page template for a view (not a node)

I have created a view (page only, no block) with the url of http://www.example.com/comment_count/12354 - It simply returns the comment count for that node "12354".
I inserted the "Theme Wizard" generated template.php code and created the template file (in this case: views-list-comment_count.tpl.php where comment_count is the name of the view.
This code generates the desired result and I can theme the view fields. However, I want to have the results appear in a plain page without the stuff from page.tpl.php.
The problem is that when I create page-comment_count.tpl.php - I get an unformated page, which is what I want, but the result of the view or $comment_count doesn't appear. In this case I simply renamed views-list-comment_count.tpl.php to page-comment_count.tpl.php.
I also tried embedding the view into the page template as described in http://drupal.org/node/48816 but that produced the same results, i.e. no comment_count. I am not using the insert_View module, but I will if there is no other way to do this.
Is it possible to create a page template for a view?
Thank you for your help!