Once upon a Komet

 Always now, I suppose, it will be an April night in 1991, and Lonnie Loach will be 23 years old, slogging up ice one last time. Slogging up ice on dead legs like everyone's legs were dead by then, because the thing had gone on and on and it badly wanted an end.

And then here was Lonnie Loach, with the end on his stick.

One final rush, one final slow-motion breakaway, and then he was re-directing a shot Indianapolis goalie Jimmy Waite -- who'd handled everything through the long night -- couldn't handle. The puck found the back of the net, the red light glared, and at last it was over.

Fort Wayne Komets 4, Indianapolis Ice 3. Game 7. Eighteen minutes and twenty seconds into overtime. A first-round IHL playoff series going to the K's over their most bitter rival, by the skinniest of margins.

Also, the greatest hockey game I ever saw in person, in 38 years as a scribe.

Waite was grab-your-head magnificent at one end. Stephane Beauregard in the Komets net was equally grab-your-head magnificent. They traded magic tricks all night long, as the Ice and Komets skated up and down and banged on one another and took everything out of one another either had to give.

And then, finally, Lonnie Loach ended it.

And now he's gone.  

Word came down today that he died on Monday at his home in Ontario, at the still-young age of 57. This of course is impossible, because Komets 4, Ice 3 happened just yesterday. Or the day before, perhaps.

In any case, there was first shock when I heard the news -- Lonnie Loach? What? No way -- and then that one particular night came flooding back fresh from the wrapper. I remember thinking it made all kinds of sense for Loach to have ended it, because he ended so many games that year with his sniper's eye. In 81 games he scored 55 goals and assisted on 76 others, and led the Komets to the Turner Cup finals in the first year of the Franke family's ownership. 

It energized the city, and its iconic franchise, a year after the former almost lost the latter. Did, actually, for a couple of days, before the Frankes bought the defunct Flint franchise and brought it to Fort Wayne to replace the team the previous owner had whisked away  to Albany, N.Y.

Thirty-four years later, the Komets are about to enter their 74th season. Only the Hershey Bears of the AHL have been around longer in minor-league hockey.

And Lonnie Loach, who was so much a part of keeping it going?

Still the last Komet to score 50 goals in a season, he went on to play 56 games with three teams in the NHL before retiring in 2006. But once upon a time, on one special night, he was a once-upon-a-Komet. 

May his weary legs forever be 23 years old. And blessedly un-weary.