When the Harvard women's hockey team closed out its 2000-01 season with an emotional 3-2 win over top rival Dartmouth at Minneapolis in the consolation game of the inaugural Women's Frozen Four, the victory on the ice that day was an afterthought. The team's reflections were focussed entirely on the players it was losing that day.

"A lot of great players finished their careers today at Harvard," said Harvard Coach Katey Stone at the conclusion of the season. "It's not really about us winning the game today. We started to get good when these seniors and Tammy Shewchuk came to Harvard."

This year's senior class graduates as the winningest in the history of Harvard women's hockey. While this year's team (24-10-0, 20-4-0 ECAC) could not repeat the feats of the 1999 National Championship squad, the accomplishments this season-a third consecutive Beanpot title, a second-place finish at ECACs, and a third-place finish at the first NCAA women's ice hockey tournament-made it a special year nonetheless.

There was serious doubt at beginning of the season as to whether this year's team could make it back to Minneapolis, once All-World defenseman Angela Ruggiero `02-04 announced that she was taking the year off to train for the Olympics with the U.S. National Team.

When the season opened, the Crimson had just 11 forwards and defensemen available, as Shewchuk and junior co-captain Jennifer Botterill were both playing with the Canadian National Team, and freshman Mina Pell was still scoring goals for the Crimson field hockey team on the same weekend. Nevertheless, Harvard still hung close in defeat with a pair of nationally-ranked teams in spite of the reduced roster, proving that the Crimson could not be taken lightly no matter who was on the ice.

While the Crimson's fifth consecutive defeat to then-No. 1 Dartmouth on Nov. 18 in Botterill's first game back was a setback, momentum turned back in Harvard's favor the next weekend, when Shewchuk passed A.J. Mleczko `97-`99 as the Crimson's all-time leading goal scorer. She would also break Mleczko's school records for assists and points before the end of the season.

"Tammy has really become a complete player," Stone said. "She plays both ends of the ice and she's become very unselfish, so [the record] means much more than it would have before."

That weekend also marked the first career shutout of freshman Jessica Ruddock, who would go on to become the Crimson's No. 1 goaltender for the rest of the season.