Longtime Seattle Totems great and Mill Creek resident “Jumbo’ Jim Powers was best remembered for the company he kept on and off the ice during the star-studded heyday of minor professional hockey in this city.
And one of those who spent years alongside Powers, who died Thursday morning of natural causes at age 89, was his opposite winger and future NHL player Bob Barlow. With Barlow on left wing, legendary Totems captain Guyle Fielder at center and left wing Powers shifting to the right side when needed, the forward trio sent shivers through opposing defenders in the minor pro Western Hockey League for three seasons in the early 1960s.
“It was just as exciting off the ice during those years with the Space Needle being built and the Monorail – it was a very exciting time for the city of Seattle,” said Barlow, 91, from his home in British Columbia. “We had capacity crowds in the rink and they treated us well. And as a team, we played very well for those crowds.
“Jimmy, Guyle and I had a great line together, and after the game, we’d go out and have a few pops together, a few beers,” Barlow said. “Because when you’re playing hockey, you get really thirsty. And then we’d shoot the bull and have a lot of fun together.”
Powers played 737 regular season games over 11 WHL seasons from 1957-1970, mostly with the Totems but also the pre-NHL Vancouver Canucks and Los Angeles Blades. He scored 248 goals and added 223 assists for 471 points, while adding another six goals and seven assists in 18 games with the American Hockey League Providence Reds in 1967-68.
Barlow, who left the Totems after the 1964-65 season for other WHL teams, became the oldest rookie in NHL history at age 34 with the Minnesota North Stars in 1969 – famously scoring his first goal on future Hall of Famer Bernie Parent a record six seconds into his debut NHL shift. He remembered Powers as a man of few words when the linemates hung out off-ice together.
“Jimmy was very quiet, he didn’t talk much,” Barlow said. “But when he talked, we listened.”
The 6-foot, 190-pound Powers, a native of Claresholm, Alberta, let his physical play and on-ice numbers do most of his talking. He put up 256 points during his most productive five-year stretch with the team, including a career high 36 goals in the 1962-63 regular season and 12 more goals in 17 playoff games that campaign on a line with Barlow and Fielder.
“We had the greatest line in the Western Hockey League,” Barlow said. “The three of us would combine together and not many teams could stop us – whether we’d be passing the puck or scoring goals,” Barlow said. “If I was scoring goals, it would be because of Jimmy and Guyle getting me the puck in front of the net.”
Powers would cap that five-year stretch by winning his and the city’s second WHL championship alongside Fielder in 1967. He scored 28 goals that season and added two more in the playoffs, his biggest being a tying marker in a pivotal Game 4 of the semifinals against the California Seals that enabled Seattle to win in overtime and go up 3-1 in a series they eventually clinched in six.
After an ensuing season in the AHL – akin to the WHL in stature at the time – Powers returned for two final Totems seasons from 1968 to 1970. During that time, he made extra money signing autographs in a Lynnwood motorcycle shop and eventually started selling bikes for them in the offseason.
Upon retiring from hockey in 1970, he decided to open his own motorcycle shop, which his two sons took over in 2008 and still operate as Lynnwood Motoplex – a powersports and marine business -- today.
“It’s the only job I’ve ever had,” his son, Garret, 58, said. “I’ve been there 40-plus years and my brother has been there for almost 50 years. So, that’s what kept my dad in Seattle and that Mill Creek area – it was our business.”
Besides Garret and his other son, Jim Jr., Powers left behind two daughters, Penny Cannon and Janice Weber, nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren. His wife of 62 years, Marie, died in 2020.
Garret Powers said his own son got involved in youth hockey in the Seattle area and that his teams would often have his granddad help out and speak to the players to offer encouragement and playing tips. Jim Powers spent many years hanging around local rinks throughout the greater region, from Everett youth hockey to Sno King, to the Seattle Jr. Totems, while his grandson played.
“It got to the point where he was too old to be on skates,” Garret Powers said. “But he was always there to sponsor teams, gift money. He was just kind of a staple around youth hockey here. Everyone knew him. He was never on an official board or staff or anything like that. He was just very well known in my son’s era of hockey.
Powers and Fielder also remained close friends for decades following their respective hockey retirements. When Fielder traveled between B.C. and Seattle in 2017 promoting a biography about his hockey career, Powers was right there alongside him just as they’d been on the ice.
“I know that Guyle and him were best friends forever,” his son said. “I remember them bantering until the last days.”
Fielder died at age 95 in January. Powers, his health also declining in recent years, attended his memorial service in March.
Prior to Barlow joining the Totems, Powers and Fielder had played on a line alongside longtime hockey fixture Tommy McVie when the team captured its first WHL championship in 1959. McVie had joined the duo for Fielder’s book tour nine years ago, briefly reuniting with the original linemates once more.
McVie died at age 89 in January 2025.
Powers’ son said his dad “loved being around the guys and the camaraderie” and viewed them almost like his family.
“There were a lot of fond memories for him growing up with them,” he said. “I mean, hockey was his life.”
Powers had lost his own father at age 8 and had to grow up quickly. He quit school in seventh grade and lied about his age so he could head off to work and send money back to his mother.
He and Fielder would speak two or three times a week by telephone. When Fielder, a notoriously fearful flier, drove up to Seattle from his Arizona home for a rare visit in 2024 to be given the Royal Brougham Sports Legend Award at the 89th annual Sports Star of the Year Awards, Powers accompanied him to an ensuing Kraken game that weekend. Powers had also been there in July 2019 when Fielder attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for a commemorative locker stall built in his honor by NHL Seattle – predecessor to the Kraken – at the team’s season ticket preview center in Lower Queen Anne.
So, when Fielder died, a piece of Powers went with him.
“I know he missed his relationships,” his son said. “There was a core group of four or five of them that would stay in touch. After Guyle passed he was saying, ‘Looks like I’m the only one left.’”
Prior to Fielder’s death, he had again driven up to Seattle and this time was there to see Powers honored last year with induction into the Washington State Motorcycle Hall of Fame – the very first dealer and principal owner to receive the honor.
“So, he had two different professions,” his son said. “And he made a great name for himself in both.”
There are plans for a memorial in coming weeks at the motorcycle shop that kept Powers, who would have turned 90 next month, tied to his adopted hockey hometown.
For now, those who saw him ply his trade on the ice will remember Powers as the quiet gentleman who did his talking with his stick, sometimes his muscle and always with his presence.
“They say you’re only as good as the guys you play with,” former linemate Barlow said. “And I was lucky enough to play with two of the greatest. Between Jimmy and Guyle, they had a way of making you look good. I’ll never forget them.”
