I got a tip that the Komets' longtime athletic trainer, Shawn Dundon, will no longer be with the Komets next season.OK, I kind of feel sorry for former Komets coach John Torchetti, who I think is about to become jobless.
Here's what's happened.
1) Last season, after helping the Chicago Blackhawks to a Stanley Cup title as an assistant coach, he leaves them to become an associate coach with the Atlanta Thrashers. Why? His friend and mentor, Rick Dudley, was the general manager with the Thrashers. One of the men he left in Chicago, though, was Blackhawks assistant general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, who was a rival of the Komets when he was general manager of the IHL's Chicago Wolves.
2) The Thrashers are bought and moved to Winnipeg -- hurray -- a small market that never should have lost its team in the first place but did because of commissioner Gary Bettman's foolish vision of teams in the sunbelt.
3) The unnamed Winnipeg team fires Dudley, even though he had just signed a lucrative multi-year extension, and hire Cheveldayoff as their general manager.
4) Winnipeg is likely to fire coach Craig Ramsay and, presumably, Torchetti. If it does, the likely new head coach: Claude Noel, a former assistant coach with the Komets. Noel had been coaching the American Hockey League's Manitoba Moose.
Note to Komets: Call Cheveldayoff and work out an affiliate immediately, even if it's at the AA level. Let's face it, that Columbus thing didn't produce a whole heck of a lot.
By the way, did you see former Fort Wayne rival Binghamton finally won a Cup? Click here.
