming out of Winnipeg as a young player, Lenny's rights were owned by the lordly Montreal Canadiens, and there were only six teams in the NHL then. Which meant a limited number of roster spots.

So Lenny would go to training camp with the loaded Habs and hang around to the last cut, and then the Canadiens would say, "Have a great season in Fort Wayne, Len."

He always did, of course, He played on a team with a bunch of guys who, had they played in a different era, might have been legends in the NHL. There was Lionel Repka and Reg Primeau and John Goodwin and Norm Waslawski; John Ronson and Chuck Adamson and Eddie Long and Merv Dubchak. 

Lenny was the best of them all.

By the time he hung up the skates, he'd played 763 regular-season games in Fort Wayne and scored 412 goals and 1,219 points. His 53 goals and 74 points in 92 playoff games remain team records; in 1997, he was voted by the Hockey News the greatest player in the history of the International Hockey League.

I got to know Lenny after all that, when he'd became part of that greatest generation of Komets who settled here and raised families and exemplified the best of the Komet tradition by the way they lived their lives. In the years since, a pile of other Komets have also settled in Fort Wayne, and it's hard to believe the Originals's example didn't somehow influence that.

In any event, the Komets continue on, 70 years old now, as some of those who built their tradition keep watch. Lenny was always one of those, of course, and I'd run into him every so often. We lived on the same side of town, after all.

And so one night I was in my neighborhood hang and Lenny came over, wanting to talk not hockey but basketball, of all things. I don't remember the gist of the conversation, but we chatted awhile, and then he left.

"There goes the greatest hockey player in the history of the Komets," I told the people next to me.

"Really?" they said.

I looked at them.

"Really," I said.