The Next One

The Joy of Six

Jincy Dunne is a high school sophomore who loves cookies and plays varsity basketball. She also happens to be on pace to shatter the Team USA record as the youngest hockey Olympian, ever.  Her age, or lack of it, is making people's head spin. She's was the youngest player on USA's U-18 team that won silver in Helsinki this past January, two months AFTER winning 4-Nations gold on the senior national team with women's hockey legends like Julie Chu, Hilary Knight and Jesse Vetter. Only Natalie Darwitz has played on USA's national Team at age 15, but her first Olympic shift wasn't until she was 18. If Jincy does what most observers consider inevitable, she will shatter the record by nearly two years, playing in Sochi as a 16 year old.

On Point

Now, back to that hoops business. In an era where young athletes cut out all extra-curricular sports, Jincy just got through a winter season in which she played varsity basketball for her Fulton high school in the St. Louis suburbs and varsity hockey for a boys team at a high separate high school half an hour across town.  Holy Robby Benson!  No one plays hockey and hoops unless it's written into Hollywood scripts (for all you New Millennials, Robby Benson played a hockey player in Ice Castles and a hoopster in One on One). Seth Jones has NBA genes thanks to father Popeye, but he isn't spending any time shooting buckets away from the rink.  "I'm a point guard," said Dunne, who starts when her schedule permits.  "I don't shoot. Just direct a little."  And showing a trait that will soon be her signature, she gives a ton of credit to her hoops coach Dennis Shine for teaching her so much about the game and allowing her to play on her schedule in this season of sports chaos. "He always says 'If you aren't having fun, you are doing something wrong.'" For a girl who likes to stay in constant motion, she is having a ton of fun. Her high school basketball and hockey teams are only a fraction of the total Ms. Dunne has played on this winter, but you'll need a sharp pencil to follow along. She played on the two USA Hockey national teams which brings the total up to four, the Blues U-19 women's travel squad makes five. Her sixth was a boys AAA midget team with whom she practice, the same team she helped lead to the national championship game when they were bantams a year prior.

Six winter sports teams have not derailed her relentless pursuit of academic excellence, which will allow Jincy to graduate a year ahead of schedule next June.  And she likes to bake.  "Cookies are the only thing," she said on the phone from Missouri on Friday.  "I just love chocolate chip cookies...it's a homemade recipe from a school friend...I give most of them away." The fact that the last USA women's Olympic team had a nationally televised documentary about its love of chocolate chip cookies bodes well for Jinny.  She is the perfect fit for a team so committed to youth that they jettisoned an eager but aging superstar Jen Potter. USA has not won women's hockey gold in 16 years, when Potter was the 19 year old darling of the club.

Elite hockey players, future stars with Olympic aspirations, try to simplify their lives and focus on the one thing that will propel them to greatness, including ample time for rest.  Not Jinny. Her January return from the U-18 Championships in Helsinki is the stuff of legend: a hockey/hoops doubleheader on short sleep the day after getting back from Finland.  The following day she was baking cookies and plotting a business plan to take care of seniors. "Down time is OK, but I like to be busy," she said matter of factly.

Of all those teams she has played with this year, it is practicing with midget boys (15 and 16 year olds) that makes her the great defenseman she is.  The increased speed and physicality, that tiny time window  to make decisions, has forced her game to a higher level.  She admits that those traits of the boys game are superior to the women's game, but "maybe not the intelligence." When she describes her best attribute on the ice, it's enough to make coaches hearts melt: "I like making that good first pass, and then jumping into the play."  When questioned about what she likes best about hockey in general, she took time to think out her answer.  "I like being part of a team...how it is like a family. I like being a part of that family."  And it is her family home life that has shaped the character of the athlete that has Princeton's women's coach Jeff Kampersal gushing. "She could be the next best player in our country."

Dunne was first exposed to hockey when a younger sibling started playing roller hockey. Her parents reinforce the faith which is the foundation of her entire family, and keeps The Next One humble.  "She (mom) reminds me where your gift comes from. Faith is very important." Jincy's connection to family extends onto the ice: her defense partner on the Blues women's U-19 club is her older sister Jessica. When it comes to shooting from the blue line, "I can get the puck through (from the point), but Jessica is the shooter. I like setting her up."

Puck Love

Her absence of ego makes Jincy a sponge for hockey knowledge from some of the best sources in the game: Keith Tkachuk and Jamie Rivers from the NHL Blues organization and former USA Olympic defenseman Courtney Kennedy who was the USA's assistant coach at the U-18's. "She was fantastic," said Jincy, who worked very closely with Kennedy in Helsinki at the tournament in January.  "Each shift I came off the ice she would say 'This is what you did, this is what you can do better.'" There is no doubt Dunne is being groomed for national team glory, and she is responding.  2014 Olympic and Harvard head coach Katey Stone had the 15 year old at the Four Nations Cup last November.  "She was very supportive," said Jinny "especially her mentality and competitiveness.  I learned how important little things are to winning."  When pressed for an example of a little thing, she paused before sharing how vital it is for a defenseman to sprint at absolute top speed when retrieving a puck on a dump-in, to buy some precious time.

Of all the superstars Dunne was exposed to, she gravitated to national team captain and 3-time Olympian Julie Chu.  "She is so humble," said the protege, "and she gives 160%."  The two women share a prodigious work ethic and selfless dedication to their sport.  They appear to be destined for a symbolic torch pass in Sochi.

Dunne will be trying to be the youngest player in USA Olympic history, and not as one of the 17 forward spots available in Lake Placid next month.  Dunne is a defenseman, who will likely have USA's gold medal fate on her stick in the defensive zone against Canada if she makes the squad.  She is unfazed.  "Pressure is a privilege," she said, echoing a hockey cliche that she believes in deeply.

Her future is unimaginably bright.  There is no reason to believe she won't make the national team next month, and then fulfill her destiny in Sochi. In women's hockey, the NCAA is The Show, with 10,000 fans cramming into Wisconsin home games and elite Ivy League programs combining hockey excellence along with their precious diplomas. NCAA coaches will be in a feeding frenzy to land Dunne, the perfect player to help a program claim a national championship, but she refuses to consider those possibilities. "I'm just getting ready for Lake Placid."

A high school sophomore, with the women's hockey world as her oyster, turns 16 next week.  How will America's next Olympic sweetheart celebrate the milestone?
"I just plan on going to dinner with my family and eating a bunch of cookies!"