Seattle Sports' Best-Ever Fielder Was A Hockey Player: Guyle Fielder

For a change, Seattle hockey superstar Guyle Fielder was on the receiving end of an assist.

The Seattle Sports Commission honored Fielder with the "Royal Brougham Sports Legend Award" on Thursday at its annual "Sports Star of the Year" awards.

The center iceman dished out 1,574 assists during an illustrious 22-season minor league career, 15 of those in Seattle between 1953 and 1969. Local sportswriter Hy Zimmerman once marveled, "A Zamboni would get 20 goals playing with Fielder."

Seattle Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke, in a 2020 letter nominating Fielder for the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, wrote, "Guyle was the indisputable headliner for Seattle's golden era of hockey. Guyle's exciting style of play captured fans' imaginations and ignited passion for our sport here in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest."

Another indication of the team's high regard is the creation of an annual award in his name. The Guyle Fielder Award recognizes the player who best exemplifies Fielder's "perseverance, hustle and dedication." Past winners are Yanni Gourde (2022) and Jaden Schwartz (2023).

With the city's Western Hockey League Bombers, Americans and Totems, Guyle wasn't just a setup man, either. A night after a Vancouver writer called goal-scoring his "weakness," Fielder tallied four of his 463 career goals in a Totems victory. He set a bar only Gretzky, Howe, Messier and Jagr have matched: more than 2,000 total points in pro hockey.

If you don't think a "minor leaguer" warrants inclusion in such an exclusive club, Fielder's contemporaries would like a word. Hall of Fame goalie Glenn Hall, Guyle's buddy since they shared Saskatchewan rinks as kids, said the player Wayne Gretzky most reminded him of was Fielder.

Don Cherry wrote, "He was a magician with the puck. He could fool you a dozen ways." A fellow NHL coach and onetime Seattle teammate, Tom McVie, called Fielder, "The most talented forward I've ever seen, and next to Bobby Orr, the best player by a country mile."

How could such a man not have stuck in the NHL? Fielder would be briefly called up four separate times during the 1950s, playing a total of 15 NHL games (nine regular season, six playoff) with Chicago, Boston, and two stints in Detroit.

When asked if he ever got a fair shot, Guyle replied, "To be truthful, I don't," but also admitted, "I don't think I gave it my best effort." Part of the reason can be found in the title of Fielder's biography, "I Just Want To Play Hockey." Given scant ice time with the Wings in 1957, Fielder requested and was granted a return to Seattle by Detroit G.M. Jack Adams.

The following year, when Toronto's new G.M. Punch Imlach came calling, Fielder declined because Punch said he might be farmed out to the AHL.

NHL teams may not have known how to best exploit Fielder's skill set. "I didn't believe in that dump and chase," Guyle explains. "I had the puck. If you wanted it, come get it." Few opponents could; he was a six-time WHL MVP, nine-time scoring champion, and led the Totems to three league titles.

The only person unimpressed with Guyle's on-ice talents - at least initally - was his current companion, Betty Johnson. (Since Fielder doesn't fly, she drove him the 1,400 miles from their retirement community in Mesa, Arizona to attend the Kraken festivities.) Johnson recalled first being told he was a hockey player, and responding, "Who cares?" Betty's interest was having Fielder teach her how to play pool.

Johnson had come to the right person; if the sport involved a stick, Fielder excelled. He won a Portland golf club tournament seven years in a row, and boasts five holes-in-one.

With a cue stick, he was good enough to play an exhibition match with Willie Mosconi. Whenever his Totems would arrive in Edmonton, "They had a nice billiard room and some real good money games," Fielder recalled. "As soon as I got off the train, played pool all day. Come six o'clock, I grabbed a cab and a hot dog, go to the rink and play, and go right back to the pool room after the game."

At his retirement community pool room, Guyle still plays for a dollar a game, and Betty reports he doesn't lose very often.