Jincy Dunne: Road from Ohio State to the Olympics

2015 was a special year for Jincy Dunne. She was the captain of the US Under-18 Women’s World Championship team. Dunne led her teammates to the gold medal over Canada. She also led all defensewomen with eight goals scored. Dunne was named an All-Star. Ohio State has produced some pretty amazing athletes. Recently, Chase Young was chosen as the Buckeye Male Athlete of the year. However, people tend to forget who the female athlete was that year. If she helps the USA win hockey gold in the Olympics, the nation will know this young woman.  

The Importance of Family

Dunne was the 2019-2020 female athlete of the year for Ohio State. This made her the first hockey player chosen for the honor. She came to Columbus from St Louis, where she is just one in a long line of family hockey players. Her brother, Josh Dunne, recently made his debut with the Columbus Blue Jackets.  Her older sister, Jessica, also skated for the Buckeyes.  She has a younger brother who is considered a top 20 Under-18 player. 

Dunne is the second oldest of her siblings.  She started with figure skating but saw how her younger brother was playing ice hockey, so she and her sister switched over.  Their dad said in an NBC TV 5 interview on how competition in the children fueled their passion for the sport: “Monopoly was physical around our place.  And everybody was very competitive.  Hockey was a break in a sense because it wasn’t so intense!” 

Ohio State Women’s Hockey

Dunne started her Buckeye career being red-shirted her first year on campus due to a concussion. However, she started for the Buckeyes every year after.  People forget that when she committed, the women’s program had suffered a losing year and were stuck in 5th or 6th place in the conference.  Upon graduation, the program was championship caliber with an NCAA Frozen Four appearance. 

At Ohio State Dunne was a four time captain in her five years there.  She has had many highlights in her collegiate career. Dunne’s most recent was assisting the goal to defeat Wisconsin for the WCHC title. Unfortunately, as play began for the NCAA tournament that year, the COVID 19 pandemic started and ended play.

 The Ohio State Athletic press release for Dunne pointed out so many awards and accomplishments like “three-time AHCA All-American, with two first-team accolades…one of just two Buckeyes to earn first-team All-WCHA honors three times and received the league’s defensive player of the year honor as both a junior and senior…an Academic All-Big Ten honoree and Ohio State Scholar-Athlete for the 2019-20 academic year.”  She ended her career with that huge win over Wisconsin.

Road to the Olympics

Dunne’s international career has not matched her collegiate one.  She was the youngest skater chosen for the preliminary USA team in 2014, but was cut just prior to the Sochi Olympics. As the selection began for the 2018 team in South Korea, she suffered an injury that would keep her out of the Olympics.  Dunne is now at her first Olympic games in 2022.

Currently, the women have qualified for the semifinals against Finland. If the women can get past the Finnish women, they get a second chance at the Canadians, who beat them 4-2 earlier in the week.  If the coaches are smart, they will give more time to the Ohio State graduate, who helped beat the Canadians in 2015.  Dunne is ready for her time to shine and possibly be the face of USA Women’s hockey for the future.  In an interview with Fox2now in St Louis, she mentioned how her journey is really a family journey. The competition in the Dunne family was on her mind when she said, “My parents told me don’t come home without a gold medal. I don’t intend to!”