On the tail of its third straight year at the top of the ECAC regular-season standings, No. 2 Cornell remains the team to beat in conference play. Although St. Lawrence spoiled the Big Red’s ECAC championship hopes last year with a 3-1 victory in the ECAC finals, Cornell has claimed two of the last three league titles.

Meanwhile, the Crimson has yet to make it past the conference semifinals since taking home the 2008 ECAC crown with a victory over the Saints in overtime. Harvard’s drought in regular season titles is one year shorter, dating back to 2009.

“In order to get [to our goal of winning a national championship], one step would be to win the ECAC and the Ivy League,” Bellamy says. “There’s no Ivy championship [in women’s hockey]; it’s just by record. But if we can beat Cornell, that’s one step toward our goal. They’re our biggest competition.”

Overall, the Crimson once again boasts one of the toughest schedules in the country. Of the remaining nine teams currently holding spots in the national top 10 after a poll on Oct. 22, Harvard meets five of them—No. 2 Cornell, No. 3 Boston University, No. 4 Clarkson, No. 6 Boston College, and No. 7 Northeastern—at least once in the regular season, starting with the Terriers on Nov. 18.

This year, all four Boston-area schools look to be early contenders for the national crown, effectively endowing the annual Beanpot—a mid-season tournament that pits Harvard, BU, BC, and Northeastern against each other in a single-elimination bracket—with added importance.

“We have these big games like Cornell or the Beanpot, but Coach always talks about taking [the season] game by game,” says senior forward Kaitlin Spurling, one of nine Harvard players who earned 10 or more assists last season. “Every game matters, and I think that’s really key going into the season. It doesn’t matter who our opponent is…. The biggest game is the next game.”

And despite a challenging road ahead for the Crimson, starting with its first conference matchup on Oct. 26 at Quinnipiac, Stone is optimistic about her team’s ability to perform in those big games.

“[The ECAC looks] tough,” she says. “We’re going to have to be ready every night—as it has been for the last few years anyway—and play our best. That’s what we want to do: practice hard during the week and play our best during the weekends. And we’ll see where that takes us.”

—Staff writer Catherine E. Coppinger can be reached at ccoppinger@college.harvard.edu.