End of an Era: Angela Ruggiero

Angela Ruggiero has been a part of some very special teams.

She captured the national championship with the ’98-’99 Harvard women’s hockey team her freshman year. She’s won Olympic gold and silver and a world championship with the U.S. national team.

But in this her final season at Harvard, Ruggiero shone individually like never before. She captured the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award—awarded by the USA Hockey Foundation to the best player in women’s college hockey—after having been nominated in each of her four seasons in a Crimson jersey.

Only the second player in history to be named to the first-team All-America four times, Ruggiero was named Beanpot MVP and garnered both ECAC and Ivy Player of the Year Awards. She led all defensemen in scoring for the fourth time, and moved into fourth place on Harvard’s all-time scoring list with 253 points.

Six years after first donning a Crimson jersey, there isn’t much Angela Ruggiero hasn’t accomplished on the ice.

Despite the tremendous individual season she had, Ruggiero’s own numbers declined from one year ago.

“I had a lot more points last year. But at the end of the season last year I saw points aren’t going to win you a championship game. They’re sort of for yourself,” Ruggiero says.

“Last year being up for some awards, points seemed to make a difference in most voters’ heads, and at the end of last season I said points are silly because points don’t really determine how good of a hockey player you are and hopefully people see that.”

Considering the list of accolades she garnered this season, people undoubtedly did notice the impact Ruggiero had on the ice. Then again, she did score in 30 of the 32 games in which she played for a total of 55 points on the year, good for third on Harvard’s scoring charts and eighth best in the nation.

ALL 4 FUN

Yet this year more than ever, it was not Ruggiero’s individual performance that defined the team; instead “team” became the defining mark of Ruggiero.

“Our team did such a good job of playing as a team this year,” she says. “I think in the past maybe because we had more standout players there was a larger disparity in the scoring.”

With the scoring more evenly spread throughout the line-up and with total goals forced down from last season, the emphasis was placed on what Ruggiero knows best.

“We really clamped down on defense. I think that was the key to our success for most of the season,” Ruggiero says. “Starting at the beginning of the season we were saying ‘get your ass back. Play defense. Clear pucks in front of the net, don’t let people get second shots,’ and I think that was what allowed us to go so far.”

“People just did their jobs and didn’t worry about points and just played for the team,” she says.

This selfless play led to what Ruggiero calls the most fun she has ever had with a team.

“Even though I was older than the players, I feel as though socially everyone was happy and worked so hard and really did anything for the sake of the team, which is very rare in sports,” she says. “When you can come across a team where people did anything and everything they could to see the team succeed regardless if it was short of what they wanted to do—if they had to sit a shift because someone else needed to play or those sort of acts—it’s always a joy to play on a team like that, and this was truly one of those.”

Without the high expectations of one year ago, a lighter mood set in that added to an already strong team unity.

“Each and every year there’s a unique dynamic to the team. We’re always strong and have good chemistry,” sophomore Jennifer Raimondi says. “But this year, there was less pressure on us to win. People wrote us off right at the beginning, and that sort of brought us together.”

The Crimson credits their close bonds off the ice with their unheralded success on the frozen stage.

”When you’re playing for the player beside you, you’re going to put forth a greater effort, than if you’re just playing for yourself,” junior Nicole Corriero says.

In fact, the Crimson traveled with a banner bearing the team motto, “Team First,” for most of the season.

“It was a reminder for us that the team is bigger than the individual,” Raimondi says. “On one level you play for yourself and for the experience, but ultimately for the team’s success. That’s more rewarding in the end.”

While the entire team embraced the “Team First” mentality, Harvard’s seniors—Ruggiero especially—embodied the ideal both on and off the ice.

Raimondi recounts how Ruggiero often set the standard of behavior in the locker room.

“There are times when Ang is keeping it light, like when we’re singing songs in the locker room,” she says. “When the team song comes on (Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It”), she’s the first person singing and dancing, putting on a theatrical performance for the team. Enrique Iglesias comes on—watch out! Ang is in the moment. She has a soft spot for Enrique. ‘Escape’ is a good one.”

But Ruggiero’s off-ice abilities aren’t limited to singing and dancing.

“She can fire us up. She has this uncanny ability to just understand us and read our scattered brains,” Raimondi says.

“One memory I have of Angela is a speech she gave to the team last year before our game against UNH,” Corriero says. “Prior to that game we played well, but by no means up to our full potential. Ang challenged us to play to our potential, and the team responded by playing the best game of our season, and beating the No. 5 team 7-1.”

4 LOVE OF SPORT

After extending her passion for hockey to her teammates, this summer Ruggiero will extend her love for sport to children at home and abroad.

