Munroe to have first Christmas as father
GLENS FALLS — Hockey will be one of the last things on Scott Munroe’s mind for the next few days.
The goaltender, like most of his Adirondack Phantoms teammates, has left town for the American Hockey League’s holiday break. The team isn’t scheduled to reconvene until practice Thursday morning, and the extended break represents the only inseason chance for many players to go home and see their families.
Munroe, though, is probably a little more excited for Tuesday than most of the 20- somethings on the team.
His son, Jack, was born a little more than three months ago. This is Munroe’s first Christmas as a father.
“It’s fun,” Munroe said. “It’s an exciting time. It’s a little something differ-
ent this year. Almost more so than my wife and I, the grandparents are pretty excited. They’ve got a pretty big shopping list for him.”
Munroe planned to head to his offseason home in Connecticut, where the family will celebrate the holiday, immediately after the Phantoms wrapped up their game in Bridgeport Saturday.
His wife, Jade, was planned to head to the house earlier to get the tree and decorations set up for his arrival that night.
Munroe’s father is shipping in some presents – likely hockey equipment, Munroe said – from Canada. Most of his wife’s family is from the Connecticut area, so they will bring gifts over Christmas Day. Jack is the first grandchild for Jade’s parents, Munroe said, so he’s suspecting they may wind up going overboard.
“His grandpa on my wife’s side is already getting him hunting and fishing stuff,” he said. “He’s jumping the gun a little bit, so we’ll see what he comes up with.”
Munroe and his wife are being a little more sensible with their gift selections.
“This year I think we’re kind of leaving a lot of that up to the grandparents and the aunts and uncles,” Munroe said. “They’ve loaded up pretty good. We haven’t got too much stuff. I’ve kind of set aside a little college fund for him already, so I’m just going to put a little bit in there for Christmas this year.”
T h e extravagant presents may come later in life, when Jack is old enough to remember them.
With any luck, his son will talk about the really good ones forever. Munroe and many of the Phantoms still are.
The goalie was in his early teens when his father bought him a black, pro- style goalie mask. They’re commonplace in the AHL and NHL today, but not every youth hockey goalie in the mid-1990s had one.
“That was pretty awesome,” Munroe said. “I remember opening that up. That’s the one that really sticks out. That was my first one. That’s kind of when I started to get serious about goaltending.”
Teammate Shane Harper became a winger later in life, but tended goal for street hockey games in Valencia, Calif. He was in grade school when one of the biggest boxes he’d ever seen was under the tree.
“My parents got me pads. I just wore them around the house playing goalie,” he said with a laugh, calling them his alltime favorite present. “I still can remember what they looked like too. That was pretty fun.”
Defenseman Matt Konan’s parents didn’t wrap their son’s first hockey net, which was waiting for him under the tree one year. A six- or seven-year old Konan had asked for it, but never thought he’d get one.
“I saw it and my eyes lit up,” Konan said. “Didn’t know what to say. I just started jumping around. I was really excited. Played with it every day for like five hours a day. I was happy and that was my favorite one.”
Fellow defenseman Danny Syvret had one of the more interesting holiday traditions on the team.
Growing up in London, Ontario, the Syvret siblings would always wake up before dawn on Christmas morning to see what Santa had left them under For more Adirondack Phantoms coverage, check out Rink Report at therinkreport. blogspot.com the tree. Their parents, though, weren’t really early birds.
“Santa would always put the stocking beside our bed when we woke up and in the stocking would be a video game of some sort,” Syvret said. “We would pump that in and that would occupy us from about four in the morning until whenever our parents decided to wake up. Then we’d go out to the Christmas tree.”
His all- time favorite present, though, didn’t fit under the tree. A preteen Syvret thought hot tubs were “one of the coolest things ever” and one year, his parents had one installed behind the family home.
“I didn’t even know they had done it all until Christmas had come and they said to go out the back,” he said. “It was already set up and everything. I thought that was pretty cool.”
Nowadays, Syvret is just happy he’s getting a chance to see those same siblings at the holidays. One brother lives in Florida and another plays hockey in the ECHL, so face- to- face time in- season is limited.
“I bought a house this summer so everyone’s flying in on the 23rd,” Syvret said. “We’re going to spend Christmas there until the 26th – in London.”