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Toronto Blue Jays outfielder George Springer raced around the basepaths after his latest “Springer Dinger,” pointing to the sky and pumping his fists, showing off a pair of Kelly green and blue Nike custom batting gloves inspired by the Hartford Whalers.
The former World Series MVP was celebrating his Game 7 go-ahead home run against the Seattle Mariners in the American League Championship Series — the home run that would lead to the Blue Jays’ first World Series appearance in 32 years.
“This is what you play for as a player,” Springer said after the game. “This is what you want.”
The 36-year-old New Britain, Conn., native grew up a devoted fan of the Whalers — and, though the NHL team left Hartford in 1997, he remains one today.
The batting gloves he’s been wearing since June pay homage to the team of his youth. Springer grew up approximately 15 minutes from the Whalers’ home arena, the Hartford Civic Center, where he attended games with his father, George Springer II. The Whalers even practiced at Springer’s boarding school, Avon Old Farms, before games.
“It was the only pro team in Connecticut,” Springer told The Athletic. “As a kid, I loved them.
“I love the Whalers. So, I said, ‘Well, why not?”
By the end of this year’s World Series, those gloves will be placed in their new home at the Hall of Fame. Not in Cooperstown, however.
Last month, Springer agreed to donate his gloves to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto at the end of the Major League Baseball season. Craig Campbell, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s resource center, reached out to the Blue Jays after a colleague spotted Springer wearing them during a game.
“Clearly that team resonates in his DNA, and he’s a hockey fan at heart,” Campbell said. “And it looks like he’s going to help us out.”
That was before those gloves played a part in one of the Blue Jays’ most iconic playoff moments since José Bautista’s bat flip in the 2015 ALDS against the Texas Rangers and Joe Carter’s walk-off home run to win the 1993 World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Even Springer’s hockey-playing schoolmates from Connecticut took notice. Old Farms has produced MLB players, but its hockey program features a more star-studded cast. They include Hockey Hall of Famer Brian Leetch and Stanley Cup champions Jonathan Quick and Nick Bonino. Current Chicago Blackhawks goalie Spencer Knight and former players Cam Atkinson and Chris Higgins are also alumni.
“That was a big one for them. Huge moment,” Quick, now the New York Rangers’ backup goaltender, said of Springer’s Game 7 home run. “He’s done that quite a few times.”
“He’s been amazing,” added Bonino, now an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins. “He’s been one of the most clutch performers in the playoffs, and it’s been really fun to follow that.”
George Springer celebrates his three-run homer in Game 7 of the ALCS against the Mariners. (Mark Blinch / Getty Images)
Springer’s hockey fandom is far from secret and goes beyond wearing matching gloves and cleats. The outfielder told the media in 2023 that he planned on using the Whalers’ iconic goal song, “Brass Bonanza,” as a walk-up song for a future at-bat. His current walk-up song is Travis Scott’s “Butterfly Effect,” which features the lyric “Icy love/icy like a hockey puck.” In August 2024, the Blue Jays gave away powder blue hockey jerseys marked with Springer’s name and number on the back and the team logo on the front.
George Springer: Big Hartford Whalers guy. 🐳 https://t.co/M0809wHHtZ pic.twitter.com/p0G6qcW4U2
— NHL (@NHL) March 2, 2024
If Springer didn’t turn out to be a successful baseball player, he might’ve traded his bat for a hockey stick and gloves. And it took some convincing for him not to go down that road.
“George is a hockey fan,” his former Old Farms baseball coach, Rob Dowling, said. “George visits Connecticut during the offseason, and he will come to our rink. And he will engage with his children in learn-to-skate programs. So this is not a publicity interest of his. This is a very sincere affection that he has for the game.”
Quick is three years older than Springer, and the two aren’t close, but there is one interaction between them that sticks out in Dowling’s mind.
During Springer’s first year with the Old Farms baseball team, the squad embarked on an exhibition series in Florida. The team needed a catcher, so they called on Quick, who played the position growing up.
