MEN'S HOCKEY

NORTHFIELD, Vt. - For the second straight season, Norwich University senior men's ice hockey standout Rick Cleaver was named the ECAC East "Player of the Year" and was also selected to the all-league first team.

Nikita Kashirsky joined Cleaver on the first team, while David Thompson earned second team honors. Sylvain Messier rounded out NU's list of honorees as the freshman defenseman was named to the all-rookie team.

Additionally, Norwich head coach Mike McShane was named ECAC East "Coach of the Year" after leading the Cadets to the regular season title with a 15-4-0 league mark.

Cleaver led the Cadets and the ECAC East this season with 27 goals and 44 points. The senior from Parksville, B.C., also ranked second on the squad with 17 assists. Cleaver topped the club with seven power play goals, and tied for the team lead with two short-handed tallies.

It marks the third straight year that Cleaver has received all-league plaudits after earning first-team recognition as a junior and second-team laurels as a sophomore. Cleaver currently ranks tied for seventh with George Gaudreau (NU '80) and John Kennedy ('63) on the Norwich all-time list for goals scored with 98 career markers. He recorded his 150th career point last Saturday in Norwich's 8-0 blanking of Skidmore and enters this weekend's ECAC East Frozen Four with 152 career points.

Kashirsky was an offensive force for the Cadets all season long, and he currently ranks second on the team with 18 goals and 34 points. Known for his creativity with the puck and his knack for scoring on breakaways, Kashirsky ranks third on the club with 16 assists. He has scored three power play goals and a pair of short-handed goals. His short-handed marker against Bowdoin helped seal that crucial victory in the team's regular season finale. The junior from Moscow, Russia, also tops the Cadets with six game-winning goals.

Kashirsky was the 2006 ECAC East "Rookie of the Year" and has emerged as one of the top players in the league over the last three seasons. He will look to improve on his already impressive numbers next year as a senior.

Thompson, Norwich's sophomore goaltender, earned second-team honors after another solid season between the pipes. The Wainwright, Alb., native has posted a 12-2-0 overall record to go along with a tidy .900 save percentage and a microscopic 2.13 goals-against average. Thompson has recorded a pair of shutouts in his 14 starts. His banner game this season came at Middlebury, when he backstopped the Cadets' 3-0 victory over the Panthers. It marked the first time that Middlebury had been shutout at home since 1981.

A gifted defenseman from St. Hyacinthe, Que., Messier has made a positive impact for Norwich on the blue line since the opening weekend. The freshman has scored three goals and registered nine assists for 12 points so far this year. All three of his goals have come on the power play, where he generally plays one of the points and fires hard slap shots toward the net. Two of his three tallies have been game-winning goals.

McShane, who is in his 13th season at Norwich, has led the Cadets to their 10th straight ECAC East regular season title. The team is gunning for its seventh ECAC East Tournament title under McShane this weekend.  Norwich (20-6-0) has won 20 games for a third straight season, and the ninth time in 13 years under McShane.