Springfield is “on the map” for a few reasons: the longtime home of Honest Abe, the horseshoe sandwich, being the state capital. And, hockey?
Well, not so much.
Tanner George might be changing that a bit. Fresh off his sophomore year at Chatham Glenwood High School, the 16-year-old New York native is heading to Rochester, New York this fall to play for the Bishop Kearney Selects, a prep school with a strong hockey tradition. If all goes well this season, George hopes to play for a junior team in the United States Hockey League next season, then play for a collegiate team. And from there? The NHL is his dream, but George isn't thinking that far ahead.
“Right now I'm just looking forward to going to Rochester and playing,” said George, a 5-foot-9, 160-pound defenseman. “It's going to be a big change, but I'm ready.”
To say that George's parents sacrificed and dedicated themselves to get their son to this point in hockey is like saying that a cow contributes a little to producing milk or cheese.
The dedication has meant that for the past four years, George's parents, Shannon and Sarah, have taken turns driving George to St. Louis four days a week during the school term and then returning home that evening, where George has played competitive hockey during those years, most recently with the AAA St. Louis Blues.
George attended classes regularly at Chatham Glenwood, then hopped in the car for games and practices in St. Louis four nights a week for the past four years. “He can sleep on the wheel now,” his father, Shannon, said.
“He would often do his homework in the car,” Shannon George said. “There's not a lot of hockey here, so we had to do what we needed to do to give Tanner as competitive a (league) as possible.”
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Tanner George began playing hockey at age 4 in Springfield. He won two Blue Note Cups with the Springfield Kings before moving to the St. Louis Sting, where he won another Blue Note Cup, and then to the Tier 1 AAA CarShield in St. Louis, where he won another Blue Note Cup. Last season with the Tier 1 AAA St. Louis Blues, George missed half the season with a broken leg, but returned to help the Blue Note team finish undefeated in the regular season.
What games does George play?
“I want to be a two-way defenseman who can handle the puck and be effective offensively,” he said. “I've got to get stronger and more intense in the corners and I'm going to work hard to do that.”
George has been honing his game in St. Louis for the past four years, but he credits his development to his early coaching staff with the Springfield Kings, including Ike Heimlich and Bill Sink.
“Without their help, I wouldn't be where I am today,” George said.
Joel Herr, George's coach at Carshield, remembers a player who was “never afraid to ask questions.”
“I think he'll be around more,” Herr said. “He's got high-end offensive skills, and the way the game is trending, teams are looking for more of that from their defensemen. He was our assistant captain and helped us win. He's got a great attitude and works really hard. And, you know what? We're starting to see more kids coming out of Springfield. The closest place for (Tier 1, AAA) hockey is St. Louis, so they have to travel a lot. But maybe that'll change in the future.”
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At Chatham Glenwood, where football, basketball, wrestling and baseball/softball were the order of the day, George admits he didn't have many friends to talk to about hockey, but that would change at Bishop Kearney in Rochester, where he would live in a dorm-style home with the rest of his hockey teammates.
“It's going to be hard for mom and dad not to see him every day, but we're going to visit as often as we can,” Shannon George said. “The bottom line is this is what's best for our son's development as a hockey player and we're so happy he's able to do this. Will we miss the drives back and forth to St. Louis anymore?”
(A beat or two here).
“no.”
Adrienne Deiter is a freelance writer for The State Journal-Register. Contact the sports department at sports@sj-r.com.
