Terry Pembroke played in the most games in Komets history and scored maybe the team's most memorable goal.
No one will wear No. 5 again for the Fort Wayne Komets, and they literally had to tear it off Terry Pembroke's back to retire it.
No Komet played more games than Pembroke, who played 864 games over 12 years. He was a steady performer on the 1965 team and 1973 Turner Cup team champions.
His other numbers include 66 goals, 273 assists and 339 points. He was also called for 1,143 penalty minutes, and he played in a club-record eight IHL All-Star games.
His numbers weren't as flashy or as hard-hitting as his hip checks, which were legendary. Pembroke's job was to keep pucks out of the Komets' net and not necessarily to score them at the other end.
But he did score what is arguably the most remarkable goal in Komets history. On Feb. 20, 1965, with about 25 seconds left in the first period, Pembroke quickly turned and fired a wrist shot from the bottom edge of the faceoff circle. Pembroke regularly practiced his wrist shot and could flip the puck the length of the ice.
After traveling 176 feet through the air and beside the Memorial Coliseum scoreboard, the puck hit Toledo goaltender Glenn Ramsay in the leg and bounced into the goal. Reports at the time said the puck skipped in front of Ramsay, but Ramsay later told Pembroke at an IHL All-Star Game that he lost the puck in the crowd and was waiting for it to hit so he could react.
"I used that shot a lot throughout my career because it kept goaltenders on their toes," Pembroke said. "That was my big claim to fame."
After retirement, Pembroke started training show horses and raising cattle on his ranch in Fort Worth, Texas.
