Guyle Fielder drops the ceremonial first puck at Key Arena, 10.04.08

Flags outside the Key Arena proudly proclaim its status as home of the Seattle SuperSonics and the Seattle Thunderbirds, even though one team has already left the city and the other will be moving its base to the new Kent Events Center at the end of the year. Even though the trip down to Kent will take significantly longer than the few minutes it takes me to get to the Key from my office or the few more it takes from my home, I’m very much looking forward to the move. It’ll be great to be watching hockey in a brand new facility whose managers are excited to provide a home for the team and its fans and I’ve been sure ever since I first heard about it that I won’t miss the Key at all. It surprised me, then, when I felt myself getting a little misty about walking in the door for the Thunderbirds’ final ever home opener there on Saturday night, but I guess years of countless hockey memories tied to that place made me feel nostalgic.

The pre-game ceremony honoring Guyle Fielder’s recent induction into the Washington State Sports Hall of Fame definitely added to the sentimental feeling. Fielder played hockey in the Western Hockey League for 21 years, 15 of which were spent in Seattle with the Seattle Bombers (1953-54), Seattle Americans (1955-57) and the Seattle Totems (1957-69) before his retirement in 1969. During his career, Fielder became the first pro player anywhere in hockey to score 100 points in a season and became the first professiona hockey player to score 2,000 points, ending his career with a total of 2,037. He was an astonishing 11-time All Star and won six MVP awards, helping his club to five WHL finals and three championships. Fielder stood at center ice to receive a plaque recognizing his induction and a special commemorative Seattle Thunderbirds jersey with his name across the back before dropping the ceremonial first puck to rousing applause from the fans appreciative of his contributions to Seattle hockey history.

Nostalgia was probably not so much a factor for the current hockey players on the ice. The nature of junior hockey, where players are graduated out of the system after turning 21, means that most of the current Thunderbirds players weren’t even born when the Tbirds moved to what was then the Seattle Coliseum, now the Key Arena, back in the 1988-89 season, long years after Guyle Fielder had retired from the sport. The current season has seen the young team struggle after losing many of the previous season’s highest scorers to their aging out of the system and signing with pro teams. Their first four games this season, all away, gave them four losses and zero points. Pride was at stake Saturday night and the team earned some of it back when Jeremy Boyer scored the first goal of the game at 14:59 in the first period.

The defending Memorial Cup champion Spokane Chiefs evened the score at 19:37 of the first with a goal by Drayton Bowman. Bowman scored again at 7:01 of the second period with a powerplay goal, unanswered until Boyer intercepted a pass behind the Spokane net and sent it to fellow Tbird Lindsay Nielsen who shot the puck into the net at 8:35 in the third period. The game ended in a tie that led to a scoreless overtime period and sent the game into a shootout. Seattle goalie Jacob DeSerres stopped Spokane’s Levko Koper, Brett Bartman, Steve Kuhn, and Stefan Ullman; Spokane’s Dustin Tokarski denied Seattle’s Jonathan Parker, Jim O’Brien, and Prab Rai before Jeremy Boyer sunk the game winning goal.

The Thunderbirds’ record now stands at 1-5-0-0. The team heads out on the road for games against the Everett Silvertips on October 10, the Portland WinterHawks on October 11, the Chilliwack Bruins on October 12 and the Tri-City Americans on October 17 before returning to Seattle for a home game against the Kelowna Rockets on October 18 at the Key Arena.