WANE interview with Michael Franke

Mike seemed to be cautious of what he was saying and phrasing things carefully......

I don't understand what the end-game is here.

Does anyone else at this point?

I don't understand what the point of saving the IHL name and history and such does for us.....do you?

Why not just build a league that you are in to be the best that single league can be, and not worry so much about how the IHL appears to be under another leagues Moniker.

Someone explain to me what this is all about....

Are they just doing this to breakaway in 2 years back to the mighty 6 team league known as the FHL....errrr....IHL?

Why not just go with the flow, strengthen one nice league, and move on.

Is that wrong for me to think?

Hit- Hang in there! Your not wrong just not informed enough. We all need more information and that will come. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

As "in-tune" to the minor league hockey industry as Mr. Franke is, I doubt he can honestly tell you where the Komets will stand in 2 years with any certainy.

Franke inc does not wish to admit they failed. Most of it wasnt their fault and I fully understand their right to a dream but you cant ever make everyone happy. The CHL, i hope, is a stepping stone for the future. Eventually, this super league will come to fruition, but til now, we must be real with ourselves. Lets go support our orange and black the best we can and hold out til our final resting spot.....the AHL.

I am not sure ANYONE in minor league hockey can tell you where they will be in 2 years with any certainty. How is the saying "The best laid plans of mice and men". It is all just a big pipe dream. They are all just playing the hand they have been delt. The strong survive and the weak find other lines of work. I have said it before, all of minor league hockey will be completely different in 3 to 6 years. It simply must change in order to be a profit making enity.

TODAY, we will find out about Schrock=I know something you don't know :)

Finally, some information......some.

I'm puzzled as well as to what the "end-game" is.

To go along with that, if you take a look at the CHL/IHL map, the IHL teams couldn't look more out of place.

It would've made ten times more sense to hook up with the ECHL, from a traveling standpoint, and fan standpoint. Don't we want to beat up on K-Zoo? Chicago? Toledo?

Sure, if you've got the extra Xmillion around for an expansion fee and want to turn your back on the partners you've had for the past three years. This way they don't have to come up with the expansion fee.

You think the ECHL wouldn't take the Komets in without the expansion fee? The attendance leader in all of "AA" hockey, decades of tradition, and solid off-ice community involvement.... I'm thinking if it was JUST Fort Wayne who wanted to join and adhere to the ECHL guidelines, they'd be welcomed with open arms.

No they would not. That was not an option.

It's not any of my business just being a shlub with season tix, but I'd like to know more about the ECHL negotiations with the Komets. Maybe the ECHL is completely unreasonable and we'd all shut up about it if we knew the facts. I assume its on a "need to know" basis, and most people don't need to know. So I'll be left wondering.

JM-Since it's not our money we (you & I) just don't need to know.
But, being a nosey fly on that wall would have been nice. We can spectulate that everyones friend Pauly Picard of Kzoo fame had his 2 cents worth of input. I just don't like or trust him at all.

In some regards I think from a smart business point of view if something nice can't be said don't say anything. It's kind of like "don't burn your bridges behind youself" you may have to cross them again someday!

I think hit nailed it, they are just using the CHL until the IHL can find a couple more teams, then complain about travel expenses, and branch off into the mighty 6 team IHL again.

Which franchise besides Bloomington have they been partners with for 3 years???

Mallards= no
Gems= no
E-ville= no

Franchise fee = not the entire IHL (too much dead weight) and all in or nothing...none of the working agreement BS...

Based on quotes from the Mallards former owner and thier new owner, I dont think they are approaching this as an agreement; but a merger for thier franchise... I get the feeling that at some point between now and the 2yr agreements end, we will see the Mallards become a full fledged CHL member.

I really dont see the midwest area recovering enough in 2 years to support the IHL idea...

I know it's academic at this point, but when the argument about staying loyal to partners is made, I get lost, and I'm not saying it isn't due to my own misunderstanding. I guess where I get lost with that argument is when I ask: Aren't those clubs that the Komets were supposedly holding out for gone now anyhow? Flint? Port Huron? To me, and again, I'm not the expert you all are on minor league hockey, that whole scenario just leads me to think there was more to the situation than loyalty.

I understand the loyalty arguement, though I agree that that angle was more relevant when Flint and Port Huron were still in the mix. My feeling had been that the IHL wanted to stick together so they could throw more weight around at the bargaining table. But if that was the case, it doesn't seem to have worked out for them. Though it hasn't been announced, it sounds like the vet limit and salary cap won't be going up. All that I've heard about changing is the cutoff for tweens, and that's mainly because Colorado wanted it increased.

... argument. Drat. I knew that "e" didn't look right.

What Blake says makes sense to the point that to keep the IHL "stuff" they wouldn't have to pay an expansion fee, something the ECHL probably wouldn't let the IHL do.

Makes sense from a business standpoint, but there again, if travel expenses are something to worry about, wouldn't the expansion fee offset that?

For instance it takes $X to go to K-Zoo compared to $XXXX to go to Texas for a week or whatever, while the expansion fee is $XXX.

Which could be recouped in less than a year, while travel expenses, again, going to Texas would have to be paid each and every year.

Not if the travel expenses were essentially the same to go to Florida and South Carolina and New York, etc. I'm not positive, but I think the expansion fee is $2- or $3 million. It takes a long, long time to make up that. This way there's no expansion fee. Plus, I'm not sure if they were convinced how the viability of the ECHL compares to the CHL. Apples and oranges without the expansion fee makes that decision easy.

Not quite apples to oranges when our hometown hero is trying to decide to stay home, or leave to get more exposure and increase his chances of moving up. The one is obviously seen as a better league. Right? That was the impession i was under at least.

It appears so.

It also appears there's a disunion between the two leagues when it comes to the Midwest. That's the most troubling in my mind. (Why? I don't know. It just is. Probably because there's no logic to it other than money.)

Merging / affiliating / dividing teams by geographic region / whatever you want to call it would make sense to me. Anyone make a comment to that effect?

(As it were to happen soon or never.....?)

I have plenty of faith and patience in the program. No worries about whether Komet hockey will be here next year...two years or beyond. They will do whatever they need to do in order to run a profitable franchise and put a good product on the ice.

You're partially correct RK about how the demise of Flint and PH affect the loyalty argument but what are the Frankes supposed to due? Skip out on the remaining teams and their commitment to the CHL to jump to the ECHL? Would you do that?

Besides the already mentioned issues with going to the ECHL wasn't there something said about rights to team names and other issues that would have to be signed over to the ECHL?

I've said before, if I had my druthers I guess I would go with the ECHL for the road trips and closer rivalries but I understand the reasons for not going. There are probably X number of other factors that came up in discussions with the ECHL that we will never know about, or won't know about until Blake writes another book about ten years down the road and the Frankes give out more details.

he never looks you in the eye.

Steve: I was referring to the CHL vs ECHL choice that was made a while ago, not to jumping ship at this point in time. I also just said I did not see the basis for the argument since teams were lost in this whatever it is anyhow. If you take time to actually read what I wrote instead of responding to half of what I wrote and half of what you thought I wrote, you may not get confused so easily.

Lets just play hockey where we are now. Trying to figure out what some of you are talking about is way over my small brain. Drop the puck and play. In the CHL,.,. Correct?