CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – It's tournament time for the Harvard women's ice hockey team, who is set to clash with the No. 10 Quinnipiac Bobcats in the opening round of the ECAC Championships this Saturday. The Crimson (2-24-2, 1-20-1 ECAC) will head to Connecticut to play the five-seed Bobcats (20-10-4, 11-8-3 ECAC) for a spot in the quarterfinal round next weekend. The teams will drop the puck at 2:30 on Saturday (Feb. 22) at M&T Bank Arena with the game also airing live on ESPN+.
What to Know
The Matchup
With the regular season complete, Harvard women's ice hockey will now move into postseason play where it is set to face off with the No. 10 Quinnipiac Bobcats in a one-game playoff with the winner advancing to the quarterfinal round of the ECAC Championships. The Crimson have played the Bobcats twice with both contests going to the Bobcats after a pair of close games.
Last Time Out
Harvard finished its regular season schedule last weekend with a pair of contests against national top 10 squads. Harvard first faced off against the No. 8 Clarkson Golden Knights in an eventual 0-4 defeat. The Saturday matchup with No. 7 St. Lawrence featured goals from
Zoe Boosamra and
Emily Hamann in a 6-2 loss to the Saints.
Series History Against Quinnipiac
Harvard and Quinnipiac have met on the ice 41 times in series history with Harvard owning a slight 20-18-3 advantage over the Bobcats. The Crimson will look to secure its first win against the Bobcats since the 2019-20 season when the teams meet on Saturday.
The Crimson played two close contests against the Bobcats earlier this season as both games being decided by just a single goal. The first matchup featured a strong effort for
Ainsley Tuffy, who made 40 saves to stump the surging Bobcats in a narrow 1-0 loss.
In the second contest, a Crimson comeback attempt came up just short after the Bobcats held on for a 2-1 win.
Sophie Ensley scored late in the third period to spark the team, but the Crimson's final four shot attempts were stopped as Quinnipiac survived.
Harvard at the ECAC Championship
The Crimson has played in eighty games in its ECAC Championships history, logging 50 victories and six tournament titles. The Crimson captured the ECAC Tournament Championship most recently in 2015, when Laura Bellamy was an assistant coach at Harvard. The Crimson and the Bobcats have only met twice in the tournament, splitting the first two games.
The first round matchup with Quinnipiac will be a rematch of last year's contest that saw the Bobcats advance after defeating Harvard in the first round.
Eating Pucks
The Crimson blocked another 33 shots last weekend against Brown and Yale to increase its season total to 525 blocked shots. That number is a program record for the Crimson, breaking the previous record of 478 set by the team a year ago.
Jenna MacDonald and
Kaley MacDonald lead the blocked shots effort for the team with 70 and 64 blocks, respectively. The program record for blocked shots in a season, 93, was set in 2016-17 by Sarah Edney.
Strength of Schedule
Harvard played a pair of games last weekend against opponents ranked in the national polls. Those contests were the seventh and eighth games played against nationally ranked opponents in the second half and the 15th and 16th matchups against ranked opponents this season.
The challenging slate gives Harvard the ninth hardest schedule in the nation according to the USCHO's National Power Index.
Point Leaders
Senior forward,
Gabi Davidson Adams and sophomore blueliner,
Kaley MacDonald, each own 10 points on the season which has them tied for the team lead.
Kaley MacDonald owns two goals and eight assists on the season while GDA leads the team with four goals and adds in six assists to her total.
Minding the Net
Harvard's platoon of goalkeepers,
Emily Davidson and
Ainsley Tuffy, have performed well this season while minding the crease for the Crimson. The duo has split the work for a majority of the season, posting .897 and .920 save percentages, respectively.
Contributions From Everywhere
17 of 21 skaters who have dressed for the Crimson this season have scored a goal in 2024-25 giving Harvard the second most total goal scorers in the ECAC.
New Attendance Record at Bright-Landry
Harvard women's ice hockey broke its attendance record on Jan. 25 after 1,741 fans poured into the Bright-Landry Hockey Center to watch the Crimson take on Cornell. The team shattered its old record of 1,300 that was set in the 2023-24 season.
