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1989 - 1996
The claim: Born in Fort Wayne, and a Komet for a decade. Colin Chin was born on 28 August 1961 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and grew up in New Haven with a hockey player's childhood itinerary: away at twelve to play in Toronto, home again, away at seventeen to Detroit. The News-Sentinel's Top 50 profile tells what brought him back for good: Komets coach Robbie Laird kept asking him to play in his hometown, Chin agreed to try it for one season, and he stayed for ten.
The captaincy: Chin played ten seasons and 660 regular season games for the Komets, scoring 246 goals and 390 assists for 636 points, figures the club still leads with in its own biography of him. From 1989 to his retirement in 1996 he wore the captain's letter, the longest captaincy in franchise history. He led the Komets to the Turner Cup championship of 1993, followed it with a career-best 100-point season, and served as player-coach in 1994-95, near the end. Len Thornson is the Komets' scoring summit; Chin is their civic one, the captain who was actually from here, playing out his whole prime in the building his neighbours filled.
The honour: On 17 November 2007 Chin was inducted into the Komet Hall of Fame and his number 26 was retired. He stayed in Fort Wayne for his working life after hockey, which completes the shape the record likes: Thornson the adopted star who settled, Chin the native who never really left, the two of them together holding the Komets' claim in this section. Between them the franchise's two retired Fort Wayne numbers in this story, 11 and 26, belong to a Winnipegger who stayed and a Fort Wayne boy who came home.
Sources:
- Fort Wayne Komets, Colin Chin club biography (Hockey Night panel record, 2026): the Fort Wayne native line, the 660 games, 246 goals, 390 assists and 636 points, the 1993 Turner Cup, the 2007 Hall of Fame induction.
- News-Sentinel, Northeast Indiana Top 50 project, Captain Chin: the New Haven boyhood, the Laird recruitment, the 1989-1996 captaincy as the franchise's longest.
- Colin Chin career record: born 28 August 1961 in Fort Wayne; the number 26 retirement of 17 November 2007.