November 10, 2008

Stone Guides Team USA to Four Nations Gold

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. -- The U.S. Women's Select Team earned a 3-2 victory in a shootout over Team Canada Sunday in the gold-medal game of the 2008 Four Nations Cup held at the 1980 Herb Brooks Rink.

Team USA, which was guided by Katey Stone, the Landry Family Head Coach for Harvard Women's Ice Hockey, finished the tournament with a 2-1-0-1 record to capture its third Four Nations Cup title in the history of the event and its first since 2003.

"It was an awesome hockey game," said Stone. "Both teams and both goaltenders played great. There was a small margin between the two teams today and we're extremely happy that we came out on top."

Team USA got on the board first as former Crimson standouts Angela Ruggiero '02-04 and Caitlin Cahow '07-08 assisted on a power-play goal at 12:40. Canada came back to tie the game later in the first period on a short-handed score and took a 2-1 lead midway through the second.

Former Harvard forward Julie Chu '07-08 knotted the game at 16:42 of the second on an unassisted even-strength score, the final tally of regulation.

After neither team could find the back of the net in overtime, the game moved to a shootout. Six rounds of the shootout went by before Team USA finally got the lone score of the session, giving the United States the gold medal.

Current Harvard senior Sarah Vaillancourt '08-09 and former standout Jennifer Botterill '02-03 earned a silver medal with the Canadian squad. Vaillancourt tallied two goals in the tournament, while Botterill collected two helpers.

Chu scored twice for the Americans during its four games, Ruggiero had three assists and Cahow had two helpers.