Meet Journal Star senior sports writer and columnist Dave Eminian
Journal Star reporter Dave Eminian covers Bradley Braves basketball and Peoria Rivermen hockey.
The Peoria Rivermen have produced another NHL talent.
Alan Fuehring, the first play-by-play man in the Rivermen’s SPHL history, has won a full-time place in the NHL as the new radio voice of the New York Islanders.
Fuehring is the fourth play-by-play man to call Rivermen games and go on to earn a full-time NHL gig. He is the first broadcaster to go from the SPHL to the NHL.
“This is a dream come true, I have always believed in the dream and now it’s happening,” Fuehring said. “I’m thrilled to have this opportunity from the Islanders, and I’m ready for it. I’ve been in the organization for a long time.”
The Morton native is a 2008 graduate of Morton High School, and a 2012 grad of Bradley University. He grew up on Rivermen hockey and was brought in by NHL TV broadcast star and Islanders TV voice Brendan Burke as a broadcasting/media relations assistant for the Rivermen from 2009-10 through 2011-12 in the AHL.
They remain in tandem with the Islanders, Burke handling TV broadcasts and Fuehring now on radio.
Burke was Rivermen play-by-play man in their AHL era, and when the parent club Blues moved the team away from Peoria at the end of the 2012-13 season, Fuehring remained to take over as the Peoria franchise’s broadcaster when it resurfaced in the SPHL in 2013-14.
“The Rivermen were a big part of my life,” Fuehring said in an April, 2021 Journal Star story. “I went to Rivermen games as a kid with my grandfather. We’d drive down and buy tickets, and I wasn’t interested in anything but what was happening on the ice.
“I was enthralled by the speed of the game, the hitting, the emotion in it. That’s the team I grew up with. And that’s the team I got my first hockey job with.”
On Friday, he re-iterated, “I have all that history with the Rivermen. Peoria is where it all started for me. I want to thank (Rivermen co-owner) Bart Rogers for giving me the chance, and for my colleagues there and the fans in Peoria for embracing me as I started my career.”
Fuehring advanced from SPHL Peoria to take over the microphone with ECHL Greenville and later AHL Bridgeport, the latter the Islanders primary farm club. He called a Blackhawks game in 2021 as a fill-in broadcaster.
When the Islanders and longtime play-by-play man Chris King parted ways during this off-season, the NHL club turned to Fuehring.
“I had people in Peoria (years ago) tell me I’d reach the AHL and make it, at a time I wasn’t sure of myself,” said Fuehring, reflecting on his path in 2021. “Being on press row with you guys changed everything for me, and I’ll never forget it.”
A Rivermen Fab Four
The Rivermen have now sent four play-by-play broadcasters to full-time NHL positions over their history.
Fuehring follows former Rivermen play-by-play man Matt McConnell, who has had a long NHL career and currently is the voice of the Utah Mammoths. Tom Callahan went from Peoria to NHL Nashville. Burke is with the Islanders and is an established NHL star, also working the Olympics and MLB games.
They are all part of a Peoria market that has produced renowned sports broadcasters like Jack Brickhouse, Ralph Lawler, Charlie Steiner, Dave Snell and Norm Ulrich.
Steiner, in a 2019 Journal Star story, likened Peoria to the small Dominican Republic town that has somehow produced more than 100 major league baseball players.
“It’s like Peoria is the San Pedro De Macoris of broadcasters,” Steiner joked. “Who knows why all these guys have come out of Peoria? It’s amazing.”
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.