This Week in "Don't Miss What to Watch in Middlebury Sports"--Men's Hockey vs. Trinity, Friday, February 14, 700 p.m.

Author: David Lindholm

The last time Trinity faced Middlebury in men's hockey, the Bantams jumped out to a 2-0 lead at Kenyon Arena before Kevin Cooper '04 came up with a hat trick to give the Panthers a dramatic 3-2 win. Anyone remember that game? It was the New England Small College Athletic College (NESCAC) Championship, held on March 3 of last year, and it ended Trinity's season.
The Bantams will return to the site of last year's crushing loss this Friday, and there is sure to be no love lost between the two teams in this Valentine's Day battle. Middlebury is sitting alone at the top of the NESCAC standings with a 13-1-1 league record, whereas Trinity lies in second place at 12-2-1. The Panthers won both meetings last year, both by the same 3-2 score, but in the only meeting of the two teams in the 2000-2001 season, the scoreline was reversed for a Bantam victory. That game, on January 6, 2001, was the last time Middlebury lost to a NESCAC foe.
The Panthers (16-3-1) will be looking to get back on track after a surprising 1-1 tie with Amherst on Saturday, whereas Trinity (13-4-2) is coming off a 6-0 thumping of Skidmore. The Amherst game ended a 13-game Middlebury winning streak, but the Panthers still haven't lost a game in 2003.
"Trinity is a very good team," said Head Coach Neil Sinclair, who expects to face an organized and talented offense. "They are very dangerous in transition and on the power play [which is] operating at 30 percent." The Panthers will be watching out for a trio of Bantam sophomores, as Jeffrey Natale and Joseph Ori will lead the offense and Douglas Kiselius has been providing "solid goaltending," according to Sinclair. The coach also will be looking from big goals from his goalscoring trio, Cooper, Tim Schneider '06, and Tim Graham '05, as well as leadership from his captains. In any event, Sinclair knows he can count on one thing for certain: "It should be an exciting game."