For once, the biggest games in women's hockey from Thanksgiving through this weekend are not in the ECAC. In fact, these games aren't even happening in this country.

Instead, many of the world's greatest women's hockey players have gathered in Montreal for the Three Nations Cup between the national teams from Finland, Canada and the U.S.

Among the players in Montreal are Harvard junior winger Tammy Shewchuk and sophomore center Jen Botterill, the top two scorers in the ECAC. Shewchuk and Botterill are the only two collegiate players on Team Canada.

The only collegiate player on Team Finland is forward Hanne Sikio of No. 8 Minnesota-Duluth (10-0-0, 10-0-0 WCHA), the second-leading scorer in Division I. Sikio will miss UMD's two-game series this weekend at No. 5 Minnesota (10-3-0, 7-0-0 WCHA), the Bulldogs' first ranked opponent of the season.

Team U.S.A. Coach Ben Smith '68 did not bring his collegiate players to Montreal. A.J. Mleczko '99 and her teammates are spending the season in residence at Lake Placid, gearing up for 2002. That means sophomore defenseman Angela Ruggiero of Harvard, goaltender Sara DeCosta of Providence, defenseman Tara Mounsey of Brown and center Jenny Schmidgall of UMD are not missing their college games.

UMD was off over Thanksgiving, but the Bulldogs will miss Sikio when they take on Minnesota this weekend.

The other team that lost players to the Three Nations Cup was Harvard--and the Crimson has already been hit hard. Harvard (6-2-0, 4-2-0 ECAC) lost at No. 7 St. Lawrence last Saturday, 4-2, despite pouring 46 shots on goal. The Crimson will have its hands full this weekend, especially when it hosts Princeton Sunday at 2 p.m. at Bright Hockey Center.

But Harvard remained No. 1 when the national poll came out last night. That was because New Hampshire fell at Northeastern on Sunday, 2-1. The Huskies (9-2-1, 6-2-1) replaced the Wildcats (6-2-0, 4-2-0) in the No. 2 spot in the new poll. With Dartmouth idle last weekend, the Huskies also moved into first place in the ECAC.