MUSKEGON – It’s pretty normal for talented young hockey players to leave home very early to play in AAA junior leagues based in distant cities.
That was the case for Tanner Latsch, who grew up in the Twin Lake area and attended Reeths-Puffer High School through his freshman year, before heading to the east side of the state to play with the elites.
But there was one big difference for Tanner, who was pretty shy and quiet as a young teen. Most kids who go that route live with host billet families, but Tanner’s mom, Joanie Latsch, wasn’t ready for that to happen.
She moved to Troy, Michigan with Tanner about four years ago, so her 15-year-old could play in the reputable Honeybaked AAA junior hockey program.
A year later the two of them moved to nearby Canton, Michigan, so Tanner could play for the U.S. National Junior Development program, better known to hockey fans as Team USA.
The situation was challenging for the family, because Joanie was living with Tanner in the Detroit area, while her husband Mick Latsch and younger son Briar stayed back in Twin Lake. Yet they decided it was worth it to allow Tanner to pursue his hockey dream while still maintaining the close family connection.
[1]“They usually go and live with billet families, but Tanner was more of a quiet kid, and we were able to make it work,” Joanie Latsch said. “I wasn’t able to have a job. I was back and forth a lot, which kind of made that impossible, but my husband worked extra hard, and both of our boys had a parent with them.”
Tanner said he liked having his mom with him as he experienced the broader hockey world, learned to play against tough competition, and had the thrill of traveling overseas for various international tournaments.
“I was so young, and my mom wasn’t ready for me to live with anyone else,” Tanner told MuskegonSports.com. “Living with her made the transition a lot easier. I did online school my first year there, so I didn’t have to deal with public school, and I was just able to focus on hockey. It was nice to have my mom there with me.”
The situation changed a lot for Tanner after the 2019-20 season, when he aged out of the Team USA program and went into the United States Hockey League draft.
He and his family hoped he would be drafted by the Muskegon Lumberjacks, but it didn’t work out that way. He’s been playing for the USHL’s Des Moines Buccaneers for the past two seasons and has continued to develop nicely as a player and a young adult.
He currently leads his team in goals and can’t wait for the opportunity to lace his skates at Northern Michigan University next season. And although he tries not to think about it, he’s also looking forward to the possibility of eventually being drafted by an NHL team.
[2]Tanner has also become more confident and independent, traits he displayed last summer when he learned of a well-meaning plot to get him back to town.
It turns out his dad quietly reached out to Tanner’s hockey advisor, asking if something could be done to arrange a trade with the Lumberjacks.
Tanner shot down that idea when he got wind of it, because he was 19 by then, enjoyed playing in Des Moines, and figured it was a time to learn to live on his own.
“We were getting a new coaching staff here, I heard great things about them, so I thought it would be great for me to stay here another year,” he said. “I graduated from high school, and most kids go off to college and live in the dorm. I just figured it was time for me to do that sort of thing and live on my own. It’s helped me mature.”
Of course Joanie Latsch would have loved to have Tanner back home for a year, playing with the Lumberjacks, but she was impressed with the maturity he showed by standing his ground.
“He was just like, no I’m not going (to play in Muskegon),” she said. “I was pretty proud of the way he recognized that his focus needed to be on hockey, instead of all the distractions he would have had here.”
From Muskegon Chiefs to Team USA
Tanner was very small – only two or three years old – when his parents started taking him to watch the Muskegon Fury, an old pro team that played at the former L.C. Walker Arena, now Mercy Health Arena.
Despite his extreme youth, Tanner was immediately hooked by the spectacle he witnessed on the ice.
“We would take him to the games, and he would sit and watch the entire time,” Joanie Latsch said. “That was the longest he ever sat still for anything. It was kind of amazing. It was like his calling.”
The Fury played in the old Colonial Hockey League, which was known as much for the fighting as the hockey, and Tanner remembers loving every moment of that.
“I loved the fights – that was my favorite part,” he said. “There were probably three or four per game.”
[3]Tanner was on skates by the time he was four, spent a few years in youth leagues at the Lakeshore Sports Centre, then switched over to play juniors with the Muskegon Chiefs.
He gives a lot of credit to one of his former youth coaches, Shawn Zimmerman, for teaching him a lot about playing at a high level.
“If it wasn’t for him I don’t know if I would have been the player I am now,” Tanner said. “He’s been a coach for a long time. He just knows what it takes to go to the next level, and it’s worked out pretty good for me so far.”
