Joy and sorrow, in orange-and-black

 The last time I saw Michael Franke, he was throwing stuff at me out of the pressbox

This was a year or so ago, and Michael was already going hand-to-hand with the cancer that finally killed him Sunday at the age of 63. I was sitting just below with my daughter in the 600 section nosebleeds, and suddenly a little rolled-up ball of something (Wrapper? Napkin?) hit me in the back of the head. Plink.

Then another. And another.

Plink. Plink.

"What th-?" I said, and turned around.

And up there was Mike Franke, grinning like he'd just given a hotfoot to the kid in front of him in class.

It was quintessential Michael, the most not-your-ordinary-team-president ever. He could be as serious and correct as any boardroom jockey when he needed to be, but he was also one of the most relentlessly cheerful souls I ever knew. If he was utterly clear-eyed as an executive during a time when minor-league hockey demanded a clear eye, he never failed to divine the humor in virtually any situation.

And, oh, yeah: He and his brothers saved hockey in this hockey town.

It was Michael, David, Stephen, Richard and Bill who stepped in and brought the defunct Flint IHL franchise to the Fort after David Welker moved the original Komets to Albany, N.Y. in the summer of 1990. Within no more than a month, the Komets rode again, original fireball logo and orange-and-black livery and all. And thus a city that hadn't been without minor-league hockey since 1952 would still not be without it, and hasn't been to this day.

This year they're on season No. 72, and Michael Franke was around for 33 of those. It is sad beyond measure he won't be around for any more, at least in the mortal realm.

And so today is for remembering, and for appreciating.

The appreciation is for a man who grew up going to Komet games, playing hockey with a paper wad and those miniature souvenir sticks in the concourse between periods. Because of that, he, and his brothers, didn't just remember the good old days of Komet hockey; they in a very real sense lived them. And it informed everything they did from the moment they brought those dead old Flint Spirits to Fort Wayne.

Thirty-three years erase a lot, but they can't erase the details of that first season, when something like magic happened inside Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. Michael, just 30 years old then and most recently Bob Chase's sidekick in the booth on game nights, handled the business side of things. David took care of the hockey operations. A young Al Sims was the head coach, and the players ...

Well. The names still ring when you touch 'em, don't they?

They were Stephane Beauregard in goal, and Danny Lambert and Brian McKee and Stephane Brochu on the blue line. Lonnie Loach and Scott Gruhl and John Anderson up front. Colin Chin, the local guy; Ian Boyce and Kevin Kaminski, that kamikaze on skates; Steve Fletcher and Bruce Boudreau and Robin Bawa, and Carey Lucyk. 

Somehow they all pulled together for the new/old black and orange, and the entire city went along for the ride. Having almost lost its identity, the hockey town became a hockey town again, filling the Coliseum with orange sound and orange fury, giving birth to the Jungle and a unique cast of characters: Leatherlungs and the Dancing Kid and, of course, Twister.

The highlight came in Indianapolis, Game 7 of the Turner Cup semifinals, the Komets and the Indianapolis Ice slugging it out like the bitter rivals they were. It went to overtime, Beauregard at one end and Jimmy Waite at the other trading miracles between the pipes, until at last Loach ended it with a final leaden-legged rush.

The Komets would fall in six in the finals to a vastly superior Peoria club. But on that night ...

On that night, when it was done, the boards swung open at one end of the rink.

Through them came Michael and David Franke, arms around one another.

 Onto the ice they skittered in their grownup shoes -- two still-young men trying hard not to fall and bust their asses; two still-young men celebrating like the paper-wad-slapshooting kids they once were. 

Look at that smile on Michael's face, the unrestrained joy.

Think it's not still there?