The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
Voice of the Fort Wayne Komets for 63 seasons
On the record
Bob Chase was born Robert Donald Wallenstein on January 22, 1926, in Negaunee, Michigan. In June 1953 he came to Fort Wayne to work at WOWO, taking his air name from his wife Muriel's maiden name, and that fall he began calling Fort Wayne Komets hockey. He never left the microphone: across 63 seasons, from 1953 until his death, he broadcast more than 4,500 Komets games, including 526 of the team's 532 playoff games in that span, and became the voice generations of Fort Wayne fans grew up with. He was inducted into the Komets Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2012 he received the National Hockey League's Lester Patrick Trophy, for service to hockey in the United States — only the fifth broadcaster ever to receive it. He died on November 24, 2016.
Find them on this page
- § 06 — people of the record · famous-people supplement
Sources: Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, people of Allen County; Northern Michigan University news archive.