After the discussion came up on the blog recently, I asked David Franke how he would respond to people who say the Komets must be cheating to amass such talent.
``That's easy to say when somebody wins,'' he said. ``Everybody thinks you're not doing it legally. We have too much to lose to do that stuff with our franchise and and how we run it and the success we have. The fans come out. We don't pay them to come out. We try to put a good product on the ice. an entertaiing product. Most of the time we do. For the most part we have a product that is appealing to our fans, and they like to see them come out.
``It's not worth it. We operate within the guidelines and we work the guidelines as much as we can in our favor, but at the end of the day we're doing as much as everybody else is doing, and we're paying by the rules.''
He also pointed out that one huge advantage the Komets have is that players who leave always want to come back because they do enjoy playing here so much. Mathieu Curadeau, Olivier Legault and possibly Kevin Reiter would just be the latest examples, but P.C. Drouin, Guy Dupuis, Colin Chaulk, Konstantin Shafranov, Matt Syroczynski, Mitch Woods, Kevin Bertram and Justin Hodgman are just a few of the recent examples of players who have left and returned.
``They like playing here, and they like playing in front of a lot of people and they they get treated well,'' Franke said.
