Tied 2-2 against the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Patriotes in double-overtime Feb. 26, defenceman Justin Caruana tensely watched his team from behind the glass.
The Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team was one goal away from going to the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) semifinals. But it was the Patriotes who emerged victorious, and Caruana couldn’t do anything about it.
In his last year of eligibility, Caruana was only a few weeks away from full recovery after a concussion sidelined him Jan. 6 in a game against UQTR.
Caruana came to Carleton in 2007 after his Ontario Hockey League career ended with the Peterborough Petes. Ravens head coach Marty Johnston, an assistant coach at the time, said he remembers Caruana being brought in as a building block for the program.
“As a leader, he got better and better every year,” Johnston said.
In his first season, Caruana dressed for 28 games, putting up 12 goals and nine assists playing as a forward. In his third year, with the team running into injury issues on the back end, he moved back to play defence. He adjusted successfully and during the 2010-2011 season, chalked up 19 points in 25 games.
But his fifth and final year with the team was interrupted Jan. 6. The Ravens were playing the Patriotes, a matchup that has become a familiar rivalry in the OUA East. Caruana left the ice with a concussion. The incessant headaches were telling.
Off the ice, he remained a dynamic voice and in Johnston’s mind was a big part of the team’s preparation.
“After that game I thought, ‘I’m not going to be done,’” Caruana recalls.
Caruana grew with this team and after 117 regular season starts, played more games as a Raven than anyone else in the team’s history.
After the team’s final game, Ravens captain Brandon MacLean was also blank with disbelief in the dressing room. After four years with the program, the Burlington, Ont. native is also moving on.
“I started looking back over the season and the past four years,” MacLean said, describing the past four years as the best of his life.
When MacLean came to the program, he brought along his customary good luck tap with his stick at centre ice before every game. Immediately, he made his mark and would go on to lead the Ravens in points in every season.
He’s the all-time leader in assists in Ravens history, recording 96 in 108 regular season games. Johnston said he was the program’s “highest profile recruit to date,” but MacLean insisted he was “playing with some pretty damn good players.”
Besides being the team’s leading scorer, MacLean was also the “hardest working player in practice,” Johnston said.
MacLean also had a few words to say about his friend and teammate Caruana.
“He’s a guy teams need in a dressing room, a real character guy and when he was healthy, he was a heck of a hockey player for Carleton,” he said.
For Caruana, finishing school is now the most important thing to him with his hockey future uncertain. Even though MacLean has tapped centre ice at the Ice House for the last time, he’s still lacing up the skates.
About 2,000 km south, MacLean is already embarking on his professional career in the East Coast Hockey League. He played his first game with the Florida Everblades, the same team former Ravens captain Brad Good joined after graduation, March 3rd.
“I like it down here so far [and] all the guys made me feel welcome,” MacLean said.
