{"id":517942,"date":"2026-11-04T05:47:26","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T05:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/517942\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T05:47:26","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T05:47:26","slug":"chaulk-still-part-of-komets-family-as-condors-coach-komets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/517942\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaulk still part of “Komets family” as Condors coach | Komets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somewhere in Crypto.com<\/a> Arena during a playoff game against the Los Angeles Kings in 2022, then Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland asked Bakersfield Condors coach Colin Chaulk a question about the Fort Wayne Komets.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen asked me, \u201cDo you think that\u2019d be a good place to have our affiliation?\u201d and I had a little chuckle and said, \u2018Yes,\u2019\u201d Chaulk said.<\/p>\n

Holland must have known that Chaulk, who had just led Bakersfield to the playoffs as interim head coach, was one of all-time great Komets as one of their all-time leading scorers \u2013 third with 684 points with 184 goals and 500 assists \u2013 and a part of five championship runs.<\/p>\n

Over a decade after his time in Fort Wayne as a player ended, the connection remains as part of the affiliation between the Oilers, the Condors and the Komets since 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Komet organization has evolved, and they\u2019ve been great partners for us in making sure, whether it\u2019s young goaltenders or young players, making sure that they\u2019re developing them,\u201d Chaulk said. \u201cThe Franke family and the Komets, the coaches have been great and in my time during the affiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

His playing time in Fort Wayne, let alone his 14-year career overall, makes him qualified to tell AHL signed players like Komets forward Hunter Johannes about the experience of jumping between leagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis message was \u2018Hey, I was there and both leagues are hard hockey,\u201d Johannes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you\u2019re in the ECHL or the American League or the NHL, It doesn\u2019t matter. I think being a professional hockey player is one of the hardest jobs in the world and being consistent at it is even harder. He just said to go down there and be the best player and be your best self.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chaulk knows all about the highs and lows of being a player. When he first joined the Komets in 2002, he\u2019d already played for 10 teams in four seasons and was struggling to get a grip on his pro game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t a very good player (to start),\u201d Chaulk said. \u201cI just was not playing well and it was totally on me. I remember Joe Franke came in and we all had lots of banter with him. He was such a great equipment manager. I was playing badly. He changed my number from 39 to 91 and that was one of the things that kicked off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The number stuck and the captain Chaulk finished his first season with 82 points as the Komets claimed the Colonial Cup. Fort Wayne chased those heights over the next three seasons under coach Greg Puhalski, a coach Chaulk said was ahead of the curve when it came to an up-tempo, freestyle type of game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t big on X\u2019s and O\u2019s,\u201d Chaulk said. \u201cHe wanted us to be competitive and he wanted us to compete and I think that the game, in my opinion, it\u2019s going that way now.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Puhalski left the team after the 2005-06 season, Chaulk did as well and spent a season overseas. His return to Fort Wayne coincided with the return of Al Sims, the coach of the 1993 Turner Cup winning Komets.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy that time I was an older player, we had a lot of older players, so he certainly did a really good job managing our personalities and our wants and our needs,\u201d Chaulk said. \u201cAt the end of the day, he\u2019s the boss and what he says goes, but he just did such a good job allowing the leaders to, to take charge as well and allowing guys to be the best versions of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Komets won three straight Turner Cups with the return of Sims and Chaulk, plus a President\u2019s Cup in the CHL. Chaulk admits he wasn\u2019t at the top of his game during this period, but for good reason. He\u2019d taken on a player-assistant role as the Komets video coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back, probably not the best idea to be the captain of the team, a player on the team, then watching the video back, then running video sessions. It\u2019s not a recipe for success,\u201d Chaulk said.<\/p>\n

Long term, that two-year period did help him take on coaching roles following his retirement in 2013. He was an assistant for two seasons in Kalamazoo before becoming a head coach in Brampton from 2015 to 2019. That\u2019s when he moved up to the AHL, spending a year as an assistant in the Ottawa Senators organization before joining the Condors.<\/p>\n

Five years later, Chaulk\u2019s 167 wins are the fourth-most wins of any active AHL coaches. Like the Komets, Bakersfield has struggled out the gate this season with a 3-5-1 record as early injuries and call-ups rock the Edmonton organization.<\/p>\n

The affiliation means the connection to the organization remains strong. Chaulk tries to talk to Komets coach Ben Boudreau, someone who played against him, once a week to check in on player development.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what that feeling was like to go against Colin Chaulk in the face off circle, and it wasn\u2019t easy,\u201d Boudreau said. \u201cHe was dominant. His leadership skills were felt both on and off the ice. He\u2019s a great human being, a great Komet legend, and he\u2019s a great coach in Bakersfield.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Komets had three different NHL affiliates \u2013 Colorado, Arizona and Vegas \u2013 between 2013 and 2022. Their longest tenured affiliate since joining the ECHL is their current one with the Oilers and Condors, now in its fifth season. For Chaulk, the connection to Fort Wayne goes well beyond the partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to be part of the Komets family,\u201d Chaulk said. \u201cYou become part of the family and it\u2019s based on how they treat you. They treated the players fantastic. We always had what we needed. There were always people in the stands and they ran a professional organization. … They made sure they brought good players in it. I think most importantly, we had really good people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Somewhere in Crypto.com Arena during a playoff game against the Los Angeles Kings in 2022, then Edmonton Oilers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,198651,20857,58723,198650,14419],"class_list":["post-517942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-ben-boudreau","tag-colin-chaulk","tag-echl","tag-hunter-johannes","tag-komets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}