In fact, the year before Ruggiero arrived, the team finished under .500, at 14-16.  The year after, with an 18 year-old first team all-Ivy Ruggiero on the defense to complement an explosive offense, the Crimson rolled through the season, losing once in 34 games en route to a national championship.

During her tenure here, Ruggiero took two years off for training and participating in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.  The highlights of this experience included her selection by fellow national teammates as one of the eight Americans who carried the United States flag from the World Trade Center during the opening ceremonies.

“It was an amazing experience,” Ruggiero said. “To walk for your teammates and your country-in and of itself it was so emotional.”

Upon returning to the Crimson for the 2002-2003 season, Ruggiero co-captained Harvard to the NCAA championship game, before falling 3-2 to Dartmouth in double overtime.

In a follow-up performance, Harvard has just wrapped up its sixth straight winning season and is on the verge of its second straight trip to the NCAA Frozen Four under Ruggiero’s second year as co-captain.

Since her return from commitments with the United States National Team—which prevented her from playing in the first two games of the season—Ruggiero has registered a point in all but one of the games in which she played for the Crimson.

From the start, her attitude was that despite the graduation of a number of key members of last year’s national runner-up team, Harvard had to believe that it would win.  And she instilled that feeling in her teammates.

“You have to expect to win from the start,” Ruggiero said. “We did realize there’d be a lot of gaps to fill, but we sort of figured it out over the course of the season, and we’re happy right now where we are.”

Ruggiero-along with fellow co-captain Lauren McAuliffe-shoulder the responsibility of bringing and holding together a team on the ice that had a lot of potential, but also a lot of unknowns with the loss of five key seniors last year.  In fact, Ruggiero began this season as the only remaining member from the 1999 national championship team and one of two remaining Olympians-compatriot sophomore Julie Chu being the other.

“There are many talented players in this league, but Angela stands head and shoulders above the rest in her confidence and creativity on the ice,” said freshman defenseman Caitlin Cahow. “Every time I watch her on the ice, I learn something new.”

With her skill and importance to the Crimson in mind, a number of opponents formed their game plans against Harvard around trying to shut her down.

“She has had to face tremendous adversity this season,” Cahow said. “Teams have tried to physically take her off her game all season long, but she has kept her cool and gotten the job done withstanding pressures that would make most of the rest of us tempted to just give up.”

Following Harvard’s 2-0 victory over Princeton Sunday afternoon—which clinched the ECAC championship—Tigers’ coach Jeff Kampersal revealed just how good the opposition views Ruggiero, remarking, “she’s probably bored with college hockey sometimes.”

When she steps off the ice for her final time as a Harvard hockey player later this month—whether victorious or not—Ruggiero will have the choice of whether to continue her career or to move on from playing hockey.

Many of the best female collegiate hockey players make the choice to continue playing hockey and hone their skills by going to Canada to skate for some of the most competitive women’s teams in the world.