It isn’t every day that a former Buffalo Sabres player makes it into the Hockey Hall Of Fame, but today, former captain Chris Drury has done just that.
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Ruggiero headlines the four-member class of 2015 that also includes NHL stars Chris Drury, Mathieu Schneider and and former USA Hockey president Ron DeGregorio.
USA Hockey announced the 2015 class on Monday.
Ruggiero won four Olympic medals during her 15-year career with the U.S. women’s national team. She was the youngest skater on the 1998 Women’s Ice Hockey Team that took home gold at the Olympics in Nagano, and she followed that up with a place on the first-ever US Women’s Team to take home gold at the IIHF Women’s World Championships in 2005.
Ruggiero was part of the 1998 gold-medal winning team and added two silver (2002, 2010) and one bronze (2006) Olympic medals.
“Now I’m in the Hockey Hall of Fame, the U.S. Hockey Hall…” Ruggiero also competed at eight Three/Four Nations Cups, the 1996 Pacific Women’s Championship and was a three-time member of U.S. select teams.
The other three in Ruggiero’s USHHOF draft class, of course, deserve equal praise for their accomplishments.
Mathieu Schneider is one of the most decorated American defensemen in history, spending 21 seasons in the National Hockey League with the Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders, Toronto Maple Leafs, Rangers, Los Angeles Kings, Detroit Red Wings, Anaheim Ducks, Atlanta Thrashers, Vancouver Canucks and Phoenix Coyotes. He was on the Stanley Cup winning Colorado Avalanche Team of 2001 and was an integral part of that success.
A man who has had his handprints on many USA Hockey developments, DeGregorio is famed for starting the USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program in 1996.
Ruggiero played at Harvard and won the national championship in 1999, and had 96 goals and 253 points in her college career, a school record for defensemen.
Schneider, played for the Red Wings in 2002-07.
In 1,289 career regular-season games, Schneider had 223 goals, 520 assists and 1,245 PIM. He played in seven games during that tournament, which ended with the U.S. claiming its most significant tournament victory since the Miracle on Ice. His involvement in hockey spans more than 40 years, primarily as a volunteer.
He started his professional career with Colorado in 1998-99 and earned the Calder Memorial Trophy that season as the league’s top rookie. He was lucky enough to have tasted the Stanley Cup finals so early in his career and to have won the trophy itself. He now serves as co-chair of the USA Hockey Board of Directors following his retirement as president of USA Hockey in June 2015 after a 12-year span. He formerly played goaltender at Middlebury, and was a co-owner for the AHL’s Kentucky Thoroughblades at one time. “As the years go by, we are installing people who are friends, who I’ve worked with or watched play”. He is also sixth in assists (520).
Drury also appeared in three Olympics, winning silver twice (2002, 2010), and was also part of numerous World Championship events including the 2004 World Cup of Hockey.
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Schneider played on two Olympic teams and helped the U.S. win the World Cup of Hockey in 1996. More details, including ticket information, will be released in the upcoming weeks.
