Amassing an impressive 158 and 165 Dartmouth career points, respectively, women's hockey forwards Gillian Apps '06 and Cherie Piper '06 have been named to Canada's 21-player roster for this year's Olympic games in Vancouver.
No stranger to the international hockey arena, Piper will be marking her third straight Olympics appearance. She won gold with Canada in the 2002 Salt Lake City games and again in 2006 in Turin.
Apps, meanwhile, will be returning to Team Canada for her second Olympics, after playing with Piper in Turin.
Both players made headlines in the 2006 games, tied for the tournament's top goal-scorer with seven apiece. Apps was also named to the Media All-Star Team at these games, while Piper improved from tallying five points in five appearances in 2002 to notching 15 points in the same number of games in the Turin Olympics.
Despite Piper's longevity with Team Canada, playing in three World Championship tournaments and in six Four Nations Cups, she still had to fight to earn a spot on the 2010 Olympics team. She was cut from the roster for the 2009 World Championship in Finland, where Canada took home the silver.
Suffering from a knee injury and coping with the death of her father, Piper came back strong, according to CTVolympics.com. Her reinstatement was the only change head coach Melody Davidson made from the 2009 World Championship team roster.
Now playing for the Calgary Oval X-Treme, Piper was key in carrying the Big Green to the NCAA Frozen Four two years in a row during her time at Dartmouth, though she missed the final games of her sophomore year due to her commitment to the national team.
During her senior year, Piper scored the game winner in the ECAC Hockey League Finals against St. Lawrence University and was second on the season in assists with 27, despite missing 11 games due to injury.
Apps, who now plays for the Brampton Canadette-Thunder, was named the Most Valuable Player by the New England Hockey Writers while captaining Dartmouth her senior year and was also a Top-10 finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award, which recognizes the top women's hockey college athlete in the nation. That same year, Apps was named ECACHL's Player of the Year, and finished the season with 46 points a high for her college career.
Apps also missed many of her collegiate games due to national team tournaments, but still played a strong role in Dartmouth's success, including placing second in scoring her sophomore year with 22 goals, despite eventually missing the Frozen Four to compete in the World Championship for Canada.
In Apps and Piper's junior year, the Big Green ended its season with a 27-8-0 record, tying for a single-season program record for wins. That year, Apps racked up 42 points and Piper hit her Dartmouth career high, with 60 points.
Kicking off the 2010 season and leading up to this year's Olympic Games, Canada hosted the United States on New Year's Day in an exhibition game, where both Apps and Piper helped bring Canada a win. Edging the U.S. in a 3-2 shootout, the game marked a record attendance for a women's hockey game in Canada, as 16,347 fans came out to watch the thriller.
In Vancouver, Canada will face major competition from Finland and Sweden as well as from the U.S. These teams were the top four finishers in the past two Olympic Games.
Canada is scheduled to open the women's hockey tournament in Vancouver on February 13, facing off against Slovakia, which will be making its Olympic debut in women's hockey.
Neither Piper nor Apps could be reached for comment by press time.
