Potlach, Idaho’s Guyle Fielder has been labeled a hockey legend for the two decades he spent in the Western Hockey League, a slippery puck-carrying center who thrived as a playmaker and took home enough individual silverware to fill several trophy cases.

Passing through the hands of five of the six NHL clubs of his era, Fielder only managed to se action in 15 NHL games, both regular season and playoffs combined. The only record he left of his occasional big league games are four penalty minutes, evenly split between the regular schedule and the postseason.

His minor league record is quite another matter. He won nine scoring championships, made a dozen All-Star teams and piled up both points and assists like nobody else had before, retiring as the first man to reach the 2000-point level in a pro hockey career.

The 5-foot, 9-inch, 160-pound pivot spent most of his career on the west coast in the years before the NHL expanded to the pacific time zone. He spent the bulk of his time in Seattle, playing for the Bombers, Americans and Totems and also spent time in New Westminster, a Vancouver suburb that was home to a WHL franchise for a number of years. Fielders only complete year away from salt water was the 1952-53 campaign, spent with the AHL’s St. Louis Flyers. He won the rookie of the year title that season, coupling it with a first All-Star team mention.

His NHL rights travelled widely, even if Fielder didn’t. Originally signed by Chicago, he was dealt to Detroit a year later and passed quickly through the hands of the New York Rangers. They made it to Boston some time after that and back to Detroit in the spring of 1957. Fielder went to training camp every fall but just couldn’t seem to crack the big time, possibly because of his size.

He appeared in three games as a Black Hawk and then four with Detroit in the 1952-53 playoffs and a pair with Boston the next spring. Fielder’s longest NHL stint came as a Red Wing to begin the 1957-58 campaign and lasted all of a half-dozen games, centering a line that featured Gordie Howe on his right side.

It didn’t work out. Some have hinted that the Wings, one of the more robust outfits in the NHL at the time were dissuaded by his small stature, fearing that he didn’t have the physical necessities to survive life on the NHL, or even make it through Jack Adams’ practices for that matter. Others claimed that the trouble was that both Fielder and Howe insisted on controlling the play and carrying the puck.

As years went by, it became less and less important to Fielder to make the step up to the NHL. He’d rather play in the WHL than sit on the bench in the NHL. By the time Toronto acquired his rights in 1958, he was firmly established in the Pacific Northwest.

Then 28 years old, he had scored 59 goals and assisted on 174 others in the two previous years. Punch Imlach offered Fielder a two-way contract that called for a much lower salary if Fielder failed to stick with the club. There were no negotiations to speak of. Fielder went back to Seattle.

The WHL was a pleasant place to earn a living chasing pucks. Stars made almost as much as did NHLers, their rinks were newer than many AHL and NHL barns and the air was much cleaner and the winters far milder on the west coast than in Cleveland, Buffalo or Rochester.

Fielder was the biggest sports name in Seattle and the community recognised his many years of excellence in 1961, showering him with gifts on a night in his honor. While most men retire shortly after such a tribute, Fielder continued to hit the ice and make scoring stars out of his linemates for another dozen years.

He tried to retire after the 1968-69 season, one that saw him pass the 90-point mark for the tenth time in his career but was enticed back and suited up with the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, where his presence made a big impact on the fledgling team, both on the ice and at the box office.

After two and a half years in Utah Fielder returned to the coast and finished up with the Portland Buckaroos. At 41, he was drafted by the organization that became the WHA’s Houston Aeros but elected to stay in familiar territory, playing one last season in Portland.

When Fielder retired he had accumulated over 2000 career points. While he lit the lamp almost 500 times himself, the bulk of his numbers came from assists. Long before it became fashionable in the big league Fielder was putting a hundred points or more into the books, doing it in four different seasons before any NHLer hit the century mark

Only two men have passed him in the 35 years since he retired, former teammate Gordie Howe and another slight slippery player with an unparalleled ability to make scorers out of his wingers, Wayne Gretzky.

Now in his mid-70s, Fielder is enjoying retirement in Arizona.