Harvard Prepares for Vermont and No. 3 Dartmouth at Home This Weekend

Cornell may be traveling to Cambridge to take on the Harvard men’s hockey team this evening, but the real battle of the titans will have to wait until Sunday.

After facing off with Vermont (4-13-1) on Saturday, the No. 2 Crimson women’s hockey team (12-0-1) hosts No. 3 Dartmouth (10-1-1) on Sunday in the third major challenge to the team’s undefeated record in the last four games. Harvard defeated No. 4 Minnesota-Duluth 7-2 on Dec. 13 and tied that same squad 2-2 one day earlier.

“It’s a great rivalry, and these are always such exciting games,” Big Green coach Mark Hudak said. “We’re going to get to test ourselves against a very good team that is very strong, and it’s fun for the kids to play in that type of game which is always elevated for both schools. A lot is going to be on the line, and it’s time for those individuals who you think of as always being the best to step up.”

The last time the two powerhouses faced off—excluding exhibition action—Dartmouth ended the Crimson’s 27-game winning streak in the ECAC finals with a decisive 7-2 victory. It was the fourth time in the past five seasons that the Big Green stopped a Harvard drive for a post-season trophy in its tracks.

But if all goes according to plan, that will be the last thing on the Crimson skaters’ minds.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with revenge,” Harvard coach Katey Stone said. “It’s just another big game on a season filled with big games. We’ve tried to prepare our kids that it doesn’t matter what color jersey they’re wearing or what team they’re from, we play the best hockey we can. That’s our focus…Ideas of revenge or payback takes focus and energy away from the task at hand.”

This will not be the first time the two squads have seen one another this season, however. The two got a small sampling of what to expect this weekend during a pre-season exhibition at Bright Hockey Arena. Dartmouth won the scrimmage, 4-2, but much has changed since then.

“Well, I think they’re two completely different teams,” Stone said. “If it’s really early in the season, both are sort of figuring out who’s going to play, that sort of thing. And since then, both teams started out real well, they’ve done a good job growing and figuring things out.”

The chief difference between that meeting and this one might be who isn’t on the ice—Dartmouth forward Cherie Piper.

Piper, a member of the Canadian national team, has been inactive since she suffered a concussion against the University of New Hampshire on Dec. 12 and was carried from the ice on a stretcher. She is doubtful for this weekend’s contest.

The loss of its top-point scorer and assist leader will further complicate a task for the Big Green that most schools have had immense difficulty handling this season—beating the nation’s No. 1 defense and the top goaltender in the country, Crimson sophomore Ali Boe. Harvard’s star netminder currently holds a 0.961 save percentage. No starting Harvard goaltender has ever ended a season with a save percentage above 96 percent.

But few squads, if any, have presented the Crimson with the talent Dartmouth brings.

“They have a lot of gifted players, a lot of depth on their team with solid talent up front,” Stone said. “They have good speed, play team defense. They’ve played great, done good job all year. The goal on Sunday is going to be to match their offense with ours.”

Instead of relying upon finesse and well-placed shots exclusively, which Boe and the Harvard defense have proven themselves more than capable of handling, the Big Green will flood the goalmouth in an attempt to obscure Boe’s line of sight and deflect shots past her.

“We’re going to try to put a lot of pressure on the offensive zone,” Hudak said. “[The Crimson has] always done an outstanding job defensively…We’re going to try to create traffic to the net.”

And that means physical play up and down the ice. Not that Harvard isn’t used to seeing that from opponents.

“Everyone plays us pretty physically,” Stone said. “We actually look at it as a positive, to get more chances on the power play. Our kids are tough and like mix it up a little bit too.”

But before the Crimson takes the ice against Dartmouth, it’ll need to handle Vermont first.

“We don’t overlook them,” Stone said. “We won’t. They’re feisty competitors, and we’ll be ready to play them. To win this weekend, we’re going to have to put together two good performances back to back, Saturday and Sunday.”

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.