Alums Seek Olympic Glory

It’s a dream all little girls share—to one day grow up and become the athlete, actress, or singer they’ve always admired. Not so long ago, five little girls were lacing up their skates and dreaming about playing Olympic hockey.

Now all grown up, those five Harvard alums—Jennifer Botterill ’02-’03, Angela Ruggiero ’02-’04, Julie Chu ’06-’07, Caitlin Cahow ’07-’08, and Sarah Vaillancourt ’08-’09—have the chance to once again make that dream a reality.

As the 2010 Vancouver Games approach, the women—all veterans of at least the 2006 Olympics—are hoping to get another chance to represent their countries on the biggest athletic stage of all.

“Even though I’ve gone through it a couple of times—and I’ve been fortunate enough to do that—I think we all have to remember to stay in the moment and not take anything for granted,” says Chu, who is shooting for her third Games. “This is something really special that we’re really fortunate to be a part of.”

For the quintet of skaters, their international stories started young—at 20, Cahow and Vaillancourt were the oldest to make their Olympic debuts when they skated in Torino in 2006. Botterill, Ruggiero, and Chu, on the other hand, donned their national jerseys before ever stepping on the ice at Bright.

In Ruggiero’s and Vaillancourt’s cases, their first Olympics brought a gold medal. But for all, it was an experience that guided the rest of their hockey careers.

“It’s something I could have never dreamed up, that I would be able to play in the Olympics in high school and win a gold medal,” Ruggiero says. “It definitely gave me a lot of confidence, I think, heading into college and my collegiate hockey career, and just knowing that I had the Olympics to shoot for—in addition to training with the national program—kind of helped me push myself every day at the rink.”

Though Olympic success may have marked the beginning of the quintet’s careers, it’s just the highlight of an impressive collective resume.

Botterill and Ruggiero spearheaded the Crimson’s 1999 national championship effort. Four of the five have won the Patty Kazmaier—given annually to the best player in collegiate women’s hockey—with Botterill winning it twice. Among them, they have a total of 12 Frozen Four appearances, 14 world titles, and 10 Olympic medals—four of them gold.

But despite the large-scale success they have had, the quintet stays true to its Harvard hockey roots.

“The level of discipline and dedication that Coach Stone demands and that our team culture fosters really is inexplicable to those who aren’t directly involved with it,” Cahow says. “But it just really pushed me to take ownership over each day that I was on campus, and I’ve tried to bring that to my international hockey career as well.”

All five alums are currently participating in their national centralization programs, the Americans in Blaine, Minn. and the Canadians in Calgary, Alberta. The teams are playing a slate of exhibition games as the teams begin to finalize their Olympic rosters, which will be announced in December.

The American team, with a bad taste in its mouth from a shocking loss to Sweden in the 2006 Olympic semifinals, is a younger squad than it has been in the past. In fact, the three Harvard skaters make up half of the returning Olympians on the tour roster.

“Our youth can only help us when it comes to enthusiasm, and we’ve got young legs on the ice right now,” Cahow says. “Nobody’s going to be tired in the third period because you’ve got a lot of get-up-and-go. You’ve got players who want to be out there, players who are in great shape and are ready to go.”

Though the Americans will enter the Olympics ranked No. 1 in the world for the first time on the strength of two consecutive world titles, it’s the Canadians, fielding a team with more Olympic experience, that will have home-ice advantage.

“I think every athlete’s dream is to one day play in the Olympics, and every Olympian’s dream is to have the chance to play an Olympics in their country,” Vaillancourt says. “We know that every game is going to be packed with people and crazy fans. It would be a different kind of dream come true again.”

Canada and the U.S. will play in separate round-robin groups in Vancouver, so if all goes well, the top two teams in the world are lined up to renew their rivalry in the gold-medal game.

“For both teams, we know that usually when we play, it’s a really competitive game,” Botterill says. “I think those are the games that are most fun to play in, where you know you have to be ready. You have to be ready to compete and perform at your best.”

The Harvard family in Vancouver will be missing a member—coach Katey Stone. Stone was one of three candidates to coach the American team in 2010, and in that capacity, she coached Chu, Ruggiero, and Cahow at last year’s Four Nations Cup.

“It was just a blast,” Ruggiero says of having Stone back behind the bench. “She’s someone that really cares about you as a person...and so to have her be able to coach me and Julie and Caitlin one more time was pretty special.”

In the end, the Olympic job went to Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson.

“There’s disappointment, sure there is,” Stone admits. “When you commit yourself to the development of the game in this country, and when you feel like you’ve done well developing talent here, as well as being successful, it’s certainly something you want to be a part of.”

Though Stone will be happily home in Cambridge coaching the Crimson in February, she will have an eye on her former skaters as they shoot for Olympic gold.

And as the quintet takes the ice in Vancouver, its Harvard roots won’t be far from the women’s minds.

“We represent—we try to do our best and bring the values we learned from Coach Stone—the importance of working hard and all the things that she taught us while we were at Harvard, and bringing that to the national team,” Ruggiero says.

“Harvard hockey, every time I talk about it or get a chance to brag about it to my teammates on the national team who played for other colleges, I think it’s very clear to them and to anyone who knows me what a special place Harvard hockey has in my heart,” Chu adds. “[I like to] let Coach Stone and let all the other players know what a great tradition they’ve created, and a great foundation for all of us to keep wanting to come back to.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.