Height: 5-11
Weight: 175
Shoot: L
Born: 10 Nov 1942, Winnipeg MB
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1972-73 | Cleveland | |||||||||||
| 1973-74 | Cleveland | |||||||||||
| 1974-75 | Cleveland | |||||||||||
| 1976-77 | Minnesota | |||||||||||
| Totals: |
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Clearwater the Unspectacular • by Rich Passan • The Hockey Spectator • January 27, 1973
Ray Clearwater is the kind of defenseman who just goes out and does his job the best way he knows how, which is unspectacular. The Cleveland backliner leads the World Hockey Association in unspectacularity. Yet, he is probably the steadiest defenseman the Crusaders have. His coach, Bill Needham, is his top cheerleader. "Game in and game out, Ray has been the best defenseman on the club," says Needham, a backliner of note himself once. "Ray has done everything I've asked of him this season and more," adds Needham. "He has been a most pleasant surprise." Clearwater is the type of hockey player you have to watch exclusively to appreciate what he contributes to a club, He rarely makes a mistake and, when he does, usually covers up quickly. This is the first full shot at the major league for the 30-year-old native of Winnipeg and he's taking full advantage of it. "I'm happy with the way things have gone team-wise," says Clearwater in typically modest fashion. "This is what I base my thinking on. If I feel the team needs a goal, I carry the puck. And if I feel we have enough firepower going and we need to play defensively, that's what I play." Clearwater assesses his individual performance as good, but could be better. "There's always room for improvement," he says. "I'm pleased with myself so far, but not to the point where I'm ecstatic. I could still play a lot better." Ray is a thinking man's defenseman, He always knows what to do with the puck when he latches onto it. "If I have the puck and don't give it to the other team, even though I might have to shoot it down ice rather than give it away, I figure that's a big plus in my game, although I don't do it often." One of the hardest adjustments Ray had to make was learn his teammates' tendencies. "I had to find out their different moves," says the 5-9, 180-pounder. "I had to know which guys were always breaking and those who played a defensive type of game and those who could help you get the puck out of your end. I'd say it's going well for us now." Indeed, The Crusaders have never been lower than third place in the tight East Division race and held first place for the first seven weeks of the campaign. Attitude plays a big part in the Ray Clearwater story. It used to be that everything bothered him, especially the fans of Providence, where he played for six seasons. Somebody had to be the home scapegoat and Ray was it. He was booed unmercifully by the home fans no matter what he did. It got so bad that he was sent to Salt Lake City of the Western Hockey League one season just to get away from the booing. Last season, however, Clearwater changed. It happened at the beginning of the season. "I received the player-of-the-month award and was booed when I received it," he recalls. "As I skated around before the game at which I got the award, I said to myself, 'Now I'm going to show you why I got the award.' And I played a fantastic game. From that point on, I played the best hockey of my career. I didn’t care what the fans said. All of a sudden, it turned around for me. Once in a while now, I hear what the fans say, but I don’t care what they think as long as I know I'm doing my job." Ray had no doubts about making it in the WHA. "l always believed I could play in the National Hockey League because I knew I could skate," he says. "I didn’t think this league was going to be too tough for me. I was just looking for the opportunity to prove myself." Not even the switching of partners hurt Clearwater. He began the season with All-Star Paul Shmyr, but Needham, in a huge vote of confidence, paired Ray with rookie Jimmy McMasters several weeks ago. "They put me with Paul at first because they knew he could do the job and weren't sure I could," he analyzes. "It was a case of helping Paul play his game as offensively as he wanted and backing him up." "With Jimmy," Ray says, "there's more of a responsibility for me to move the puck up ice. It's also a challenge for me to bring out Jimmy's talents. John (Hanna) helped him a lot and hopefully I can do the same for him." The value of Ray Clearwater cannot be found in the hard, cold statistics that are churned out every week by the WHA's front office. It lies in his unspectacular spectacularity. |
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