Tanner was 11 or 12 when he started playing for the AAA Meijer hockey program based in Grand Rapids, and 15 when he joined the Honeybaked program.
Tanner said he never gave any serious thought to staying home for high school and playing at Reeths-Puffer, despite the growing stature of high school hockey.
“I talked to a lot of people who told me that travel hockey was the way to go if you want to be successful,” he said. “You get a lot of exposure playing for Honeybaked. The team I played on had two players who were drafted by the NHL.”
[4]After Honeybaked he played one season and part of another for the Team USA 17-Under squad, which competes in the USHL. He said his team only played the Lumberjacks in Muskegon once during that time, but he enjoyed it.
‘It wasn’t the greatest outcome,” he said. “I’m pretty sure we lost 9-1, but a bunch of my family and friends were there. It was an awesome experience.”
In 2019-20 Tanner moved up to the Team USA 18-Under squad, a top-level junior team that plays a partial USHL schedule, but also competes against a lot of college teams and in international tournaments.
His travels took him to places like Sweden, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Italy, where he played against teams from many other countries, and had the chance to do some sightseeing on the side.
His parents were with him for a couple of the trips, which made the journeys extra special.
“We went to downtown Stockholm and Prague,” he said. “It was cool to see how other countries compare to ours.”
‘I’m just excited to be on that path’
The 2019-20 season ended early due to the onset of COVID, and Tanner aged out of his Team USA eligibility. He and his family were hoping he would be selected by the Lumberjacks in that year’s USHL draft, but Des Moines had the pick right before Muskegon and snagged Tanner away.
“The Lumberjacks had the fourth pick, but Des Moines had the third, and they took him,” Joanie Latsch said. “We were bummed out. He grew up in that arena (in Muskegon).”
After being away from home so long, Tanner took the news in stride.
“I mean, yeah, I would have loved it, just being able to play in my hometown,” he said. “I moved away from home during my sophomore year of high school, so it would have been nice to be at home with family and friends. I definitely wasn’t happy about (being drafted by Des Moines) at first, but now I am. I still had the opportunity to go play and better myself, and it’s a great hockey town.”
Tanner had a solid first season in Des Moines in 2020-21, totaling 12 goals and 4 assists while being limited to 44 games due to various injuries.
He had already accepted a hockey scholarship to Northern Michigan University, and a lot of people expected him to begin his collegiate career this season, but he thought long and hard and decided to stay in Des Moines one more year.
[5]He’s off to a very good start this season, with a team-leading 10 goals in the first 20 games.
“I have good players around me who like to get me the puck, and my job is to put it in the back of the net,” Tanner said. “I’m doing pretty well with that. I have to credit my linemates and teammates. They make it pretty easy for me to score.”
When this season ends, Tanner will be off to NMU, where he will play high-level Division 1 college hockey and will be watched by even more pro scouts. He admits that he would love to be drafted and eventually play in the NHL, but chooses to focus on the path he’s on, rather than dwell on that dream.
“It’s every kid’s dream to play in the NHL, and it’s definitely my goal, but it’s a long path to get to that point,” he said. ‘I’m just excited to be on that path and see where it will take me. Not many people get the chance to travel overseas to play their sport and meet and play with so many new teammates who become lifelong friends. Not many sports offer that.”
As fate would have it, the Des Moines Buccaneers play in the USHL’s Western Conference, while Muskegon plays in the Eastern Conference. Teams from the two conferences don’t play each other during the regular season, at least beyond the season-opening UHSL Classic in Pittsburgh.
The Buccaneers have never played in Muskegon during Tanner’s time with the team, and it probably won’t happen, unless the two teams happen to both advance to the Clark Cup finals next spring.
[6]Joanie Latsch said she watches most of the Buccaneers’ games via internet, but her and her husband make the long drive west to Des Moines as often as possible. They have gotten to know the billet family he stays with in Iowa, and like the way they treat their boy.
“I try to go out there about once a month,” she said. “It takes nearly eight hours. It’s a long drive. It’s kind of tough. I feel like I don’t make it out there enough.
“He has a really cool billet family. They are a lot like our family. They are really good people. Every time we go out there we go out to dinner with them.”
Ironically, Tanner thinks their shared hockey experience has helped his mom come out of her shell, just as much as it helped him.
“She was always kind of shy when I was younger, but when we moved away so I could play for Honeybaked she met a lot of new people and got to experience more things,” he said about his mom. “She made a lot of friends that she still talks to quite a bit. I think that’s pretty cool.”