2025 Ring of Honor Inductee: Sylvain
FPHL Danbury Hat Tricks

2025 Ring of Honor Inductee: Sylvain "Sly" Daigle

Published on March 12, 2025 under Federal Prospects Hockey League (FPHL)
Danbury Hat Tricks News Release


DANBURY - The Danbury Hat Tricks are excited to announce Sylvain "Sly" Daigle as the fifth inductee in this year's Danbury Ring of Honor class.

The Danbury Trashers goalie in the 2005-06 season, Daigle played one season in Danbury as his final in both the United Hockey League and as a goalie in professional hockey and registered a 32-13-6 record and two shutouts. The 5-foot-8 Quebec native was drafted by the Winnipeg Jets in the sixth round of the 1995 NHL Draft before playing 10 professional seasons, six in the UHL.

Daigle, who also won three titles with the Muskegon Fury (UHL), will join five other new members in this year's Ring of Honor class. All inductees will be honored on Alumni Night on Saturday, March 29 in a pregame reception inside the Axe Tricks Lounge before the Hat Tricks battle the Binghamton Black Bears at 7 p.m. Alumni in attendance will be introduced on the ice at the first intermission.

"This is a phenomenal honor and it's great that hockey is still in Danbury," Daigle said. "In Danbury's first year, Muskegon played against them in the playoffs and took them out and that was the first time I actually met their general manager AJ Galante. I didn't even know who he was, but he came onto the bus, shook our hands, and congratulated us. All of a sudden, he came to me and said, 'Congratulations on your job. If you need anything next year, let me know.'

"I didn't know who he was. And as a joke, I said, 'AJ, I'm going to be in Danbury next year.' And he said, 'Yeah? Well, just let me know.' It just happened that over the summer I ended up playing there. It made great memories that I had there," Daigle continued.

Added former Trashers general manager and Hat Tricks special advisor to the general manager AJ Galante, "I just remember seeing this little guy playing goal for Muskegon and he single-handedly beat us. He wasn't the prototypical goalie, he wasn't a big guy. He was a small, scrappy, little underdog type of guy. And I just remember, after the season, saying 'Let's just go after the guy that single-handedly knocked us out.' I still, to this day, don't know how we were able to get him for our second season."

Besides succeeding in the UHL, Daigle also played two seasons for the Mississippi Seawolves, members of the ECHL in 1996-97 and 1999-00, and four with the AHL's Springfield Falcons from 1996-99 and in 1999-00, before signing with the Trashers.

"We had a great team in the second year being led by head coach Paul Gillis," Daigle said. "It was definitely a different atmosphere than what I was used to, but it was a phenomenal place, and the players were treated very well. When you played there, you really felt like part of a family ... It's a business-oriented franchise. I wasn't accustomed to seeing the owner in the dressing room all the time and hearing speeches in between periods. This was a little different but, at the same time, it brought caring from the owners every time you saw them."

Since retiring from professional hockey, Daigle has worked as the Logistics Coordinator at Exo-s, a plastic system designer and manufacturer, in Howe, Indiana, since January 2017.

"He embodies the Trashers mentality; he was an underdog," Galante said. "He was a little guy. He didn't have an imposing figure, which doesn't make sense because the Trashers were imposing figures. But for a goalie, he was an underdog and had to work twice as hard to get things done ... To have a banner in the name of the stands with your name on it, it's special. It's something that brings out a lot of emotion and he deserves it."

On Alumni Night, the Hat Tricks will raise a banner including the names of this year's honorees next to the team's banners, the previous Danbury Ring of Honor members, and former Whalers winger Corey Fulton's retired number.

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