The captains of the original six PWHL teams are all veteran forwards in their 30s—except one. Micah Zandee-Hart, age 28, of the New York Sirens is a defensive defender from Saanichton, British Columbia. She may be the youngest captain in the league, but she’s about to be the oldest on her team. This makes her a veteran in her own right. How does she fit in the mix of PWHL captains?
Cornell Captain
Zandee-Hart is no stranger to making history as a young captain. At Cornell University, she became only the second sophomore in program history to bear the captaincy. She also served as co-captain for her final three seasons at the university.
She finished her collegiate career with 225 blocked shots, the highest in Cornell history, and ranked fourth in the country among defenders in points per game in her final season. Fellow Cornell Big Red alum and New York Sirens defender Jaime Bourbonnais spoke highly of Zandee-Hart’s leadership and role-modelling over their years playing together.
The PWHL: In the company of veterans
When Zandee-Hart was named captain of (what was then called) PWHL New York, she had only played on the Canadian senior national team since 2019, the shortest amount of time among the PWHL captain cohort. The PWHL’s other team captains have been long-time leaders on their respective national teams—Blayre Turnbull (32), Brianne Jenner (34), and Marie-Philip Poulin (34) for Team Canada; Hilary Knight (36) and Kendall Coyne Schofield (33) for Team USA. All five of these players have worn or continue to wear an “A” or the “C” for their national team.
In comparison, by the time Zandee-Hart made Team Canada, Poulin (Montréal’s captain) had been playing on the team for 10 years and had captained it for four. Knight (previously Boston’s captain), for her part, had been on Team USA’s roster for 12 years already.
In addition to their long standing on their national team rosters, the other five captains are gifted forwards and have the stats to show for it. Jenner (Ottawa’s captain) led the 2022 Beijing Olympics with nine goals, tying for the record of most goals in one Olympic Games. Poulin is the first player of any gender to score three gold-medal-winning goals. Knight, in 2023, became the first player in IIHF Women’s World Championship (WWC) history to pass 100 career points.
As a defensive defender who’s still under 30, Zandee-Hart has no such flashy accolades. And yet, New York general manager Pascal Daoust opted to build his team around Zandee-Hart, who was even injured at the time of signing her three-year deal and being named captain.
Daoust chooses defenders
On New York, Zandee-Hart was in good company with fellow defender Ella Shelton as alternate captain. Shelton, just one year younger than Zandee-Hart, made her senior team debut for Canada at the 2021 WWC. In the 2024–25 season, both Shelton and Zandee-Hart ranked in the top-four among defenders for time on ice per game (Shelton at second; Zandee-Hart at fourth); Bourbonnais ranked seventh.
During the league’s expansion process in 2025, Daoust chose three defenders out of four protected players in Zandee-Hart, Ella Shelton, and Maja Nylén Persson (Shelton was subsequently traded to the Toronto Sceptres, another defensively strong team with two defenders as alternate captains—Renata Fast and Allie Munroe).
Zandee-Hart played alongside the 24-year-old Nylén Persson for 20 of her 30 games last season, and head coach Greg Fargo may choose to pair them up again for this coming season, if Nylén Persson has recovered from the injury she sustained toward the end of the second season.
A young Sirens team
The Sirens will be a much younger team going into the 2025–26 season, with Zandee-Hart, Jincy Roese, and Kayla Vespa, all born in 1997, the oldest players on the team. Zandee-Hart may not be a veteran compared to the likes of Poulin and Knight, but she’ll be bringing important years of professional experience and leadership to a team full of players just out of college. The Sirens are looking for a fresh start, and Zandee-Hart will certainly be hungry to lead this young group in building a new team identity.
Season 3: More defenders as captains?
Will Zandee-Hart hold the title of the only defender captain for a third consecutive season? The Boston Fleet lost their captain in Hilary Knight, and it seems likely that Megan Keller (age 29), a defender who’s played on Team USA since 2015, will take up the “C.” If she does so, she will join Zandee-Hart as a captain who’s not only a defender but also under age 30.
The two expansion teams, PWHL Seattle and PWHL Vancouver, have yet to name captains and alternate captains. Will they follow the trend of choosing veteran forwards, such as Sarah Nurse or Michelle Karvinen for Vancouver, or Hilary Knight or Alex Carpenter for Seattle? Or might they choose slightly younger defenders like Claire Thompson or Cayla Barnes?
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