Angela Ruggiero

Angela Marie Ruggiero (born January 3, 1980) is an American former ice hockey defenseman, gold medalist, and four-time Olympian.

She was a member of the United States Women's National Ice Hockey Team, medaling in four successive Winter Olympic Games, including one gold medal in 1998, two silvers in 2002 and 2010, and one bronze in 2006.

She competed in ten Women's World Championships, winning four gold medals and six silver medals.

In that time she was named Best Defenseman twice at the Olympics and four times at the World Championships.

While a senior at Choate, Ruggiero was the youngest member of the gold medal-winning 1998 United States Olympic Hockey Team in Nagano, Japan.

She helped Harvard win a National Championship in 1999 and NCAA Runner-Up in 2003 and 2004.

She was also a member of the silver medal-winning 2002 team in Salt Lake City, Utah, a member of the bronze-winning 2006 team in Torino, Italy, and a member of the silver-winning 2010 team in Vancouver, Canada.

In her senior year at Harvard University, Ruggiero won the 2004 Patty Kazmaier Award as the top player in U.S. women's collegiate hockey.

She graduated from Harvard cum laude in 2004 with a degree in government and was a four-time All-American selection and an Academic All-American.

In her senior year, she was awarded the distinguished NCAA's Top VIII Award, for success on the ice, in the classroom, and in the community.

Ruggiero was a three-time MVP for the Crimson.

Ruggiero made several U.S. professional hockey "firsts" on January 28, 2005, when she played for the Tulsa Oilers in a Central Hockey League game against the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees.

She was the first woman to actively play in a regular season professional hockey game in North America at a position other than goalie.

In addition, since her brother Bill Ruggiero, was a goaltender for the Oilers, they were the first brother-sister combination to play professionally at the same time.

She recorded an assist on the final goal of the game making her the only woman to score a point in a North American professional hockey game.

Ruggiero was also credited with the game-winning goal in the shoot-out that won the 2005 Women's World Ice Hockey Championships for the United States against the Canadian national women's hockey team, winning the first gold medal ever for the United States at the world championship.

At the 2005 Esso National Women's Championships, she was named the Best Defenseman for Group A.

In December 2009, Ruggiero was named to her fourth Olympic hockey team.

She was a member of the International Olympic Committee from 2010 to 2018 and served as a member of the Executive Board of the IOC after being elected the Chairperson of the IOC Athletes' Commission, the body that represents all Olympic athletes worldwide, a post which she held from 2016 to 2018.

In her hockey career, Ruggiero was named as the best player in the NCAA and in the world by The Hockey News and named the US Olympic Committee’s Player of the Year.

To prepare for the 2010 Olympics, she joined a group of NHL players in the summer of 2009 for workouts at Athletes' Performance in Carson, California.

Her preparation relied less on powering through workouts and more on paying attention to detail.

The training group included Chris Drury, Richard Park, and George Parros.

On January 14, 2010, she was named as an alternate captain for the United States Olympic Hockey Team.

In addition, at the Vancouver Olympics, she was elected as a Member of the IOC's Athletes Commission, giving her an eight-year term as a Member of the IOC.

Ruggiero played for the now-defunct CWHL's Boston Blades.

During the 2010–11 Boston Blades season, Ruggiero scored the game-winning goal on December 19, 2010, which snapped the Montreal Stars undefeated season.

She received her master's degree in Sports Management from the University of Minnesota in 2010 while training for her final Olympics.

On December 28, 2011, Ruggiero announced her retirement via Twitter.

As an IOC Member, Ruggiero presented the gold medals to the US Women's Soccer Team at the 2012 Summer Olympics, the gold medal for the US Women's Basketball Team and bronze medal for the USA Rugby Team at the 2016 Olympics, and did the same for the gold medal-winning US Women's Ice Hockey Team at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Ruggiero is a graduate of the Harvard Business School (M.B.A.), Harvard College (B.A.) cum laude, and the University of Minnesota (M.Ed.) 4.0 GPA.

On June 29, 2015, Ruggiero was announced as a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame's Class of 2015.

She was inducted on November 9, 2015.

She was the fourth woman and the second American woman to be inducted.

She is also the only California-born person (man or woman) to be inducted.

Ruggiero is the all-time leader in games played for Team USA, male or female, with 256 games.

Ruggiero was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 2015, and the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2017.

Born in Panorama City, CA, Ruggiero grew up in Sylmar and then Simi Valley, California.

Ruggiero played prep school hockey at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut.

As of 2020, she is the only defenseman to win the award.