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SCENE & HEARD:Guyle Fielder will go down in hockey history as the greatest player never to make it in the National Hockey League. And had it not been for Gordie Howe, Fielder’s 22 illustrious years in the Western League just might have been spent at the game’s highest level.

“I started the 1957-58 season with the Detroit Red Wings but had the misfortune to be on a line with Howe,” Fielder says. “We were both puck carriers and there was room for only one on a line. I spent a lot of time on the bench and eventually asked them to send me back to Seattle. It wasn’t about money. I just wanted to play.”

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The records show that Fielder dressed for only six games with the Red Wings. They also show he amassed 2,037 career points in the minors, primarily with the Seattle Totems back in the rollicking days of the WHL.

In Jon C. Stott’s intriguing book, Ice Warriors, a history of the Western League that began as the Pacific Coast League in 1948, Fielder dominates page after page with Wayne Gretzky-like stats and awards. It was during a golden era that introduced fans in Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Diego and Phoenix to some of the greatest hockey entertainment on the planet.