Georg Smefjell was born in Mysen, a town 70 km south-east of Oslo, but moved to the Norwegian capital as a teenager and soon excelled as a promising ice hockey player with the club Tigrene. At age 20 he was selected to the Norwegian national team, playing all seven games at the 1958 World Championship in Oslo. He played in total 62 official Olympic and World Championship matches for Norway, and was a team member at both the 1964 and 1968 Winter Olympics. Smefjell was Norwegian champion with Tigrene in 1961, and in 1969 was awarded the Golden Puck as Norway’s best player of the season. He retired as a player in 1971, and was selected that year as a board member to the Norwegian Ice Hockey Federation. During the 1970s he was responsible for the selection of players to the Norwegian national team. Later he had a career as a coach with the Oslo club Spartacus. Smefjell worked as a shipbroker until his retirement.