BOSTON—Harvard alum Allison Jaime (A.J.) Mleczko ’97-’99 is no stranger to honors—with two Olympic medals, a national championship, a wedding ring and a USA Hockey bobblehead doll already to her name. Yet her induction into the New England Women’s Sports Hall of Fame Tuesday night was a unique achievement in its own right.

The allure of the event held at the Sheraton Boston, besides its fundraising goals for women in sports through the New England Women’s Fund, was its bringing together of influential female athletes ranging from 1940s professional baseball players to the Olympic medalists of today. Mleczko said she was amazed to be in presence of such pioneers, yet no one from the Harvard ice hockey camp would be shy to classify her as a trail blazer herself.

When Mleczko entered Harvard almost a decade ago—her family name already a legacy in field hockey, ice hockey and lacrosse—there was no Olympic women’s ice hockey, no NCAA women’s ice hockey and no Level I funding from the Harvard athletic department. Mleczko’s amazement at the rapid growth in her sport was the theme of her induction speech.

Her lengthiest anecdote described her speaking arrangements at elementary schools and how her reception changed between the 1998 and 2002 Olympics. After her Olympic debut, little boys would question she would choose to play ice hockey as a young girl. Four years later, the commonly asked question became, “Why’d you have to play on a boys team?” shortly followed by, “Why were there no girls’ teams?”

“I thought that was the most amazing moment, to look at what the New England Women’s Fund, and organization’s like this, have done for little kids,” Mleczko said.

While Mleczko praised the financial growth of women’s ice hockey, her induction itself was honoring another crucial aspect of the sport’s growth—the emergence of role models in women’s ice hockey.

Because of the high visibility of the sport’s debut in the 1998 Olympics, her membership on the U.S. gold medal team that year naturally leads off her resume. Her return to Harvard to win a national championship the following year, though not as widely publicized as Olympics, was just as special in Mleczko’s mind.

Mleczko decided to take two years off from Harvard in 1997 and 1998 to try out for the Olympics. Harvard coach Katey Stone, who earned position prior to Mleczko’s second season, was encouraging to her top player. Stone promised that regardless of whether she made the team, stronger Harvard recruits would be awaiting her return.

Stone did not disappoint, bringing in strong classes highlighted by future Canadian Olympian Tammy Shewchuk ’00-’01 in 1996 and Angie Francisco ’01 in 1997, each of whom cracked Mleczko’s single-season Harvard scoring records in their freshman seasons. The 1999 recruiting class included two Olympians: current Canadian senior Jennifer Botterill and American junior Angela Ruggiero, who followed in Mleczko’s footsteps by interrupting their college years for the Olympics.

Those players set the stage for what would go down as one of the greatest college hockey seasons ever—33-1-0 topped off by a national championship. The 33 wins more has exactly as many as Harvard had in the previous three years combined.

Mleczko’s numbers that season—a collegiate record 77 assists and 114 points—only begin to tell of her influence on that team’s results.

“The fact that she’d gone away and had to opportunity to develop more as a player and a leader made a significant difference when she came back,” Stone said. “Her presence on the ice spoke for itself, but it was her locker room demeanor, just how she carried herself. How important playing hockey at Harvard was for her made a significant difference for everyone else.”

Mleczko’s co-captain Claudia Asano ’99, a recent hire as a Harvard assistant coach this year, praised her for her leadership and friendship on and off the ice.

“She always led by example,” Asano said. “If we had to get things done she was the first one to do it on and off the ice. In the classroom, going to bed early, all that kind of stuff. She was always doing everything the right way.”

“She was an extremely coordinated person on the ice but off the ice she was goofy and fun and likes to hang out with people that enjoy life,” Asano added.