{"id":244515,"date":"2025-10-22T21:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/244515\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T21:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:44:07","slug":"matthew-schaefer-has-found-a-home-with-matt-martins-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/244515\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Schaefer has found a home with Matt Martin’s family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long Island has embraced Matthew Schaefer<\/a> as one of its own, but the Martin family literally has taken him in.<\/p>\n

Schaefer, the Islanders\u2019 18-year-old rookie sensation and No. 1 overall pick in June\u2019s NHL Draft, is living with Matt Martin<\/a>, the longtime Islander fourth-liner and now a special assistant to general manager Mathieu Darche.<\/p>\n

Martin and his wife, Sydney Esiason Martin, already had a full house with four young children \u2014\u00a0each 5 or younger. Now they have added a teenager, one who is gaining fame by the day and quickly becoming part of the family dynamic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe met Matt right after the draft, so he instantly, I think, just took a connection to him,\u201d Sydney said Wednesday morning on \u201cBoomer & Gio<\/a>,\u201d her father Boomer Esiason\u2019s<\/a> WFAN radio show. \u201cThey are like buds, and he was comfortable with him. So I kind of knew it was maybe going to happen. He had, obviously, other players offering it to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he came over a lot for dinner, and then his dad, about a couple weeks ago, said to Matt, \u2018He’s really comfortable at your house. I know it’s a lot to take on. I know you guys have four kids. But he loves your house, loves being with your kids, and he’s comfortable there. So do you think you guys would take him in?\u2019 And actually, his agent is also Matt’s former agent. So Pat [Morris], the agent, was calling us and asking if we’d be OK with it. And I was wrapping my head around it for a few weeks, and it just fell into place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schaefer, from Hamilton, Ontario, has a six-game point streak to start his NHL career<\/a>, his latest performance including a goal and an assist in the Islanders\u2019 4-3 home win over the Sharks on Tuesday night. But it is in the Martin residence where the defenseman truly is becoming a star, forming a bond with 5-year-old Winnie, nearly 3-year-old Alice and twin boys Henning and Bear, who were born in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gets to see Alice every morning, and she goes nuts,\u201d said Sydney, who took all four children to the Islanders\u2019 game against Winnipeg on Oct. 13. \u201cIt’s like she hasn’t seen him in four days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schaefer\u2019s teenage years have come with plenty of adversity. His mother, Jennifer, died in February 2024 following a two-year battle with breast cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted him to feel at home,\u201d Sydney said. \u201cI ended up framing a bunch of pictures of him and his mom, his dad and his brother, his girlfriend, and put them in his room when he first moved in. And Matt and I got so awkward that we both didn’t want to bring him up to the room because we didn’t know if he was going to get emotional or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we had Winnie bring him up, and he was touched by that and he was very thankful that I put those out for him. And I think he’s definitely feeling comfortable, and we’re getting into a groove here. So it\u2019s working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schaefer agrees.<\/p>\n

“I became close with them [Martin and his family]\u00a0and I\u2019d consider him either a dad or an older brother to me in ways,” Schaefer said after the Islanders beat the Oilers last week. “Sometimes he can be serious and a dad and sometimes he can be younger than me in ways. He\u2019s been awesome. I wrestle him and stuff. It\u2019s like a brother thing now. He\u2019s helped me so much, him and his family. I look at it as I\u2019ve got two sisters now and two brothers [Martin\u2019s four young children]. It\u2019s fun to go play with them and hang out with them. They definitely keep me busy, if it\u2019s dress-up or games or I have to act like I\u2019m Elsa [from Frozen] or someone. It\u2019s been awesome. They\u2019ve helped me so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Martins are paying for everything related to Schaefer\u2019s living, and Sydney renovated a room in the basement for him. She said she is sure he will pick up some dinners, and he did supply a housewarming gift: a roll of toilet paper.<\/p>\n

She said the living arrangement is a \u201cfull-season commitment,\u201d assuming Schaefer wants to find his own place next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs your dad, I’m very proud of that, that you’re doing this,\u201d Boomer said.<\/p>\n

It is not an uncommon occurrence for rookie NHLers to live with veterans.<\/p>\n

“A lot of guys in the league, rookies, go in and live with veterans,” Sydney said. “A lot of people didn\u2019t, I don’t think, know that. But [Mathew]\u00a0Barzal did that with the [Dennis] Seidenbergs. Noah Dobson did that with Seidenbergs. Lou [Lamoriello]\u00a0in Toronto made sure that the first year with Mitch Marner and Auston [Matthews]\u00a0that their parents were in town, or at least kind of living with them.”<\/p>\n

Sydney said that Schaefer likes Skittles, though he is happy eating whatever the Martin family wants for dinner. She is doing his laundry, but he keeps walking into Matt\u2019s closet and wearing his clothes \u2014\u00a0including a Gucci T-shirt, a Todd Snyder jacket and cargo pants Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think stability is important, especially that first year,\u201d Sydney said. \u201cThere’s a camera in his face every two seconds right now. He told me this morning that Reese Witherspoon followed him on Instagram. He’s getting a lot of exposure, and I know that there’s a lot of pressure, especially taking on that pressure at that age.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to make sure that we’re an outlet for him at home if he makes a mistake and if [he]\u00a0has a bad game \u2014\u00a0which seems to not happen so far. So I think it’s important that he has somebody like us and a family to come home to and take his mind off things when things get a little hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsday’s Andrew Gross contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports’ general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday\u2019s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins’ teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Island has embraced Matthew Schaefer as one of its own, but the Martin family literally has taken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[394,385,99,133970],"class_list":{"0":"post-244515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-new-york-islanders","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wfan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}