Like most boys, Toronto native Craig Muni dreamed of playing for the hometown Toronto Maple Leafs, but unlike most boys, Muni's dream became a reality. But from there the dream took a different path.
In the late 1970's, Craig Muni's team was the Mississauga Reps, and eventually he found his way onto to the roster of the St. Michael's Buzzers in the OHA Jr. B league. Scouted high by the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League (OMJHL) scouts, Muni spent three seasons split between the Kingston Canadians and the Windsor Spitfires of the OMJHL, it was there where his dream started to get fulfilled. Muni was selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs with their 1st pick of the 1980 NHL Amateur Draft.
After being bounced around between the OMJHL's Windsor Spitfires, the Central Hockey League's Cincinnati Tigers and the American Hockey League's New Brunswick Hawks and the St. Catherines Saints. Muni finally thought he got his chance with the Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens, the place that Muni dreamed of playing so many years before.
For four seasons from the fall of 1981 to the spring of 1986, Craig Muni was part of the Toronto Maple Leaf organization, but playing in only 19 games it was not what Muni had dreamed about. During his final season in Toronto, playing in only a handful of games, Muni along with his teammates were playing the fast flying Edmonton Oilers. Whatever Muni did that night, impressed Glen Sather and the rest of the Oilers staff, that they signed him as a free agent in the summer of 1986.
But during that summer Muni although never played a game as a member of four different teams thanks to trades etc, but ended up back in Edmonton for opening night at the Northlands Coliseum.
The next few seasons are what dreams are made of. Craig Muni became a mainstay on the Oilers defence thanks to a lot of hard work and a little luck, but along with both of them, he saw his name engraved on the Stanley Cup three times over the next four seasons. For seven seasons, Muni took a regular shift on defence with the mighty Edmonton Oilers.
Following the 1993 season, Muni spent the next five seasons with five different NHL clubs including Chicago, Buffalo, Winnipeg, Pittsburgh and finally Dallas before retiring from his dream after the 1997-98 hockey season.
