W. Hockey Seeks 5th Straight Beanpot

For the Harvard women’s hockey team to win its fifth straight Beanpot title, all it must do is show up at 8 p.m. tonight and defeat Boston College—a team it destroyed by a school-record 17-2 margin exactly two weeks ago.

BC (10-12-3) made history last week by earning its first Beanpot win over Northeastern and setting a school record for Division I wins. Its reward is another shot at the No. 1 Crimson (19-1-0).

“We’re looking forward to it,” said BC coach Tom Babson. “You might think we’re not, but we are. With the outcome of the last game, we have something to prove.”

In the last meeting, Crimson captains Jennifer Botterill and Angela Ruggiero and freshman Julie Chu all set personal records for points in a game and the Eagles did little to stop them.

“It’s fun to watch them myself,” Babson said of the three Olympians. “I love to see the puck move.”

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to figure out ways to counter that and maybe mitigate the strength they have with [the first] line,” Babson added.

When Babson was reminded that Harvard’s fourth line had scored four goals in the last meeting, he went to add that he would “maybe do something with the other lines” as well.

Despite the lopsided margin in the last meeting, Harvard coach Katey Stone says she is not taking anything for granted, as usual. She said that Harvard will continue to aim to do the little things right—in particular, good special teams and quick movement of the puck in the defensive zone.

“Every game’s different—next Tuesday might be different from last Tuesday,” Stone said. “It’s the Beanpot championship. That adds a whole other dimension to it.”

The Eagles have never won the Beanpot title. Two of Harvard’s last four Beanpot championship victories came against BC—a 9-0 win in 1999 and a 7-2 triumph last year.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.