Angela Ruggiero

Sports Business Journal, “What I Like” Feature.

A four-time Olympic medalist for Team USA, Angela Ruggiero also graduated cum laude from Harvard, appeared on the sixth season of “The Apprentice,” and was elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission after the Vancouver Games.

Professional

What I Like …

An insight: When work, commitment and pleasure all become one and you reach that deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible.

An influential person in my career: My first Olympic coach, Ben Smith.

An out-of-the-box idea: Linking a team’s success to revenue generation for that city. Instead of all the revenue going back to the owners, the city would have a vested interest in the success of an individual team and would thereby become more loyal fans.

A timeless idea: Welcome differences of opinion. It means that people are thinking.

A sports facility: Fenway Park.

A sports event: The Olympics.

A hire: More women in the sports world to appropriately reflect the growing trend of the female sports consumer.

A brand: Visa.

A trend: Sport to create social change in the world (such as the NGO Right to Play, or the IOC’s many initiatives that redistribute Olympic dollars back into the community for sports programs).

An innovation: Twitter.

A pro league or team business initiative: Professional women’s sports teams in the style of a minor pro baseball team. More options for the child and female consumer.

A story that bears watching: Comcast/NBC merger.

An idea or invention I wish I had thought of: Nike’s Livestrong campaign.

A fantasy job: Al Michaels or Bob Costas — telling the story of sport to inspire the world.

What I Like About …

My job: I get to work out and take naps as part of my “job” and to be an inspiration to lots of kids.

Sports: Everything. The life lessons it teaches you, learning your individual and collective potential, working with others for a common goal, the unpredictability of it, yet the ability to control your own performance.

Sports business: Working with athletes and businesspeople to create an entertaining product that adds positive value to millions of people worldwide.

Sports technology: Replays. They should be mandatory in all sports since they can help to decide the rightful winner. Replays helped us win the 2009 world championship.

Sports fans: Their genuine interest in your success.

What I’d Like To …

See: Sponsors more fully adopting individual Olympic athletes so that they can efficiently and effectively train for the Olympics.

See more of in sports: More opportunities for boys and girls from around the world to get involved in sport. I think physical activity and sport should be a requirement as well as a human right worldwide.

See less of in sports: Parents who ruin the game for their kids.

See different: Parity of men’s and women’s sports.

Eliminate: Steroids.

(read more)

The Boston Globe

For years she has been recognized as a leader on Team USA, and yesterday her competitors from around the world showed the respect they, too, have for Angela Ruggiero.

The four-time Olympic medalist and former Harvard women’s hockey star was elected by her peers to represent all Olympic athletes on the International Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission.

The commission serves as a consultative body and is the link between active athletes and the IOC. It represents athletes within the Olympic Movement and also upholds the rights and obligations of the athletes. It has 19 members – eight summer sports athletes, four winter sports athletes, and the rest appointed by the IOC president to ensure a balance in terms of gender, sport and region.

Commission members are involved in many IOC activities, such as the evaluation of cities seeking to host the Olympic Games, the review of the sports program for the games and anti-doping efforts.

“It is a tremendous honor to be voted by my fellow Olympians to become a member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission,” Ruggiero said. “I want to thank everyone who has put their faith and trust in me to represent them. I will do all I can to be a good ambassador of the Olympic Movement and represent athlete issues to the IOC — not just from North America — but from around the world.’’ (read more)

Sports Business Daily

With their 9-1 win over Sweden, the U.S. women’s hockey team advanced to a Gold Medal faceoff against Canada on Thursday, a matchup that seemed a foregone conclusion as each team rolled through the tournament. Team USA has not won the Gold Medal in women’s hockey since the sport debuted at the ’98 Nagano Games, but defender Angela Ruggiero and her teammates now find themselves one game away from a return to the promised land. On the strength of Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in the last three Winter Olympics, Ruggiero has built up an impressive endorsement portfolio featuring Nike, Visa, Coca-Cola, Easton and Qwest Communications. For the Vancouver Games, the four-time Olympian is a member of both Coca-Cola’s “Six-Pack” of athletes and Team Visa, which Relay Worldwide Dir of Strategic Consulting Jonathan Jensen called “considerable accomplishments for an athlete in a sport that has only been contested in four Olympics.”

PLANNING AHEAD:  With her career winding down, Ruggiero is looking more toward her future when it comes to endorsement deals, according to her agent Sheryl Shade. Ruggiero hopes to solidify her legacy in the sport through her continued efforts to promote participation among young girls, and she looks to sponsors to contribute to these initiatives through in-kind services, equipment, clothing, jerseys and more. “That’s one of the key elements when we’re talking with anyone, to really help her because she wants to expand the sport,” said Shade. “The sport has been very good to her.” Ruggiero also hopes to parlay relationships with sponsors into a second career when she ultimately decides to hang up her skates. She declined an opportunity to work for Donald Trump after her elimination from “The Apprentice” in ’07, choosing instead to focus on hockey and return to the ice. And while she has not yet ruled out competing at the ’14 Sochi Games, it is not too early for her to start looking to the future. Shade said Ruggiero hopes to hold conversations with sponsors like Visa and Coca-Cola about her various off-ice career interests, like sports marketing and broadcasting. “Olympic sports sponsorships aren’t always about the money,” Shade said. “It’s the opportunities they can offer and where they can take her.” (read more)

TSN- After sweeping their opponents throughout the tournament, the U.S. Women’s Ice Hockey Team earned silver as they were edged out by Canada in the championship game at the 2009 Women’s Four Nations Cup, Nov. 3-7 in Tikkurila, Finland. The event featured the top four women’s hockey teams in the world – the United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden – and is the last international women’s hockey tournament prior to the start of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. The U.S. team opened preliminary-round play with a 4-0 win over Finland and added two additional tournament wins after defeating both Sweden and Canada 3- 2.   The U.S. Women’s team beat Canada to win the gold medal at the 2009 World Championships earlier this year. (read more)

Los Angeles Times

Like most athletes as they age, three-time U.S. Olympic hockey medalist Angela Ruggiero of Simi Valley realized that her 29-year-old body wasn’t rebounding as quickly as it used to after games and workouts.

Intent on helping Team USA return to gold-medal glory in February at the Vancouver Games, she worked out with male hockey players this summer at the Athletes Performance training facility at the Home Depot Center in Carson. She emerged leaner and stronger—and believes she might have added 10 years to her playing career.

Ruggiero spent May, June, July and part of August at Athletes Performance as the only woman in a training group that included Chris Drury of the New York Rangers, George Parros of the Ducks, Richard Park of the New York Islanders, former King Noah Clarke, and other pro players.

 “For me it was really cool,” she said from Spokane, Wash., where the U.S. women’s national team will faced Canada in a game televised by the NHL Network. (read more)