The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
According to his centerman, Ron Hutchinson, Harvey Fleming was known as a guy that had many opportunities to score and only cashed in on half of them. "I could really skate, which was a big plus," Fleming said. "I scored 29 goals and ended up 16th overall in the whole league in scoring, so I did get a few points." Fleming donned the Bomber jersey for three years and played on a line with Hutchinson and Barry Beatty. During his time with the team, Fleming considered his role to be a checker who was expected to produce. Winning Feeling "Just total excitement. We had so many fans from Flin Flon in the rink that believed in us and to be able to win that final game was such a great thing in my mind with all those fans in there," Fleming said, of the final that took place in Regina. "I didn't score any big goals in that series. I remember checking Murray Bell for quite a bit. He was a big star in the Montreal Canadiens organization." Fleming's journey in Flin Flon started when he left home at 16. "I played juvenile hockey and played baseball here and I got to know a lot of people," said Fleming, who was born and raised in Nipawin, SK. "They treated me just great. I think they kind of included me in the group of eight locals, which made it nine." Prior to joining the Bombers, Fleming attended Humboldt's training camp when Buddy Simpson and Jimmy Wardle, who were executive board members of the Bombers. They came through while scouting at different places. "They talked me into going to the Bombers and the reason being I was an only child supporting my mother," Fleming explained. "My father had been killed when I was two-years-old and not much money to go to school so this is the only place where you could really work and make some money and thought that's for me, so I could support my mother." Once his junior career ended, Fleming played for the Vancouver Canucks of the Western Pro League for a month at the start of the year and the New York Rangers had signed him to what was called a C-form. With that form, an NHL team could sign players for $150 a year. "They renewed my C-form for three years then gave up on me," he said. "I left Vancouver and played in Troy, Ohio in the International League and Johnstown, Pennsylvania in the Eastern Amateur League." It was Fleming's connection with Ted Hampson that helped get him back in the pros. Hampson's family took Fleming in when he was 17 after his mother passed away. "They took me in for a year and a half," he explained. "We shared the same room. We grew very close over the years." Hampson made some phone calls and contacted the owner of the Red Deer Rustlers of the Alberta Senior League. Hampson knew the team was looking for players. The owner promised Fleming he would get him an apprenticeship in pipefitting, plumbing, and gas fitting and he did. He was paid $1.30 and hour and the job was supplemented by hockey, which paid $40 a game in 1962-63. "I played four years there and that's where I became most successful," he said. "We played in a league where the two junior teams, the Edmonton Oil Kings and Calgary, played, but the Oil Kings won the Memorial Cup two years. "They always had an excellent hockey club, but there was Red Deer, Drumheller, Olds, and Lacombe and the two junior teams, and out of that league, my final year there, Drumheller won the Allen Cup," he continued. "The Oil Kings won the Memorial Cup and we won the Intermediate Championship Pennant. Three teams in a six team league won everything there is to win. Tells you what kind of a league it was. My final year, I finished three points behind Butch Paul, who played for the Oil Kings for the scoring title. I finally grew up as to how to put the puck in the net."
