Ruggiero Headlines JOFA First Team All-America, Corriero Tops Second

The American Hockey Coaches Association announced the 2003-2004 JOFA All-Americans March 25. Angela Ruggiero was named to the first team and Nicole Corriero the second team. The announcement marked the fourth time Ruggiero was named to the All-American First Team. Corriero had been named to the second team in the 2001-2002 season.

Earlier in the month, Ruggiero was named ECAC Player of the Year as well as Ivy League Player of the Year. Corriero joined her on the first team of both leagues, while sophomore Julie Chu made second team in both leagues. Fellow sophomore Ali Boe received an Ivy League Honorable Mention for her play between the pipes.

NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE

Earlier last month, Corriero joked that one of the things she loves about Harvard hockey was that “[Harvard] tends to have really good-looking hockey players.”

While that may very well be true, Harvard also placed six players on the ECAC All-Academic team. Senior Mina Pell, juniors Ali Crum and Kat Sweet, and sophomore Carrie Schroyer joined Ruggiero and Chu on the team that mixes book smarts with hockey smarts.

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU

With both Dartmouth and St. Lawrence losing their semifinal games, the absence of each team’s Canadian National Team members—Gillian Apps and Cherie Potter for the Big Green and Gina Kingsbury for the Saints—inevitably came up as a topic of discussion.

For St. Lawrence, losing Kingsbury for the Frozen Four became a motivational force to take on Harvard.

“She gave a very passionate speech last Sunday [after losing in the ECAC championship to Harvard]—her last collegiate game for St. Lawrence,” Saints coach Paul Flanagan said. “It was very difficult, very emotional, not only for Gina but for all of her teammates.

“It was a rallying point for the kids. They just talked about her after the game—‘we’re not going to whine because we don’t have Gina. Let’s make up for it and let’s make her proud.’ I know she’s already gotten the news. But she’s with our team. Her heart’s with us, she’s with us in spirit today and even now in our anguish.”

The Saints still hung tough without Kingsbury, dropping a tough 2-1 loss to Harvard in the semifinals after losing to the Crimson twice during the regular season with the star forward in the line-up, 3-2 (OT) and 5-1, and 6-1 in the ECAC finals.

Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak noted that his team had to make a number of changes in the absence of Apps and Piper. Senior Lydia Wheatley played her normal amount after limited action while recovering from an injury in the ECAC tournament. Hudak also shifted defensemen to the forward position to fill in the gaps.

“I don’t know that Cherie Piper or Gillian Apps would have changed anything today,” Hudak said. “Look who scored today—Krista Dornfried. It was her third goal of the year.”

Similar to St. Lawrence players, the Big Green used the absence of its sophomore phenoms to rally the team together.

“We sort of turned on them and said, ‘screw them—we don’t need them!’” Dornfried said with a laugh. “It sounds bad but we didn’t mean it like that.”

Harvard coach Katey Stone offered a fresh perspective on the subject, noting that the Canadian National Team was not the only reason student athletes missed games in Frozen Four competition.

“Obviously we’d all love to have all these kids here,” she said. “Some kids don’t play because they’re sick, some kids don’t play because they’re injured, some kids don’t play because they have the opportunity to play for a national team.”

During the 2001-2002 season, Harvard was left without two star players, Jennifer Botterill ’02-’03 and co-captain Angela Ruggiero when they left to play for the Canadian and U.S. Olympic teams, respectively. Ruggiero also missed the 2000-2001 to train for the U.S. National and Olympic teams.

MAGIC EIGHT PUCK

With the question marks presented to teams prior to the Frozen Four selections—Dartmouth and St. Lawrence wondered about having their star players missing in action for the championship series and Wisconsin and Minnesota-Duluth hoped to catch a break and enter the tournament as a dark horse—the issue of tournament expansion to the Frozen Eight arose.

Both Stone and Minneosta coach Laura Halldorson had plenty to say on the subject.

“Certainly, there were six or seven, maybe eight teams that could be here and competing on a very high level this weekend,” Stone said. “It’s time for expansion. There are so many opportunities to play women’s college hockey in this country now that it’s only fair to provide as many opportunities as possible to compete for the national championship.”

“I can’t wait for that to happen,” Halldorson said. “We as coaches want it to happen sooner but from an NCAA perspective, you have to walk before you run. The NCAA wants to make sure that it will be a strong field. If you went to eight teams, you would have good games and more teams would have a shot at the championship.”

—Staff writer John R. Hein can be reached at hein@fas.harvard.edu.