PITTSBURGH — It was 6:23 p.m. on Thursday and some 20-30 friends and family of Matthew Schaefer were gathered behind the Islanders bench.
They would soon migrate up to a suite to watch Schaefer’s NHL debut but for this, for Schaefer’s rookie lap, they had gone to ice level to take it in, to try and burn it into their memories forever.
“I’m so proud of him,” Todd Schaefer, Matthew’s dad, told The Post minutes before his son flew around NHL ice, sans-helmet, for the first time before a regular-season game. “It’s exciting and nervous. As a dad, you’re always thinking stress and nerves. Some people say to me, ‘You don’t seem like you’re enjoying it. I say, ‘No, I’m having a blast, but as a dad, as a parent, you get worried. You get stressed, you get nervous.’
“I’m just happy for him. He’s excited. He’s pumped and we got a great support system around him, whether it’s at home in Canada, whether it’s in New York, whether it’s on the road.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
