BUFFALO – Most hockey players can recall some tough road trips in their careers. For Jincy Dunne, captain of the USA’s women’s U18 team, travelling across the Atlantic for hockey at 15 years old just happened to be one of them.

Returning from her first IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship tournament back in 2013, which was held in the town of Vierumaki north of Helsinki, Dunne endured a two hour early morning drive down to the Finnish capital, following by a flight first to New York, then to Minnesota, then finally to her hometown of St. Louis.
  
For Dunne, who just got back from a tournament where she registered seven points in five games as a defenceman, it wouldn’t have been too much to ask for her to take the night off when she got home. But she didn’t blink when she realized that she had a hockey game that very evening.

“I had gotten off my flight from Vierumaki, with the time change and everything it worked out that I landed in the early afternoon,” said Dunne. “I had a hockey game at 9pm that night and was a mess, feeling like I was all over the place and running into walls. My coach thankfully took it easy on me that night.”

Moving now to 2015, where Dunne is captaining Team USA in her third women’s U18 appearance, this time mercifully on home ice in Buffalo. Her performances with the national team have her labelled as the States’ next great female hockey player by many who have followed her short but distinguished hockey career.

Dunne was born in Naples, Florida but raised in St. Louis, Missouri, two very unlikely locations for an American hockey player to come out of. It was no surprise Dunne, who also plays basketball, grew up mostly playing soccer before eventually moving to ice hockey.

By her own admission she wasn’t the most athletic child growing up, which may have been part of the reason why she moved into the sport after seeing her brother try roller hockey.

“I didn’t want to play at first, I didn’t want to do anything as a kid really,” said Dunne. “But I just fell in love with skating, I loved to skate around the ice and slide on the ice, although I do less sliding now. It seemed easier than running at the time (laughs) back then I was just lazy.”

Good news for USA Hockey. Last season Dunne won Directorate top Defenceman honours at the U18 Women’s World Chanmpionship in Budapest. The year before that, as a 15-year-old all she did was lead all defencemen on her team in scoring with seven points and a +11 rating at the Vierumaki tournament.

Her performances at the U18 level have the mark of a player that women’s hockey fans can expect to see for many years to come. When speaking to Dunne’s coach, and USA hockey officials, among the things that come up are her level of maturity and poise in handling all the attention that comes with being under the microscope at a young age.  

“I’ve seen Jincy play for a long time, and coached her in different camps,” said current USA U18 women’s head coach Joel Johnson. “She’s had an interesting and challenging career with USA Hockey, being so young and so gifted. When you’re young and talented you get a lot of opportunities that you work through, and you have to get adjusted to playing often with older players.”

In fact, as a 16-year-old Dunne was seriously being considered for a spot on the U.S. women’s national Olympic team in the months leading up to the Games. She didn’t make it in the end, but the fact that she was among the final cuts at the end of 2013 after just turning 16 that May speaks to a player that is a veritable hockey prodigy.

“The experience was incredible, and I got to be teammates with the best players for the USA, seeing how they compete and how they lay together and dedicate their lives to the game. They have the best attitudes and they give back and that was great to see,” she said.

“Obviously it’s a unique situation to have a U18 player at the top level,” said USA Hockey’s Director of Women’s Ice Hockey Reagan Carey. “For her to experience all that and to come back and have to poise to lead this U18 team, and her ability to be a leader and lead the charge in each game here is special.”

But a hockey fan? Surprisingly not so much, although she counts U.S. defenceman Anne Schleper as a mentor and role model, she takes a more businesslike approach to hockey when asked about who she follows in the sport.

“To be honest I never watched much hockey growing up and even now I don’t watch a lot, I’d prefer usually to watch a movie,” she said. “But definitely Nik Lidstrom is a fantastic defenceman, I love to just watch videos of him and learn from him as much as I can.”

Dunne is anything if not hungry to win, especially as this is her last chance to win gold in this tournament. The last two years at the U18s, despite great performances she was ultimately denied a trophy in consecutive gold medal game losses to Canada.

“I think anytime you get the chance to win a gold medal you feel that drive,” said Dunne. “But for me I think this being my last year at the U18 I want to make it my best year.”

Despite the missed opportunities for gold, she does enjoy the international game and has future Olympic Games in her sights.

“I like the hybrid icing, although I don’t like it when you’re out there for two minutes, but it keeps the game going,” said Dunne. “The 20-minute warmup was new for me too, usually I only get three minutes to warm up before a game, my first IIHF pregame warmup I was going so hard I told myself that I needed to slow down otherwise I’d be too tired for the game!”

Not many hockey players come out of Missouri, and in order to find teams that fit her skill level Dunne played with boys at the high school and club level, and also in girls’ teams like the U19 Lady Blues. The fact that she’s drawn experience from so many different levels of hockey has been a blessing for her development.

“I think that boys’ hockey helped open doors for me and helped me to progress as a player, for me I was never a physical player because I was always playing in an older age group and I was much smaller than everyone else,” said Dunne. “You’d never see me go and body-check someone so it was more about me being smart physically, learning to avoid hits, which helped me on the national team.”

All these experiences have molded Dunne into a mature player, and a team leader at just 17. Said teammate Melissa Samoskevich when asked to describe the influence of Dunne on the team:

“Our team chemistry is awesome and she just adds to it as a player but also the way she talks…it’s like a ball of sunshine to be honest (laughs) I know that sounds weird but that’s how she is, just a true leader and the best I’ve ever had.”

Her coach predicts Dunne will be a factor in today's gold medal game. 

“I think she will be," said Johnson. "That doesn’t mean she has to score or generate offence, but she will be. I’m not worried one bit she’s going to have an impact on the game and it will be fun to watch.”

But despite all the experiences and training with the world’s best female players, it’s easy to forget that Dunne’s still a teenager. When asked if the return flight from Helsinki was her toughest road trip, Dunne deferred to an experience earlier this summer.

“No, actually flying back from Calgary this summer was a tough one, originally I had a flight at 7am but they transferred me to an earlier flight that did not in fact exist as there was no plane at the gate.”

“Then they wouldn’t let me on the original flight as it was full. No one could find a connection but they gave me seven dollars for food, which really couldn’t get me anything to eat aside from a pack of gum!”

She was eventually bailed out with some help from USA Hockey, although she had to return to Minnesota via San Francisco, a detour of about 2,000 km. But at least she didn’t have a hockey game when she got back.

“She’s a veteran on the ice but I don’t know about her travel skills (laughs),” said Carey. “We had to track her down and we managed to find her, it’s a reminder that they’re still young girls.”  


ADAM STEISS