Women's hockey alum Becky Kellar '97 is taking the ice in Vancouver this month to play in her fourth Olympic Games as a member of Team Canada, shooting for her third gold medal. The blue-liner won a silver medal at Nagano in 1998 in women's hockey's first year as a medal sport before taking the gold at Salt Lake City in 2002 and Torino in 2006.
Canada won all three of its preliminary-round games in dominant fashion, steamrolling Slovakia, Switzerland and Sweden with a combined score of 41-2. Their next game will come against an opponent that has yet to be determined in the classifications on Saturday.
As one of the seven players who graduated between 1994 and 2003 to suit up in the Olympics, Kellar is the last active link to a rich Olympics tradition for Brown's program. In 2006, Katie King '97, Kathleen Kauth '01, Pam Dreyer '03 and Kim Insalaco '03 all suited up for the bronze-winning United States team.
A member of the United States team this year, Karen Thatcher, played for the Bears in her freshman season of 2002-03 before transferring to Providence College.
League-leading Cornell basketball, hockey suffer weekend losses
It was a rough weekend for Cornell, as the two most highly touted Big Red teams each suffered tough losses.
The men's basketball team's two-week stay in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll, its first appearance in the national rankings in 59 years, ended abruptly when Penn scored the first 15 points of the second half on Friday to break open what had been a one-point lead at halftime and cruised to a 79-64 victory. The then-No. 22 Big Red shot 33 percent from the floor in the second half while allowing the Quakers to shoot a sizzling 65 percent.
Cornell then won a dogfight with Princeton, 48-45, the following night to regain first place in the Ivy League, but Princeton and Harvard both lurk within a game of the Big Red in the standings.
The men's hockey team was not so fortunate. After a 5-3 win over Brown on Friday, the Big Red squared off with its co-leader in ECAC Hockey, Yale. The Bulldogs rallied for a 2-1 win when Sean Backman scored the game-winner in overtime, spoiling the 52-save effort by Big Red goalie Ben Scrivens.
Cornell beat Colgate on Tuesday to tie Yale for the conference lead, but the Big Red have lost to the Bulldogs twice this season.
Ivy quick hits
— Princeton freshman Eliza Stone won a gold medal in the women's saber at the Junior Olympics in Memphis on Saturday, beating out 111 competitors in the under-20 event.
— The Spanish Association of Basketball Coaches visited Columbia on Feb. 10, watching a practice and touring the facilities as part of a week-long tour of the New York area, according to Columbia Sports Information.
— Dartmouth held a forum on spectator standards on Jan. 26, featuring a panel including Jim Yong Kim '82, the school's president. Kim urged attendees to be "creative, funny and effective" in cheering on the Big Green, but he warned that "you have to make sure you don't cross the line of threatening or offending anyone," according to Dartmouth Sports Information. On Dec. 2, Dartmouth fans allegedly shouted anti-Semitic insults at Harvard's Franklin Cohen during a squash match.
