Shoot Early, Shoot Often: Shewchuk Leaves Her Mark

Sophomore winger Tammy Shewchuk can take over a women's hockey game at any time.

That's what she did in the third period at UNH Dec. 6 in the game that gave Harvard the No. 1 national ranking for the first time in school history. With 6:33 left in regulation and the Wildcats leading 2-1, Shewchuk came out of nowhere to intercept a UNH pass at the blue line.

Then she walked through the Wildcat defense, broke free for a shot inside the right face-off circle and sent the puck top-shelf to tie the game.

Then the native of St. Laurent, Quebec, gave the Crimson the lead for good 52 seconds later by feeding freshman winger Jen Botterill in the left corner to set up the rookie sensation's game-winning goal.

Although Botterill secured the victory at UNH, the Canadian counterparts are tied for the ECAC Plead with seven game-winning goals each.

Shewchuk came through in crunch time again in Sunday's ECAC Tournament championship victory over the same UNH squad--a team Harvard will likely face again in the national championship game Saturday. She tied the game with 75 seconds left in regulation and fed co-captain A.J. Mleczko the game-winning assist 75 seconds into overtime to give Harvard its first conference championship in school history.

"The less I think about the score of the game or how much we need a goal, the better it works on the ice," Shewchuk says. "Some people say that when I'm playing you can't even read my face because I Just have a blank expression."

"When I'm going in on a goalie, all I'm looking for is the net, not the goalie, the defensemen or anything else. Sometimes it goes in and sometimes she makes the save, but whatever happens, I just go for it."

Shewchuk has gone for the net many times this season, and she has converted on 50 of her shots. Her two nearest competitors in the nation--linemates Mleczko and Botterill--are 14 and 17 goals behind her, respectively.

"Tammy Shewchuk has a nose for the net and somehow gets it done, whether it's a pretty goal or a garbage goal," says Harvard Coach Katey Stone. "There are some kids that are inherent playmakers and there are some kids that absolutely score goals, and Tammy is a natural goal-scorer. She's a good skater, she's quick, savvy, has very good hands and finds her way to the net. She is always a threat."

That threat has terrorized opposing netminders for five hat tricks this season. Shewchuk has also won two ECAC Player of the Week awards and made the conference Honor Roll in five other weeks. Such accolades earned her a spot on both the All-ECAC and All-Ivy League First Teams.

Shewchuk was also one of 10 nominees for the Patty Kazmaier Award--women's hockey's equivalent of the Hobey Baker Award. She was not among the three. finalists, however, as it appears that USA Hockey is reserving this year's Kazmaier Award for Mleczko, who has been the sparkplug behind many of Shewchuk's goals.

Those achievements have made Shewchuk an integral part of the nation's longest winning streak at 28 games, although she missed three games during that stretch. She was playing with Botterill on the Canadian Under-22 Team when the Crimson played Boston College and Dartmouth Dec. 18 and 19 and she missed a Jan. 2 game against Maine for disciplinary reasons.

With 100 points this season, Harvard's shortest skater is second only to the 5'11 Mleczko among the nation's leading scorers. Shewchuk admits that her official height of 5'4 is "generous," but she makes up for her lack of size with her quickness and her ability to light the lamp at a frightening pace.

"I never think of size as a disadvantage because women's hockey is still a very open, fluid game," Shewchuk says. "I played full-contact a couple of years ago with boys in Montreal who were 6'2 or bigger, so size doesn't intimidate me. When you're short you have to be fast, and I like to think of my smallness as sneakiness. I can slip behind people a little easier than taller players. In some ways I have to take two strides when everyone else only needs one, but you learn to get past that and I haven't thought about my size for a long time."

Shewchuk can also get past any defenseman in the country, except maybe a few of her teammates. Once she gets the puck in the offensive zone, it's usually a matter of seconds before she has walked around her defender into the seam and let fly a shot on goal.

"I like starting off at the halfboards regardless of which side of the ice I'm on because I like having room," Shewchuk says. "Other people on the team are better shooting on net from outside but I'm better suited to work around the zone and walking the seam allows me to do that. By walking the seam I can keep my eyes on the other side so I can see my teammates at the point."

And she has some talented teammates to work with. Harvard leads the ECAC in scoring, and most of that scoring comes form a first line that can do whatever it wants on the ice. Mleczko, Shewchuk and Botterill are the top three scorers in the country and all three can create scoring opportunities or finish what their line-mates started.

"Among the three of us, if somebody is open they will get the puck," Shewchuk says. "We read off each other very well, and none of us has the title of finisher. I don't know, maybe I have more goals because I take more shots. But our line is a great combination; it's very easy to play with them and it's a lot of fun."

And Shewchuk has displayed her playmaking ability with game-winning assists like the one in overtime for the conference championship. She has as many assists (50) as she has goals, good for second in the country only to Mleczko.

Perhaps her best all-around performance came in a 7-6 overtime in the first round of the Beanpot against Northeastern. She recorded a goal and five assists against the Huskies, including two passes to Botterill that sent the game into overtime and then sent the Crimson into the Beanpot championship game against Boston College.

"We're not worried about Tammy scoring goals or helping other people score goals," Stone says. "We are looking for the other thing off the puck that are very important to the success of this team. We want her to be a better playmaker, a good defensive player and to take different kinds of shot."

"She's capable of all those things and has made strides this year, but we're not going to settle for less because we know she has the tools to take it to the next level," Stone adds. "One of the goals of this program is to have her make the Canadian Olympic Team in 2002 because we think she is talented enough to do it."

Shewchuk took off last year to try out for the 1998 Canadian Olympic Team, but she was one of the final cuts after a broken shoulder forced her to miss a week of practice. She was invited to join Botterill on the Canadian National Team in the World championships last month but declined the offer.

"I thought I played well enough to make the team, but sometimes things don't work out and I learned a lot last year," she says. "The hardest thing in the world was watching the team losing in the championship game on TV and knowing I could have helped. But that's neither here nor there and I'm past that. One thing it taught me is being appreciative of my team at Harvard. This team is the most important thing in my life right now and I hope I can help us win the national championship."