Guyle Fielder Still Strong, Maybe Stronger At 95  

There’s an irony of sorts to former Seattle Totems star Guyle Fielder becoming one of this country’s oldest knee replacement surgery patients ever.

The knock against giving Fielder a permanent NHL role decades ago had been that he didn’t take good care of himself; too many all-nighters at the pool hall and beer drinking sessions, the whispers went, even as he lit up netminders in the minor professional Western Hockey League. But Fielder, who turned 95 on Friday and remains Seattle’s oldest living former pro-hockey player, got the last laugh on everyone and is still in good enough shape that back in March, he finally replaced a knee dogging him since the 1960s.

“The doctor said, ‘We don’t do a knee surgery when you’re over 90, but you look like you might be in pretty good shape – I think you can handle it,’” Fielder said by phone from his home in an Arizona retirement community. “So, we kind of mulled it over and decided to go ahead. Because it wasn’t getting better. I had pain all the time with it, and it was getting worse. I didn’t like that. It hurt like hell.”

So, he got the surgery done. He returned home after an overnight hospital stay, began rehabilitation two weeks later, and is now walking with a cane he hopes to jettison shortly.

“They told me what exercises to do at home, so I went ahead and stuck with that,” Fielder said. “I’ll admit, I’ve gotten a little bit lazy with the exercises. But I’m doing the best I can.”

He sure is. Pro hockey’s fourth all-time point getter with 2,037, who guided Seattle to WHL titles in 1959, 1967, and 1968, keeps up with the things he enjoys most in life.

Sure, Fielder was thrilled to see his hockey legacy revived when NHL Seattle and then the Kraken came into existence. And yeah, he was there for a ribbon-cutting ceremony when the team built a replica stall of his Totems locker at its season ticket preview center in 2019, then saw an annual Guyle Fielder Award named after him and given annually to the Kraken player best exhibiting qualities of perseverance, hustle and dedication to hockey

Oh, and yes, Fielder was also in town two years ago to receive the Royal Brougham Sports Legend Award at the annual Seattle Sports Star of the Year banquet staged by the Seattle Sports Commission. And sure, the Kraken had him in their owner’s suite as a guest of honor at an ensuing Climate Pledge Arena game against his former Detroit Red Wings squad, followed the next morning by CEO Tod Leiweke giving him a private tour of the team offices and Kraken Community Iceplex.

But there are limits for anyone in their mid-90s.

Fielder is notoriously fearful of flying and drives everywhere with his companion of several years, Betty Johnson. Those prior 3,000-mile round trips to and from Seattle took a lot out of both, so they’re sparing of how many such long-distance sojourns they now make. And that means, as grateful as Fielder is to have experienced a personal hockey renaissance so late in life, his day-to-day is very different.

Fielder and Johnson planned to celebrate his birthday with a much shorter trip, driving out to Laughlin, Nevada, about 90 miles south of Las Vegas, on Thursday for two nights of gambling and fun. They share a house together at the retirement community, having met years back in its recreation hall, where Fielder was playing pool and caught her attention. She’d known nothing about his hockey past.

Fielder still plays pool every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The community rec center has “nine or 10 tables,” and Fielder will take on all comers, especially visitors from out of town, he’ll invite down for that purpose. In fact, being able to keep playing is a big reason he got his knee replaced.

Not bad for somebody never given much of an NHL shot beyond nine regular-season games and six playoff contests with Detroit, Chicago, and Boston over seven years, ahead of devoting the next 15 purely to minor pro hockey. Fielder said he was fortunate as an Idaho-born, Saskatchewan-raised kid to be taught specific hockey exercises at a young age to stay in shape and not gain weight.

“I didn’t drink beer as much as everybody said I did,” Fielder said, chuckling. “I did play pool a little bit on the side. But I looked after myself. I kept in good shape. I played a lot of golf in the off-season, and that kept your legs in shape. And yeah, I had my beer. But certainly not as much as people were saying.”

All told, he ended his career in 1973 and trails only Wayne Gretzky, onetime Red Wings teammate Gordie Howe and Jaromir Jagr in total pro points. Most of his time was with the Totems and their prior Seattle Americans incarnation, rubbing elbows with some of the all-time greats of this city’s hockey history.

That Kraken forward Jaden Schwartz has won the last three of Fielder’s namesake awards while Yanni Gourde captured the very first one says plenty about the type of player “Golden Guyle” was beyond mere stats. His impact on a still-nascent Kraken team without any legends of yesteryear to yet call their own provides a needed connection between the city’s pro hockey past and present.

This city certainly had a decorated hockey past. Fielder was as big a part of it as any living former figure and is likely right up there with Lester and Frank Patrick, Pete Muldoon, Frankie Foyston, Al Leader, Keith Allen, Hy Zimmerman, and others no longer with us who shaped pro hockey in Seattle.

So, celebrating his 95th birthday makes sense for anybody calling themselves a Kraken fan. And celebrating it his way. Fielder didn’t make the millions today’s players can secure merely by sticking on a roster a season or two anywhere within a 32-team NHL compared to the mere six squads that existed for him.

He’s going to Laughlin because he and Johnson find Las Vegas “too expensive” now. The last Nevada show Fielder caught was while playing at a 1969 golf tournament in Reno, when Debbie Reynolds – a.k.a. the mother of late actress Carrie Fisher of Star Wars and Princess Leia fame – was the headliner. So, Laughlin is strictly for the tables, hopefully one or two devoted to pool.

And he’s going because he can get around. When visiting Climate Pledge two years ago, Fielder used a motorized cart to navigate its concourses because his knee was too stiff.

Not anymore.

“I’m feeling pretty good now,” he said.

About his current life and his place in a past one where Seattle and hockey were never far from his heart.