The expectations were high for Joy Dunne coming into her freshman year. She was named WCHA Preseason Rookie of the Year, was captain of the US team at the 2023 IIHF U18 Women’s World Championships and there’s that highly recognizable last name, particularly in Columbus.
In the face of all that pressure, she played in every game for the Buckeyes, helping them to program-record numbers in goals, assists, points and conference wins. Dunne led Ohio State with 24 goals, which was also the most in the country among rookies and tied for sixth in the nation among all skaters. Her six game-winning goals paced her team and was tied for sixth in the country. She is the first Buckeye rookie to record 40 points since the 2017-18 season. A clutch player, she scored a goal in six of the Buckeyes’ final seven games.
If it wasn’t already clear what a special, game-changing player Dunne is, she closed out her massive first season by scoring a decisive goal in the national semifinal and her team’s only goal to win the National Championship.
Ohio State coach Nadine Muzerall calls out Dunne’s strength, shot, knowledge and relentlessness as reasons why she was able to win this award among a number of talented rookies this season.
“She has a high hockey IQ. She is a very unselfish hockey player, but she plays very physical,” Muzerall said.
Dunne uses her 5’11” frame to carve out space on the ice, shield the puck and cut in towards the goal mouth. Her snappy wrister is both deceptively strong and incredibly accurate. She picks her spot and places the puck with ease – the two goals she scored at the Frozen Four were from different locations, but still looked remarkably the same as she found space at midrange to release her wrister that beat the goalie before they realized it was past them.
“I haven’t seen many women shoot the puck the way she does, not just in terms of power, but in terms of accuracy and purpose,” Muzerall said after the national semifinal.
In each postgame at the Frozen Four, Dunne talked about trusting in herself and the work she’d done in the year leading up to those games – and even before – to guide her. That wrist shot, she said, she’d practiced hundreds of times this year alone. She was confident in it and herself and comfortable with relying on her instincts to unleash it in those high-pressure situations.
After settling for a bronze at the World Championships last winter, Dunne said she and her teammates never wanted to feel like that again. That same drive was apparent as Ohio State pushed for their second title. Dunne herself hadn’t been on the OSU team that lost the final game last season, but she took their disappointment as their own and was motivated by getting redemption for her teammates.
On a team of veterans, with NCAA and international championship experience, Dunne carved out a space where she both learned from them and led them and in doing so became Ohio State’s first-ever Hockey Commissioners Association National Rookie of the Year.
She won that award before the Frozen Four began, then went out and solidified in front of a national audience why it was the right call.
In recognition of a stellar season, Joy Dunne is this year’s USCHO Rookie of the Year.
