AMOR PERFECT UNION: Hockey Season Lacks Luster

An early goal taken away on a questionable call. A miss on a wide-open net and several hit posts. A game-ending goal in overtime off a hard, but by no means blazing shot from distance that junior goalie Christina Kessler saves nine times out of ten.

With these and other extraordinary factors conspiring against the then-No. 7 Harvard women’s hockey team in its stunning 3-2 upset loss to Rensselaer in Saturday’s ECAC Tournament semifinals, it’s no wonder that Crimson coach Katey Stone invoked hidden deities and suggested that fate was at work in her postgame press conference.

“I think the hockey gods were favoring [the Engineers] today,” Stone said. “It might have just been their day and not ours.”

Skeptics might point out other, more tangible culprits responsible for the loss that undermined Harvard’s recent dominance over its conference opponents and kept the team out of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2002. They might look to an irresponsible Crimson penalty for having too many players on the ice that set up the power play in which RPI scored the game-ending goal. They might credit Engineer goalie Sonja van der Bliek for playing the game of her life, registering a career-high 48 saves to lead her team to the tourney’s final round.

But whether Harvard was on the wrong side of destiny, had bad luck, or was simply outplayed, there was just something that didn’t feel right—not only about this game, but about the entire season as well.

In my three years on the women’s hockey beat, every Crimson campaign that I’ve covered has ended in heartbreaking fashion.

Facing top-ranked Wisconsin in 2007 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the underdog Harvard squad took the Badgers to four excruciating overtimes before finally succumbing to defeat in the 128th minute of play.

In 2008, the Crimson cruised into the NCAA Frozen Four in Duluth, Minn. with a 32-1-0 record and ranked No.1 in the nation, but saw its historic run snapped unceremoniously by the same Wisconsin team in a 4-1 rout.

And now there’s this year’s loss to the Engineers, in which top-seeded Harvard shockingly found itself down, 2-0, but then clawed its way back and forced overtime, only to see its comeback efforts nullified by a Laura Gersten slap shot in sudden death.

But there’s this feeling I just can’t shake, a discomfort with placing this season in the same company as the previous two.

While all three campaigns ended in devastation, there was a sense of satisfaction to salvage from the rubble of the first two that is just not there this time around.

In the 2006-07 season, Harvard was consistently among the top ten teams in the country, even reaching as high as No. 4 in the rankings at one point. But while the Crimson won nearly all of its games against inferior opponents, the team could not thrust itself into the top-tier of national powerhouses, finishing 0-5-2 against squads ranked sixth or higher.

So when Harvard was selected to the NCAA Tournament with No. 1 Wisconsin as its first-round opponent, not too many people thought the game was worth the plane ticket to Madison.

But the Crimson took the Badgers to hell and back in one of college hockey’s classic battles, and nearly sent the eventual national champions packing before their time. Harvard goalie Brittany Martin, then a sophomore, tied a school record with 67 saves in that game while her teammates exhausted every inch of their bodies’ capabilities to try and come away with a win. Wisconsin ended up eking out a victory, but the Crimson returned to Cambridge with nothing to regret and everything to be proud of.

Harvard set a markedly different tone last season, enjoying high points throughout the year before navigating a similar journey to disappointment.

The Crimson burst out of the gate with an 11-0-0 start and a meteoric rise to the top of the national rankings. After a setback against New Hampshire, Harvard rolled again, sweeping the Beanpot, ECAC Regular Season, and ECAC Tournament titles while going undefeated for the rest of the regular season and through the first round of the NCAA tourney. Current tri-captain Sarah Vaillancourt, always respected for her uncanny scoring abilities, became an all-around juggernaut, tallying 26 goals and 36 assists while terrorizing opponents on defense in a transcendent campaign.

Harvard was dropped in the Frozen Four by its nemesis Badgers, but nothing could take away from what the Crimson had accomplished. As a fitting tribute to the squad’s incredible season, Vaillancourt received the Patty Kazmaier Award—given to the best player in college women’s hockey—the night after the loss to the Badgers, with her entire team present to support her.

After two remarkable seasons that carried the Harvard skaters through such a wide emotional spectrum, this current Crimson group had a tough act to follow.

On its own, Harvard’s 2008-09 campaign—which saw the team sputter through mediocrity early on but recover to go on a late tear and steal the ECAC regular season crown in the last weekend of play—was certainly impressive.

Saturday’s loss to RPI—in which senior Sarah Wilson returned from illness to single-handedly resurrect the Crimson’s victory aspirations with a pair of goals before the Engineers prematurely dashed such hopes—was certainly full of drama.

But a former No. 1 team that returned all but one of its starters shouldn’t have had early struggles in the first place, nor should the top seed in the ECAC Tournament have found itself in a 2-0 hole at home to a squad that barely finished over .500 against conference opponents.

I hate to admit it, but in a chain of captivating and enthralling seasons for Harvard, this one—whether intelligently designed by the hockey gods or randomly selected by bad luck and untimely mistakes—was the missing link.

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.