Laurie Belliveau may be the hardest working athlete at Yale, in the Ivy League, or even the country.
It is not a big deal to break a school record, even when you have another year of competition, but this Bulldog women's hockey goaltender deserves overtime compensation or a purple heart as she adds to the Yale career save mark.
Yes, Ms. Belliveau just broke the school record against Princeton on Jan. 8, passing Maureen Magauran's (1988-92) career mark of 2,441 stops. She stopped 47 of 50 shots against the Tigers in a 3-0 loss at Ingalls Rink in New Haven.
But the amazing aspect of her career is that she has averaged 44.5 saves in her 66 career games played. That is a season-high number for most teams, men or women. The Ivy League coaches have noticed, naming her Ivy Co-Player of the Year both her freshman and sophomore campaigns, despite playing for a team that has gone 9-58-3 in her time at Yale.
On Feb. 8-9, she notched over a 100 saves on a weekend for the seventh time this season as the Bulldogs dropped a 4-3 overtime decision to St. Lawrence and then fell to Cornell 3-0, both at Ingalls Rink. She recorded 67 saves against St. Lawrence as the Yale team barely missed scoring its first ECAC point of the season. Ms. Belliveau, also a member of the Yale lacrosse team, then added 64 more saves versus Cornell.
On the Jan. 4-5 road trip, she stopped 109 of 116 shots on goal in losses to St. Lawrence and Cornell. Her 75 saves against Cornell must have seemed like an unbelievable number to everyone at Lynah Rink, but it was not even her career high. Ms. Belliveau had 78 saves in a 3-0 loss to Providence on Feb. 12, 1995, and halted another 78 on Jan. 12 of this season against Dartmouth in a 7-0 defeat. She obviously has the Yale single-game standard.
Ms. Belliveau, a Manchester, Massachusetts, native who attended the Team USA development camp at Lake Placid, New York, in 1995, has shared the Ivy League MVP honors the last two years with Brown forward Katie King.
-- By Steve Conn