The USA Hockey Foundation announced yesterday that Harvard junior co-captain Jennifer Botterill and senior winger Tammy Shewchuk are two of the three finalists for the 2001 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, which recognizes the accomplishments of the most outstanding player in women's intercollegiate ice hockey each season.

The nomination of Botterill--the consensus favorite to win the award for some time now--comes as no surprise.

Botterill's season has been marked by more than just numbers, although she has plenty of those. Her 73 points, 37 goals and 36 assists in just 26 games give her far and way the best goal and point-per-game averages in the country. She had hat tricks in three consecutive games in late January and was averaging over two goals per-game in ECAC play for the first half of the season.

The importance and timing of the goals she has scored this year--the game-winner against No. 1 Dartmouth which gave No. 3 Harvard its first win over the Big Green in five tries, and her overtime game-winner against Northeastern in the Beanpot for the third consecutive year--are what make her the heavy favorite to win the award.

As for Shewchuk, if there was ever any doubt that she deserved to be one of the three Patty Kazmaier finalists, she buried it all with her performance on Saturday in the ECAC Quarterfinals against Providence. Her hat trick carried her team into overtime, and once there, her words to her teammates in the locker room made Coach Katey Stone reminisce about the 1999 National Championship.

Shewchuk went on to lead by example, delivering the initial shot which sophomore linemate Kalen Ingram turned into the game-winning goal.

Shewchuk has made a remarkable transformation in just two years. In 1999, she scored 51 goals to lead the nation. This year, she stands at just seventh in the nation with 26 goals. She was even further down the list in mid-February when she had just nine goals in her first 16 games.

But her 40 assists--most of which have helped set up Botterill--lead the country.