Before a game, Quick noticed Springer about to put on a protective cup before trotting onto the field. Confused, Quick double-checked to see if Springer was still going out to play center field. When Springer confirmed, Quick gave his teammate some “dugout wisdom.”
“What are you putting on a cup for?” Dowling remembered Quick saying. “If you get hit in the nuts out there, you’ve got other problems!
“I actually think that George stopped wearing one after that.”
A young George Springer playing for the Avon Old Farms high school baseball team. (Courtesy of Rob Dowling)
When Springer joined the Old Farms high school team, he possessed skill and raw potential. But he was still an undersized, 5-foot-1, 115-pound teenager.
“I think he looked at that as a challenge,” Dowling said. “The way in which he responded to that challenge was (that) he became the most fundamentally sound, smart, poised player in our program. And then he waited for his body to mature. Kids mature at different paces, and by the time George was a junior, he started to fill out. And you started to see all of the explosive power, athleticism, flexibility, skills that would render him to be a Division I prospect and eventually a Major League prospect.”
As he grew older, Springer’s talents put him on the radar of MLB teams. But Springer, part of an athletic family, hoped to still scratch his itch playing youth hockey.
But with the potential of being drafted into the MLB and the possibility of injury, Dowling and Springer’s father “discouraged” him from pursuing the sport any further.
“He still gives me a little bit of noise about the discussion that I had with him about his interest in playing hockey,” Dowling said.
And so Springer continued to progress as a baseball player and was eventually drafted in the 48th round by the Minnesota Twins in 2008. Springer opted to play baseball at the University of Connecticut before being drafted 11th overall by the Houston Astros in the 2011 MLB Draft and embarking on a career that has given him tons of accolades: four MLB All-Star appearances, a World Series title and MVP and two Silver Sluggers.
Dowling is just pleased that Springer has maintained a “team-first attitude,” engages with fans and continues to be “other-oriented.”
“I’m just happy when good things happen to good people,” Dowling said.
Those qualities would’ve fit in just fine in hockey. And hockey’s loss is now baseball’s gain, as Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube can attest.
“He said, ‘I wanted to play hockey,’” Berube said in September after meeting the Blue Jays outfielder. “He said back in Connecticut, he played as a young kid and he just loved running over guys. Probably would have made a good player for us to have. We like those types of guys.”
With his gloves, Springer will now make his own small contribution to hockey history. The Hockey Hall of Fame has acquired baseball items for its collection previously, including a baseball plaque from Hall of Famer Frank Mahovlich’s youth baseball days and the jersey of former Montreal Expo Lee Stevens, who wore No. 9 in memory of the late Maurice “Rocket” Richard.
George Springer reacts after a double against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 2 of the 2025 World Series. (Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images)
“I think it’s such a cool crossover,” Bonino said. “Obviously in Canada, hockey being the biggest sport, it’s cool to be able to cross over with his gloves. I know from back home, the Whalers have almost a cult following. Now, there’s still tons of people who want to see them back. I think that’s really cool.”
Since the Whalers relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1997, the Hurricanes have paid homage to Connecticut’s one-time team by wearing Whalers jerseys for select games and holding “Whalers Nights.” But Springer’s loyalty to the original Whalers remains.
“No, I can’t do it,” Springer said, when asked if he became a fan of the Hurricanes.
George Springer is congratulated in the dugout after hitting a three-run homer in Game 7 of the ALCS against the Mariners. (Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Springer’s attention is solely focused on winning his second World Series title after winning his first with the Astros in 2017.
Toronto’s ALCS hero has been one of the keys to the team’s success this season and the playoffs before he exited Game 3 of the World Series against the Dodgers on Monday with an apparent injury.
No matter how his 12th MLB season ends, his former coach and schoolmates are cheering him on from a distance.
“Knowing he’s an Avon guy, you’re always kind of pulling for him,” Quick said. “It’s quite the career he’s had.”
— The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Vincent Z. Mercogliano contributed to this report.