Last Updated 12 months by Amnon J. Jobi | Amnon Front Page
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WISH) — The president and co-owner of Fort Wayne’s minor league ice hockey team, Michael Franke, died Sunday after a long battle with cancer.
He was 63. He died at Stillwater Hospice in Fort Wayne. Media reports say he’d battled skin cancer for decades and T-cell lymphoma in recent years, and his health declined after a knee replacement surgery in the spring.
A moment of silence in remembrance of Franke will be Friday before the Komets game against the Utah Grizzlies at Fort Wayne’s Memorial Coliseum. The teams are part of the ECHL, formerly the East Coast Hockey League. Franke was a member of the ECHL Board of Directors.
The team said in a news release that Michael and his brothers Steve, David, Richard, and Bill purchased the Komets franchise in 1990.
“Michael was instrumental in sustaining the United Hockey League, reviving the International Hockey League, and ultimately merging the Central Hockey League with the ECHL, where the Komets reside today,” the release said. “Under the Franke brothers, the Komets have won seven championships in five different leagues.”
Franke is survived by his wife, Theresa; a daughter, Katie; a son, James; three brothers, Bill, Steve and David; and a sister, Mary.
David, the Komets general manager, said in the release, “Michael was the soul of our family and the Komets.”
David added, “Komet hockey was a part of Michael’s life as a young boy. Becoming the Komets president was a lifelong dream he realized in the summer of 1990. Michael deeply loved his family, the Komets, and the Fort Wayne community.”
The Komets began in 1952 as the Fort Wayne Komet Hockey Club, according to the team’s history on its website.