From July to the beginning of August, she will travel with former Harvard women’s basketball player Laela Sturdy ’00 and her younger sister, Alexis, to Kimpala, Uganda on a goodwill trip with Right to Play, a Canadian-based NGO founded in 1994 by Norwegian speedskater Johann Olav Koss that uses Olympic athletes to provide humanitarian aid and promote sport in developing countries. Members of the organization include NHL great Wayne Gretzky, NBA star Dikembe Mutumbo, and of course Angela Ruggiero.

An ambassador of the organization for years, she first joined Right to Play four years ago when Nikki Stone, a U.S. Olympic gold medal-winning aerialist, convinced her to sign up.

“My name has been a part of the organization for a few years. I’ve donated stuff, done a couple of events for them, but nothing to this extent,” she says.

“Basically there’s what’s called Sport for Development, or Sports Work Programs, and they go into the communities and teach these kids to have soccer day. And in order to play soccer you have to get immunized for Hepatitis or something like that,” Ruggiero explains. “And they bring in Aids research—they bring in the U.N., the Red Cross—just kind of build communities for these kids—give them something because they really have nothing.”

“It’s human development—working the mind and body. I just think it’s really important for kids,” she says. “For me it meant so much to have sports. For these kids who have nothing, we’re giving them a soccer ball, we’re giving them something to do every day. I thought it was something I definitely wanted to be a part of.”

“Ang is unique in that her drive on the ice is equaled off the ice,” Raimondi says. “She just has an unbelievable ability to bring out the best in everyone.”

Laela Sturdy and Ruggiero wrote the proposal for the trip, and Right to Play loved it. But Ruggiero explains there is still a few hurdles ahead before the trip can move forward.

“We’re in the fundraising stage. We need to raise $20,000 by the day after commencement, June 11. Right now we have about half of it,” she says. “Basically what we need the money for is to travel over there, all of our expenses. Anything we have extra we’re just going to give to them.”

That’s not all. In addition to the trip, Ruggiero and 16-year-old Alexis Sturdy will document their work and then travel to high schools in the U.S., educating teenagers about the program and social justice with a video and scrap book.

There will be no rest for the weary. As soon as she returns, Ruggiero will have exactly one week to hit the ice before the start of the U.S. National training camp. Following camp, Ruggiero returns home to Michigan where she runs a hockey camp for kids. Then it’s back to Boston where she hopes to have a flexible job that allows her to continue to play hockey with her team of post-grad U.S. players who don’t want to go up north to play hockey in the Canadian WNHL.

Staying in the Boston area will allow Ruggiero to make some Harvard hockey games as well.

“I already told the team I’ll be their stalker next year,” she says with a laugh.

WHAT SHE’S THERE 4

High above the far side of the ice at Bright Hockey Center to the right of the American flag hangs the number 4 in honor of Bill Cleary ’56 and for his contribution to Harvard hockey for over six decades.

The number 4 has been special to Ruggiero. It has been her number with the U.S. National team program. When she came to Harvard, she did everything she could to get it.

“I wanted to be 4 coming into Harvard, but Jamie Notman ’01 wore No. 4,” Ruggiero recalls. “And I asked her—I even offered her money—but she wanted No. 4 for what was my freshman and sophomore years. As soon as she graduated, I was like, ‘coach, you’ve got to reserve four for me!’”

Now that she has donned the Harvard jersey for a final time, the No. 4 hanging in the rafters will have another meaning for members of the women’s hockey team who have been looking up to Ruggiero the past six years.

“I spoke at the Visiting Committee on Athletics and Bill Cleary was in the audience,” she says. “I had to reflect on my Harvard career, and I joked about having my number already retired. I was like, ‘oh wait a second that’s yours!’”

All joking aside, Ruggiero is proud that her fondest accomplishment from her senior year will be put up to the rafters—capturing the ECAC championship.

“A championship is a championship. It’s also pretty cool that it’s the first time a men’s and women’s team won the ECAC in the same year,” she says. “Those banners—you actually get you’re class year up there. It’s nice for me as a senior—for Mina Pell and Lauren McAuliffe—to have our stamp on those banners. They’ll be up forever.”

And if seeing Ruggiero’s number and class year isn’t enough, don’t forget she’ll still try to make it back to Bright to see her old teammates as often as possible.

“I won’t be with them next year on the ice and in the locker room but just to show them my support from the stands—I love being a fan of a team that you know really well, that you follow a lot,” she says. “That’s how people become obsessed with teams—you feel like you’ve become a part of them. It’s amplified if you’ve actually been on that team. When you’re on the ice you’re calm and collective. I’m kind of looking forward to being a stress case in the stands!”

Ruggiero’s plans embrace the spirit of “Team First” that she worked so hard and successfully to instill in her teammates.

“The great thing about our team is that it extends far beyond just the practices and games,” Corriero says. “We’re a family on and off the ice, and continue to be, whether we’re a freshman, a senior, four years out of college or six years out of college. Though the season may be over, the team lives on, and Ang will be another great example of that next year.”

—Staff writer John R. Hein can be reached at hein@fas.harvard.edu.