Growing up in Southboro, Mass., Tucker Hartmann never imagined that he would be a 20-year-old hockey player living in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, while continuing to live his dream playing at the higher levels.
The former prep standout on defense for the St. Mark’s Lions is in his second year playing in the BCHL for the Salmon Arm Silverbacks, enjoying a breakout season one year after dealing with the disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic. Although he was able to play in 20 games a year ago as a rookie, they were played in a “pod,” as a single location with no fans, travel and the normal experiences one has riding the bus and interacting with the community that a player in juniors typically experiences.
In 2021-22, a return to a regular playing schedule has set the conditions for Hartmann to transition to college hockey when he arrives on the Yale University campus next fall.
“I think coming out to play juniors, it’s really important to get your games in,” he told New England Hockey Journal. “A 20-game season last year just wouldn’t cut it for the development you get of instilling habits. This is my first time playing a 54-game season, and one thing I noticed this year that has been an improvement in my game is consistency. As you keep going, in 54 games, you realize what works and how you can be the greatest asset to your team, and kind of finding a groove of fitting in and knowing what kind of player you are.”
Before Salmon Arm, Hartmann played much of his minor hockey with the South Shore Kings growing up. He benefited from playing with a group of talented players, one of whom had a father who coached several teams Hartmann played on. Little did he know that father-son duo would have a significant effect on him as a youngster, both influencing him to stay on the developmental path in hockey.
“Bob Beniers was such a good coach and so fun to play for,” he said of his time with the Kings ’02 teams. “It was something special, and you don’t even realize the talent you had on that team until you see the kids grow up and go their separate ways and so many of them do so well. I was really impressed with Matt Beniers specifically, and he’s done an amazing job of staying humble. He’s a kid from Hingham, Massachusetts, and he’s really making out — second overall draft pick, and doing some amazing things going to the Olympics, but he still managed to stay humble. It’s been great to know him as a friend and continue to stay in touch with him.”
Hartmann said Beniers was a positive example for him as a teammate, helping to show him the importance of putting in the extra work needed to advance to the next levels of the sport. He recalled a competition Beniers organized within the team, where he challenged everyone to make 5,000 shots during the offseason.
“One hundred shots a day, five days a week throughout the summer,” he said of the challenge. “That’s just one example of many where his inspiring me to put in the work off the ice and turn hockey from something I would just do as an extracurricular activity to something I’m doing on my own.”
Once Hartmann realized that he had the ability to keep playing hockey beyond the recreational level, a major mentor and influence in his development was St. Mark’s head coach Carl Corazzini (Framingham, Mass.). The former BU Terriers captain and NHL forward with the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks over the course of a decade-long pro career in North America and Europe recognized in Hartmann a raw, but able and willing student-athlete whose skills went beyond the sport.
“Tucker was someone who, from the very first year, wanted to take on one, two and three defenders as the puck carrier,” Corazzini said. “As you see it now, the defensive competitiveness that he has … that has been the biggest change in his game over the course of the last two years, and obviously the four years for us. We needed Tucker to play 27 minutes a night and take those risks, but now to watch him on a nightly basis and the work that they’ve done with him at Salmon Arm, he’s turned into a more well-rounded defenseman. He’s always had the competitiveness … he’s always had the will to beat you. I’ve always said if I could take one kid in a must-win game, I’d take Tucker five times. I’d want five of him out there for me.”
Hartmann credited his time at St. Mark’s with giving him a road map for what he wanted to accomplish in hockey, the classroom and beyond. His prep teammates included current Harvard stars Sean Farrell (Hopkinton, Mass.) and Henry Thrun (Southboro, Mass.), both NHL draft picks with the Montreal Canadiens and Anaheim Ducks, respectively. Hartmann singled them out as individuals who helped him to see what right looked like in his first year at the school on and off the ice. Hartmann said he went from weighing 135 pounds as a freshman at St. Mark’s to a 165-pound sophomore, largely because the two inspired him to put the effort into getting himself into the right kind of shape.
