Gold or Bronze, Olympians Triumphant

The NBC television cameras panned slowly across the podium. One by one, the young athletes came into view, bowing to receive the medals that will forever distinguish them as Olympic participants, that will serve as lifetime tokens of their two-week trip to the Winter Games in Turin in the Italian Alps, to the peak of competition in women’s hockey, to the heights of athletic immortality.

For Harvard viewers, especially those familiar with the recent exploits of Katey Stone’s women’s hockey teams, there were a few familiar visages among the bunch.

There was Sarah Vaillancourt, a sophomore-to-be, gleeful after helping Canada—a squad which included former Crimson standout Jennifer Botterill ’02-’03—storm through the tournament for the gold medal. The Canadians topped their opponents by a whopping 46-2 margin over five games, culminating in a convincing 4-1 victory over Sweden in the final, with Botterill tallying two assists and Vaillancourt adding a helper.

Then there was rising junior Caitlin Cahow, seeming downcast as she and her American teammates picked up their bronze medals, a disappointment for a unit that had golden aspirations.

On Friday, the Americans fell in a semifinal shocker to Sweden, 3-2, in a shootout. The result, which will have long-term reverberations in women’s hockey, was surely the sport’s biggest upset ever on the international stage. Since 1990 and the inception of the world championships, the United States and Canada had lost only to each other, and were universally forecasted to meet in the gold-medal game for the third straight Olympiad. The Americans captured the inaugural crown in Nagano in 1998 before the Canadians prevailed in 2002, setting up the expected rubber match in Turin.

“I’m banged up for them, they’re pretty banged up,” Stone said of her American players’ sentiments on Saturday. “I e-mailed with Caitlin Cahow this morning, and I said ‘Let’s not forget that you are at the Olympics and there are a lot of people who aren’t, so take advantage of your opportunities.’”

Cahow was joined by past and present Harvard skaters Julie Chu ’06-’07, Angela Ruggiero ’02-04, and Jamie Hagerman ’03. Ruggiero and Chu, both Olympic veterans—Ruggiero was appearing in her third Games, Chu in her second—owned more subtle looks of regret masked behind public smiles, betraying hints of the bittersweet emotions of the moment.

“[We feel] a lot of disappointment for our teammates,” Harvard senior Jennifer Raimondi said this weekend. “We feel that, but they will redeem themselves when they play in the bronze medal game.”

That they did. Despite being relegated to third-place match, the Americans played inspired hockey on Monday, surging to a 4-0 shutout win over Finland, thanks in no small part to Chu. The former Harvard tri-captain, who will return to Cambridge next fall for her senior campaign, assisted on the game’s first and last goals.

Ruggiero, the team’s top defenseman, was the victim of perhaps the most indelible image of frustration for Team USA. In the shootout against Sweden, Ruggiero deked standout keeper Kim Martin but missed an open net on the finish, leading to the Swedes’ eventual upset triumph. But Ruggiero, who finished the week with six points, spoke fondly of earning her third piece of Olympic hardware and her teammates’ efforts.

“We are obviously very excited to be bringing home a medal for the United States,” Ruggiero told the press on Monday. “I’m really proud of our team.”

Ruggiero spoke with the kind of outlook that Stone asked Cahow to adopt in the wake of the team’s loss to Sweden. She joked that with one medal of each color she now possessed a complete set.

The letdown of not getting a chance to square off against Canada will wear off, the sting of finishing third will fade, but the memories accumulated during her Olympic experience will endure.

Ruggiero and five of her Harvard compatriots were afforded the opportunity to participate in winter sports’ seminal event, a global festival of athletics and communication, and women’s hockey, with the signs of growing parity, now promises a stronger future than ever before.

So whether they come home toting gold or bronze, these half-dozen Crimson standard-bearers will return having fulfilled the Olympic promise.

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.