Sunday, April 8, 2001, was a memorable night for the Harvard women’s hockey program, even though the women’s college hockey season had already been over for two weeks.

At the University of Minnesota’s Mariucci Arena, one of a handful of arenas in the United States that maintains an Olympic-sized ice surface, the U.S. and Canadian Women’s National Teams met for a game of Olympic proportions, one that would determine the champion of the world in 2001.

Each team featured elite talent and unmatched depth. So many players on each roster had the ability to be the heroes of the day. But what turned out to be the deciding factor were the Harvard hockey players.

The U.S. and Canada each boasted two players with Crimson ties: the Americans had defensemen A.J. Mleczko ’97-’99 and Angela Ruggiero ’02-’04, and the Canadians had Jennifer Botterill ’02-’03 and Tammy Shewchuk ’00-’01. The four together had led Harvard to its first national championship in 1999. Then while Ruggiero started a year sabbatical in the fall of 2000, Botterill and Shewchuk stuck around and led Harvard to the Inaugural NCAA Women’s Frozen Four the following spring.

And on April 8, Botterill and Shewchuk led Canada to its seventh consecutive world hockey championship.

Canadian Coach Daniele Sauvageau chose to keep the longtime teammates together on the same line throughout the tournament, teaming them up with Kelly Bechard. Their line came through at the halfway point of the championship game, when Bechard found Shewchuk wide open at the edge of the crease for a goal that put Canada up 2-1.

Then with 3:15 left in the game, Canadian defenseman Therese Brisson found an opportunistic Botterill wide open at the edge of the crease for the critical insurance goal. Botterill’s goal turned out to be the game-winner, as Mleczko scored with 1:19 left to force a final score of Canada 3, United States 2. Or it could just have as easily been called Harvard 3, Rest of the World 2.

Harvard Coach Katey Stone was in attendance, watching the game carefully, volunteering as a WHRB between-period analyst, and switching between U.S. and Canada cheers more often than anyone in the building.

“It was really hard because one minute A.J. scores and I’m all over the place, one minute Tammy scores and I’m all over the place, and people are looking at me, saying ‘You’re American,’” Stone said. “Yes, I’m an American, but I also coached these kids. They’re not Canadians or Americans when they play for me. They’re Harvard hockey players.”

And those four won’t be the last National Team players to come through Harvard. U.S. forward Julie Chu, like approximately 1,600 high school seniors across the country each year, decided to enroll in Harvard before the May 1 deadline. Like Botterill and Ruggiero, Chu expects to play in the 2002 Olympics and join the Harvard hockey team in the fall of 2002. The three Harvard students and two Harvard alumni Shewchuk and Mleczko are all in good shape to make their respective Olympic Teams when the National Team rosters are cut down to 20 players.

Salt Lake City will be hosting the second women’s hockey tournament in Olympic history from Feb. 8 to Feb. 24. The Canadians and the Americans are the heavy favorites to advance to the gold medal game, and both sides want to win badly. Though the Canadians have won all seven World Championship hockey tournaments, they have yet to win a gold medal after falling to the U.S. at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano. The U.S. is eager to defend its title and take advantage of a rare opportunity to win a gold medal on its own soil.

Maple Leaf Magic

Botterill’s first Olympic tryout run began in 1996 when she caught the eye of national level coaches in Calgary during her senior year of high school, and, like Chu, she postponed her college entry to make a run at the Olympics. That trip resulted in a silver medal, thanks to a 3-1 loss to the United States in the gold medal game.

“There is so much excitement, so much pressure and so much crowd support at the Olympics,” Botterill said. “It had been a dream of mine since I was really small to go to the Olympics and represent Canada, so to get there it was incredible.”

Shewchuk, on the other hand, never made it onto that 1998 Olympic team. She postponed her sophomore year at Harvard to try out for the team but she was cut from the final roster by Coach Shannon Miller. Shewchuk has been a national-team mainstay since Miller, who coached Minnesota-Duluth to the first NCAA women’s hockey title last season, was fired shortly after the Nagano loss.