Next Stop, Nagano?
The women's ice hockey team, which completed one of its most successful seasons with a record of 12-9-1, owes much of its success to forwards Barbara Gordon and Meaghan Sittler, who combined for an extraordinary 76 goals and 76 assists. Gordon, a senior from Glendale, Calif., and Sittler, a sophomore from East Amherst, N.Y., shared the limelight as easily as they assisted each other's scoring.
"Playing with Barb? I love it" said Sittler. "We know where we are on the ice all the time, and we complement each other really well. It was much harder for me to score when she was hurt."
Despite Gordon's three-game absence due to a knee injury, she and Sittler both were among the top three in the nation in scoring for most of the season. During the week of January 15-22, the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) named Gordon Player of the Week and Sittler to the Honor Roll. They graciously swapped ECAC honors the following week.
Gordon was featured in the March 5 issue of Sports Illustrated for scoring five goals in a game against St. Lawrence University. Sittler, last year's ECAC Rookie of the Year, had hat tricks in seven consecutive games and also got the attention of Sports Illustrated, which ran a feature article about her in its March 18 issue. "Playing with Meaghan has brought hockey to a whole new level for me," said Gordon. "It's the first time I've ever been able to play on a team with someone of her ability. I'm having a lot of fun with her."
Though their list of accolades is lengthy, Gordon's and Sittler's greatest honors may still be ahead of them--both are contenders for the first-ever American women's ice hockey Olympic team, which will compete in the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. Both were members of the U.S. Women's Select Team that traveled to Finland to compete and train with the Finnish Women's National Team last August. In the first of four matches, all of which the Americans won, Sittler netted two of the U.S.'s six goals and was named the game's Most Valuable Player.
In March Sittler was selected to represent the U.S. again--this time for the Pacific Women's Hockey Championships in Vancouver, B.C. Though the Americans chosen to compete in the April tournament won't be the final Olympic team, they will be competing against the women's national teams from Canada, China and Japan. Participation on the U.S. Select Team that competed in Finland and playing in the Pacific Women's Hockey Championships are considered preliminaries for selection to the Nagano-bound Olympic team.