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After her Syracuse career ended, Savannah Rennie wanted more than a professional hockey contract. She wanted to travel the world.

Her collegiate seasons were nearly seven months long, starting in September and ending the first week of March at the earliest. If the Orange advanced to the NCAA tournament like they did Rennie’s junior year, the season ended even later. There were only two months during the school year where she wasn’t playing games, and it made studying abroad impossible. 

Rennie’s desire to travel led her to pass up an opportunity to play with the Connecticut Whale of the National Women’s Hockey League, which had drafted her in the third round on April 29. She instead inked a deal on May 26 with Memmingen Indians, a team in the DFEL, Germany’s domestic women’s ice hockey league. 

Last season, Rennie scored eight goals last season and tallied 23 points as a forward for the Orange. The city of Memmingen, on the banks of the Iller River, will now be home to Syracuse’s latest standout to play professionally.

“As much as I say I want to get on with life and start my career, hockey is still so much a part of my life that I don’t want to stop playing,” Rennie said. “Because once I stop playing that’s it, I don’t think I’ll go back.”

When the Harborcenter’s final horn sounded on March 6 in the College Hockey America semifinals, it didn’t just signal a 5-2 loss to Robert Morris that ended Syracuse’s season. It ended Rennie’s career in orange, and it could’ve ended her career entirely. But Rennie wanted to continue playing while she was still fit, healthy and strong enough to do so. 

The NWHL, one of the top levels of women’s professional ice hockey, is in a tumultuous state. Proximity to major markets, partnerships with NHL teams and access to some of the best international talent makes the league highly competitive. But when countered by the dissolved Canadian Women’s Hockey League and league-wide dissatisfaction over salaries, lack of insurance and league structure, there was a mass exodus of players that spawned the creation of the Professional Women’s Ice Hockey Association.

With Memmingen, Rennie’s able to avoid the turmoil and work three days each week with the team’s main sponsor while playing games in a country she’s never been to before.

“Just think about the thrills that go along with being over there,” Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan said. “You’re a short drive to Austria, a decent drive to get to Italy and Switzerland, short flights to Ireland. It’s going to be unbelievable.” 

During Flanagan’s four years coaching Rennie, they were only able to reach the NCAA tournament once, when the Orange won their first CHA title in 2019. The run was short-lived, ending in a 4-0 loss to Wisconsin in the first round. 

In four seasons at Syracuse, Savannah Rennie scored 27 goals and had two multi-goal games. Emily Steinberger | Photo Editor

Meanwhile, Memmingen finished second in the 2019-20 DFEL season with an 18-2 record. The Indians were only behind Planegg-Würmtal ESC, who finished 18-1-1. 

The second-place finish in the DFEL secured Memmingen a spot in the European Women’s Ice Hockey League, which brings together the top-finishing professional women’s clubs from various European domestic leagues. Rennie likes this format, one that doesn’t exist in a similar capacity for professional women’s hockey in North America.

Trevor Hildebrand, Rennie’s coach at Manitoba’s Shaftesbury Prep High School, said she always “marches to the beat of her own drum.” She’s always had lethal offensive abilities, and has provided insight to coaches before and after games and practices about what she saw on the ice, Hildebrand said.

It’s for those reasons that Hildebrand believes Rennie decided to play in Germany, and also why he thinks she’ll thrive there. Going to Memmingen would allow Rennie to carve her own path and be a vital offensive asset to the Indians, who averaged 4.65 goals per game in 2019-2020 and were never shut out.

“It might be a league where she can really just let her offensive talents take over and be a little bit more creative,” Hildebrand said. 

But figuring out where to spend the next year of her life didn’t come down simply to goals scored and style of play. Rennie consulted with past Syracuse players currently playing professionally to learn about living and playing in Europe after finishing a collegiate career. She spoke to Allie Munroe, who played at Syracuse from 2015-2019 and currently plays in Stockholm, Sweden. 

Rennie started to favor the European path over signing with Connecticut. She knew she’d join Memmingen by May 2 before officially signing on May 26. And now, Rennie said she plans on being in Germany by mid-August for training camp, provided the DFEL is able to run a full season. 

“At the end of the day it kinda came down to experience for me,” Rennie said. “When it came down to factoring the two teams, I just kind of wanted to go somewhere new, somewhere unknown and experience something different.”

Published on May 30, 2020 at 3:11 pm

Contact Will: wrhentsc@syr.edu