Having a coaching mentor like Corazzini was integral to putting the hockey tools and life lessons together in a successful prep hockey career.
“Our relationship started really early,” Hartmann said. “I knew I wanted to go to St. Mark’s in seventh grade. The school was right in my town, and they had such a great reputation as a school and also as a hockey program. Carl Corazzini started out as a coach and someone I wanted to play for, but he evolved into a close friend who I hope to stay in touch with and continue to stay in touch with.
“The first thing I always say about Carl is that he’s more than a coach, and that means he’s given me so much great advice off the ice and given me so much help in things beyond hockey, not to mention that he was a fantastic hockey coach and so much fun to play for. But, his commitment to not just hockey players, but to people, and helping them reach their goals is really something else. He’s a special person, and I’m honored to have played for him and to continue to have a relationship with him.”
Although drafted by the QMJHL’s Gatineau Olympiques in the second round of the 2018 American Draft, going the major junior route was never really in the cards for Hartmann. After going undrafted in the USHL, he continued in prep while also playing for the Neponset Valley River Rats and Boston Junior Bruins programs, eventually setting his sights on the BCHL, widely considered to be Canada’s premier Tier 2 junior league.
“I think the BCHL is becoming more and more apparent as a good option for players coming out of prep,” Hartmann said. “Hopefully, I can continue spreading that word because it’s been a great league and I’ve had such a great experience here.”
As he left the Bay State for British Columbia, Hartmann again leaned on the junior experiences of former prep teammates Farrell and Thrun to help him make the jump. He said that talking to them about their time in juniors and the things they did to prepare themselves went a long way toward assisting him in developing his physical state and mindset playing at a higher level so far from home.
“It’s a lot faster,” he said of the pace of the BCHL vs. prep hockey. “You’ll find that teams are a lot deeper in talent. I think for me, prep school absolutely helped with that and added layers to my game that I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t gone to prep school.”
The biggest thing he did to prepare himself for the step up in competition was to dedicate himself to the weight room. With a compact 5-foot-10 frame, the 180-pound Hartmann has built functional strength without sacrificing the speed, quickness and agility that is so important to his game as a puck-moving defenseman.
“You might not have the greatest hockey sense, but you can make the choice to be in the weight room,” he said. “Because if you can step into this next level and have no worries from coaches that you’re not going to physically hang in, that’s a huge advantage right from the start.”
With eight goals and 33 points in 67 BCHL games going back to the truncated 2020-21 season, Hartmann has been able to make a two-way impression while earning the trust and respect of the coaching staff there.
“His progression has been unbelievable,” Salmon Arm assistant coach Carter Cochrane said. “He came to us as a dynamic offensive talent who could put up points offensively, and we knew he needed to work on the defensive side of his game. He fully embraced that when he got here; he understood the fact that you can’t play offense if you don’t have the puck, and how he’s progressed as a defensive player is part of a huge contribution to our team’s success this year.”
Both coach and player said that Hartmann has adapted his approach to be smarter defensively in his positional play. He’s using his stick more effectively to disrupt rushes and plays, and not trying to force passes that aren’t there.
With Hartmann, it isn’t just about the hockey. He has a strong sense of community service, honed by years of working with his older sister, Nicola, to organize Special Olympics events and work with the athletes, especially children under age 12. The siblings carried their passion for the Special Olympics to St. Mark’s while both studied there, leaving a lasting legacy program that endures even after both graduated. Hartmann has continued to embrace his role as a team ambassador in the special needs community of Salmon Arm. This is a natural extension of his desire to give back, cultivated by parents Jonathan and Jennifer, at a young age.
“There’s no doubt that after Tucker and Nicola graduated, they left our school in a much better place thanks to their work with the Special Olympics,” Corazzini said. “I know it’s a program that our head of school, John Warren, loves, and will speak about quite often in some of his addresses. That’s all a product of what the two of them did when they were here.”
All of that adds up to the kind of player who should be able to thrive in head coach Keith Allain’s (Worcester, Mass.) system at Yale, while being the kind of citizen any university would love to claim as a graduate.
