After sitting out for a year and a half, Brad MacMillan remembers the exact moment when he decided he needed to come back as a player. He was coaching a junior team in Alaska when one of his players got into a fight.

“It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up,” he said. “I don't know how to explain it, but that's how I knew I wasn't quite finished.”

MacMillan quit hockey a year and a half ago. After playing two years with Missouri in the United Hockey League, he had been released in training camp by Columbia of the ECHL. He was set on going home when Tres Rivieres of Quebec's Ligue Nord-Americain de Hockey called. The money was good, but not necessarily the hockey.

“It wasn't what I thought it would be,” MacMillan said. “They made it sound like it was a halfway decent league. There were some good players, but there's also the circus aspect to it. It just wasn't as professional as some organizations in the way they treat their players.”

It was also difficult because MacMillan doesn't speak French. After playing five games, MacMillan returned to Alaska where he had played junior hockey and met his wife and decided to study communications theory at University of Alaska-Fairbanks.

While going to school to prepare for the rest of his life, he also went to work in landscaping and volunteered as an assistant coach with his old junior team.

“That kind of helped with my hunger to play,” MacMillan said. “I got back into the locker room and got that camaraderie back, but there's nothing like playing.

“You don't really understand how much fun this job is until you take a job in the real world. Then, you realize you had it pretty good. Some guys might decide later in their career after they've quit that they want to come back and by then it might be too late. I was lucky.”

Because he's only 25, there was still some interest in signing MacMillan. He first called the Komets, who had initially received his rights in a dispersal draft when the Missouri River Otters folded in 2006. MacMillan had maintained his friendship with former Missouri teammate Kevin Reiter who was a Komets goaltender last year.

“I talked with Reiter quite a bit last year, and he filled me in on how things were going here,” MacMillan said. “I was encouraged by what he said.”

For their part, the K's were looking for someone with MacMillan's toughness and hustle to take the spot Mitch Woods had last year after he took over from Pascal Morency. They'd like him to earn around 250 penalty minutes.

“I'm a grind-it-out, third-line who gets in the corners and gets the puck out,” MacMillan said. “Then I help players out. My goals for the year are to put together a good year and have a contract next year.”

Former Komets forward Luciano Aquino was at Wednesday's exhibition game and is town visiting friends and has had informal talks with the Komets about a contract. Komets General Manager David Franke said both sides are open to Aquino returning, but Aquino is not expected to sign in Fort Wayne because he's expecting an offer from an American Hockey League team. Aquino said he's returning to Mississauga, Ontario, this weekend. He led the Komets in scoring last year with 41 goals and 91 points.

Franke also said the K's will not be making any roster cuts until after this weekend's two exhibition games.