Ever-Stunning Corriero Nears Single-Season Goals Record

When you follow individual players over the course of their careers, you begin to notice their signature moves—the ones that so define a player that, without names or numbers on their jerseys, you could identify them in a heartbeat by simply watching. Saturday afternoon proved just how one of Nicole Corriero’s trademarks has come to define the entire team’s journey this season.

Midway through the third period of Harvard’s 7-1 victory over Vermont, Corriero knocked the puck away from the Catamounts in neutral ice and began to make her move towards the net. From the start, it looked like any other Corriero attempt to score. But given the situation, the sequence couldn’t have been more symbolic.

As you might expect, the Vermont defenders do everything they could to stop her. No one could blame them. After all, Corriero had already netted her 49th goal of the season—tops in the nation—early in the second period. Two more goals would tie her with Tammy Shewchuk ’00-’01 for the most goals scored all-time in a season (51).

“Nicky has quietly snuck up on a lot people—those heavy-hitters out in the West,” Harvard coach Katey Stone said. “Nicky has some gaudy numbers. She’s getting better every single year, and that’s the reason why she’s figured out how to score goals.”

Considering Corriero’s track record—she scored six goals in a game last season and earlier this year lit up then-No. 2 Dartmouth for five goals—the possibility of her breaking the record on this Saturday afternoon wasn’t at all implausible. Vermont just wasn’t receptive to the idea. Two Catamounts skate up to greet Corriero, attempting to knock the puck from her control and break up the play. It doesn’t work. Corriero skates on, trying to break past the defenders.

The Vermont defense, however, won’t give up so easily. These same defenders hold onto Corriero. The first tries to knock at her arms. The other grabs at her back, trying to pull her down.

Leaning back under the pressure, Corriero’s face becomes visible to the press box as her neck moves in the direction of the pulling, tilting her head towards the rafters. Her left arm swings backward over her shoulder, and, for a moment, it seems like Corriero might actually get pulled down to the ice and fall.

Bearing this weight on her back, Corriero remains poised and steady. Her right arm remains firm, outstretched with her stick, maintaining full control of the puck as she struggles to escape. Slowly but surely, she winds her left arm back around. With nothing to rely upon but strength and willpower to score, she breaks free from the defender’s hold. Her posture returns to its usual state—downward and slightly hunched, her eyes peering from beneath her tilted helmet, a wolf back in the hunt.

Two down, one to go as she nears Catamounts goalie Kami Cote. This is Corriero at her finest.

The Crimson captain continues her drive down the left side of the ice, breaking towards the net. Vermont’s last defenseman issues a challenge, taking a swipe at the puck with her stick to take away Corriero’s control and break up the play. The defense fails in this final endeavor; there is no stopping Corriero from reaching the net at this range. After faking out the final defender, she has single-handedly beat Vermont to the goal.

“People have been laying body after body on her and she still finds a way to get to the net,” Stone said. “It’s sort of uncanny.”

She finds herself leaning with momentum to her right side as she cuts in front of the crease with a clear shot at Cote. She makes like she’s winding up to score. This is goal number 50 in the making.

Then, Corriero makes the one move Cote hadn’t planned on. Instead of taking the shot, she slides the puck to her right side. There Sarah Vaillancourt is waiting to shoot it past Cote’s right shoulder, where she can see a gaping hole in the net.

“There are some situations where I had the puck and at other times, I might have shot it,” Corriero said. “But I think that when we start to play together as a line and when we’re moving the puck and playing unselfishly—that’s when we’re our most dominant.”

It was the third time on the night that Corriero has recorded an assist. For someone who has scored 36.8 percent of all of Harvard’s goals (49 of 133), she knows enough when to take the shot and when to set it up. With 77 points, she has accounted for 57.9 percent of all of Harvard’s scoring. While the number is big, it’s dropping—a sign that the rest of the Crimson is starting to make the attack a great deal more balanced. No further sign of this is needed than Friday night, when Corriero was just one of four to score in Harvard’s 4-3 victory over No. 3 Dartmouth. When the two met Feb. 5, Corriero scored five goals in a 6-3 victory.

“If we spend time thinking about Corriero, then Vaillancourt will score a goal. If we spend time thinking about Vaillancourt, then Corriero or Chu will score a goal,” Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak said following Friday night’s game. “If we spend all our time thinking about those three, another line will score a goal.”

Corriero’s assist on Vaillancourt’s goal bears a striking resemblance to the team’s evolution this season, one in which Corriero bore most of the weight for most of the early games. But as the season progressed, Harvard won more games, Corriero has had more help, and the Crimson’s prospects are looking brighter, going 13-0-2 in 2005, winning twice over rival Dartmouth and garnering both ECAC and Ivy titles. Harvard has accomplished this feat only twice before, in 1999 and 2003. One season led to a national championship, the other led to a triple-overtime defeat in the final game.

“It’s sort of the most unlikely story, but we turned things around and it worked out for us,” senior Ashley Banfield said.

“This whole season has just been an amazing lesson on how much you can accomplish when you guys are working as a team,” Corriero said.

On an afternoon when Harvard celebrated Senior Day and its 400th victory in program history on home ice, it might have been perfect timing for Corriero to end her regular season playing career and break the scoring record. Fate isn’t always so accommodating. But if Harvard’s success continues, Corriero will finally get some recognition that even in this season has been rather lacking.

Throughout her career, Corriero has never received the respect she should have as one of the top players in the game. So, consider it poetic justice that future generations, when looking back at the record books, might very well see her name atop the single-season goal record.

More so still, for a season in which most had written off Harvard’s chances after a dismal showing in November, Corriero and company are still gunning to do what past stars in Harvard’s past could not accomplish: go out with a championship.

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