Cleaver cuts through the Middlebury defense Norwich flies by men's hockey team on its season-series-sweeping brooms

Author: Jeff Patterson

Rick Cleaver wears number 11. His name contains 11 letters. Now, he has 11 career game-winning goals.

Skating down the left wing late in the first period, the Norwich University senior cradled a cross-ice pass from one of his penalty-killing teammates, D.J. Fimiani, and then knocked it in for a 1-0 lead. The goal hushed most of the 2,150 fans in Kenyon '85 Arena, who had braved the snowstorm outside to see the fourth-ranked Cadets tussle with the seventh-ranked Panthers, since now the chips were down.

A business major, Cleaver has been all business ever since he first suited up against the Panthers. Over his first five games against the men in blue, Cleaver had scored five goals and helped out on three others.

In his sixth career game against Middlebury on Saturday, Feb. 9, he continued to put the Panther defense at sixes and sevens.

Cleaver's goal, which came 1:24 after fellow Canadian Chad Anderson had been whistled for boarding, was the second such short-handed score the Panthers have given up in their last three games - an uncharacteristic statistic for Middlebury hockey teams, given that they had only given up two goals while on the power play in their previous 36 contests.

"We just got too over-indulged in our power play and really let down defensively," explained co-captain Tom Maldonado '08 after the game. An over-indulged power play that had scored three goals on six chances the previous night in a 7-4 win over St. Michael's College.

Although the Cadets added two more goals - an Eric Lauriault lamp-lighter in the second period that was, as you have might guessed, set up by Cleaver, and an Eric Ouelette third-period strike - the one goal was plenty for goalie David Thompson, who stopped all 29 shots on goal.

Or all 28 shots.

When it was still a two-goal game, Trevor Dodds' '11 left-handed snipe hit something red and the red light behind the goal went on, but contrary to universal traffic laws, the players did not stop.

The referees Rick Santilli, Andy O'Brien and Dave Cioch were not convinced by the initial call by goal judge Al Duclos, and they only stopped play when it was the appropriate time for a face-off.

Fans in the seats were up in arms as they outstretched their arms in disbelief. Duclos, eventually, came out onto the ice and told the refs his version of the story.

"I saw the puck come in, hit the back of the bar inside the goal - either the top of the center bar or the bar beside it, the back bar - and it bounced right back out," said Duclos, during the intermission of the first period of that evening's women's hockey game. "Neither of them really knew for sure. That's the trouble. All three were out [away from the play], there was nobody on the goal line to watch."

It was the third time in his career as a goal judge that Duclos had been called down to the ice to explain why he had pressed the goal button. "I've never had one call turned around yet," he said. "They've always decided that it was not a goal."

At times, one could argue, the line of Santilli, O'Brien and Cioch was the most troublesome for the Panthers - even more so than any one Cadets head coach Mike McShane could put out on the ice.

Forty-seven seconds into what looked to be a promising, first-period power play, Casey Ftorek '08 was handed a ten-minute misconduct for what was more misunderstanding than misbehavior.

Ftorek had settled himself down low in front of Anderson's net, when a Norwich defender slashed his stick, breaking it in two. Ftorek, it goes without saying, was no longer settled down. In an attempt to get a linesman's attention, he unhinged the reaming threads of his Reebok graphite stick and tossed the two pieces into the corner before compliantly skating off back to the bench.

Again, Ftorek was compliant more than he was making a complaint. (It has not been confirmed that any of the referees are dyslexic).

The incident echoed of the 2006 men's NESCAC soccer semifinal game, in which Ftorek was given a red card after just scoring the eventual game-winner with less than 10 minutes to go, when he stuck his neck out for a teammate who had been forcefully fouled. The team's leading goal scorer had to sit out the team's next game, a 0-0 penalty kick loss to Williams in the finals.

Ftorek had a point in both cases - but no points on the score sheet on Saturday.

Instead of sitting next to his teammates, or grabbing another stick to stick with the play, Ftorek had to sit in the penalty box and watch Cleaver go to work.

Now it is time for the Panthers to go to work, though. Fortunately, since Colby lost to last-place Hamilton at home on Saturday and Bowdoin and Amherst spilt its weekend games, Middlebury - with its win over St. Mike's - retained its position atop the NESCAC standings.

The team thus continues to control its own destiny for securing home-ice advantage during the conference playoffs. "We can't rely on other teams to position ourselves," said Maldonado. "For the end result, we have to make sure we're bringing our A-game."