Angela Ruggiero

Alan Abrahamson (Team USA)

Even by the standards of Angela Ruggiero’s already remarkable life, she had an amazing winter. Well, and early spring.

Here was Angela as International Olympic Committee member, wining and dining and flying all over the world as part of the select IOC commission evaluating the three cities in the 2018 Winter Games race — Pyeongchang, South Korea; Munich, Germany; and Annecy, France. Glamorous? Sure. But hard work — the commission prepared a lengthy report that was issued Tuesday rating all three. And hard on the body — the last photo op in France took place on a Saturday night and the commission had to be peppy and hard at work in Korea early on a Wednesday morning.

Here, too, was Angela as world-class hockey player, now in late April in Zurich, capping her tenth world championships with a gold medal, a 3-2 overtime victory over Canada.

“I feel so lucky to be a part of it,” Angela said, meaning both worlds, adding, “They’re completely different worlds, for sure. One day, I’m talking to the president or prime minister of France or Korea or Germany.

“The next day I’m in the gym, lifting weights or on the treadmill, talking to my college-age teammates about their exams coming up.  They’re just completely different worlds.”

The IOC evaluation commission traditionally reserves a spot for an athlete’s point of view. But it’s not clear that any serving athlete has been as ever been as simultaneously engaged in both commission and athletic career as Angela Ruggiero.

As ever, Angela is something of a pioneer. (read more)

USA Today

Hockey player Angela Ruggiero has taken on a new Olympic role, as one of three U.S. members of the International Olympic Committee.

The post has the 31-year-old traveling the world, hobnobbing with top Olympic officials. But it doesn’t mean she’s walking away from the role she’s played in the last four Winter Games, as a member of the U.S. women’s hockey team.

Ruggiero, playing at the world championships beginning Saturday in Switzerland, is committed to another Olympic run.

“I took a little time off and decided that I wanted to try to get that gold back,” says Ruggiero, a defenseman who will be 34 when the 2014 Winter Olympics begin in Sochi, Russia.

Ruggiero and her U.S. teammates won Olympic gold in the 1998 Games in Nagano, where women’s hockey made its debut as an Olympic sport. The USA won silver in 2002, bronze in 2006 and another silver in 2010. Ruggiero was on each of those teams.

To complete her Olympic career with another gold in 2014 “would be, honestly, perfect,” Ruggiero says. (read more)

Angela Ruggiero to compete in her 10th tournament

Detroit Free Press

After a weeklong training camp that included two exhibition games against Canada, the U.S. women’s national hockey team will leave Ann Arbor on Tuesday for the IIHF World Women’s Championships with a group it says is strong enough to win its third straight title.

Among the 21 players selected to the U.S. team, announced Saturday, were two four-time Olympians: defenseman Angela Ruggiero, formerly of Harper Woods, and forward Jenny Potter.

Ruggiero, 31, said she’s grateful for the opportunity to play in her 10th world championships.

She had considered retiring after Team USA lost in the gold-medal game to Canada at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, but has since confirmed that her heart has led her back to hockey.

“Looking around the room today when the roster was named and seeing names [of some of the younger players]– it takes me back to the first time I made the team and how excited I was,” Ruggiero sad.

“The world championships are really like our Stanley Cup playoffs,” Ruggiero said. “This is our biggest tournament for women’s hockey outside the Olympics. Maybe we don’t get as much coverage outside the Olympic years, but for us playing the game, this is what it’s all about and why you play, so it definitely doesn’t get old.”

(read more)

“I have the spark still as an athlete”

Detroit Free Press

Angela Ruggiero has been playing for the U.S. women’s national team since before hockey became an Olympic sport for women at the 1998 Nagano Games.

But longevity isn’t the reason the 31-year-old defenseman hopes to make her 10th world team Saturday when national team coach Katey Stone announces the 21 players who will head to Switzerland next week for the world championships.

The final score of Team USA’s exhibition game against Canada on Thursday night at the Ice Cube in Ann Arbor provided more than enough fuel for Ruggiero’s competitive fire: The U.S. women lost, 3-1.

“It’s my first game against Canada since Vancouver, so I was fired up,” said Ruggiero, who grew up in Harper Woods and had members of her family in the sell-out crowd of 1,100. (read more)

Shade Global is excited to announce the launch of AngelaRuggiero.com, ice hockey Olympic Champion Angela Ruggiero’s new official website. AngelaRuggiero.com is the place to keep up to date with all of the latest and greatest happenings, news, travel, pictures, videos, media and more!

Whether she is skating circles around the competition as an elite hockey player, carrying out her duties on the International Olympic Committee, getting involved in the community, or embarking on a new adventure, you’ll always be at “center ice” in the action at AngelaRuggiero.com

(read more)