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In May, New York Sirens general manager Pascal Daoust extended a special opportunity to his captain, Micah Zandee-Hart. With the PWHL branching out to the Pacific Northwest ahead of the 2025-26 season, Daoust gave Zandee-Hart the option to return home and join the expansion Vancouver Goldeneyes.
“I sat with her in May, and I said, ‘Hey, Vancouver is coming, and it’s your hometown. I don’t want you to go. We want you as our captain. But if you ask me, I’m gonna let you go,'” Daoust revealed during training camp in November. “You deserve this for everything that you’ve done so far.”
The Saanichton, British Columbia native couldn’t help but consider the offer.
“Being a kid from the West Coast, having a Vancouver pro team was something that was never on my radar,” Zandee-Hart said. “So when that became an expansion team, it was hard for my family not to be like, ‘Oh, that would be nice.’ I’ve lived away from home for a long time.”
Despite her West Coast roots, Zandee-Hart spent the bulk of the last decade on the East Coast. Zandee-Hart was a three-time captain at Cornell University in upstate New York, where she played for the Big Red from 2015 to 2020. After a brief one-year stint with Toronto’s PWHPA affiliate, the defender became one of New York’s three signings during the PWHL’s inaugural free agency period in 2023. Soon after, she was named the first captain in Sirens history.
But even the allure of a long-awaited homecoming could not sway Zandee-Hart to leave a Sirens squad that finished dead last in each of its first two seasons.
“I’m determined to make this fan base just as proud as I am to be a Siren,” Zandee-Hart pledged. “I know we’ve had a couple tough seasons, but I think there’s a lot to look forward to coming up, and I really want to be a part of it.”
A message from our Captain: pic.twitter.com/W2VpOjBSiL
— New York Sirens (@PWHL_NewYork) November 28, 2025
Fast forward to February. New York owns a playoff spot as the PWHL returns from a nearly month-long Olympic break; they sit fourth overall with 24 points (7-0-3-6) — their best start in team history.
“I think the culture is different,” coach Greg Fargo noted during the Olympic break. “We have a lot of new faces, but I think more than anything, we’re getting to see the best of Micah, and that’s been a big part of the change.”
Change, it seems, was part of the plan. Daoust initiated a roster shake-up ahead of the 2025-26 season, parting ways with nearly 70 percent of the team’s scoring from 2024-25. Instead, he pivoted in a decidedly younger direction, building a new group around first-round draft picks Kristyna Kaltounkova (No. 1 overall) and Casey O’Brien (No. 3 overall).
“When you have to face these decisions, you need to stick to what’s most important for you and for the organization,” Daoust stated. “And it was to build around [our] values.”
Few embody those values better than Zandee-Hart. And more importantly, New York’s captain believed in the vision that Daoust laid out.
“At the end of the day — talking with Pascal and Greg and the changes that we’ve made — it just made sense for me to stay here,” said Zandee-Hart. “This is a group that I want to be a part of, and I want to keep growing.”
Daoust honored her wishes. Zandee-Hart was one of three Sirens protected from the 2025 expansion draft in June, alongside 2025 Rookie of the Year Sarah Fillier and defender Ella Shelton. On Nov. 5, Zandee-Hart signed a one-year extension with the Sirens through 2026-27.
The C stays in NY ✍️
— New York Sirens (@PWHL_NewYork) November 5, 2025
Captain Micah Zandee-Hart has signed a contract extension through the 2026-27 season
READ MORE 📄 https://t.co/8fr3XDUbzbpic.twitter.com/eJQ2arL3uw
It cost New York some valuable on-ice production. The expansion Seattle Torrent nabbed star center Alex Carpenter and starting goalie Corinne Schroeder during the exclusive signing window; they later selected winger Jessie Eldridge with the No. 6 overall pick in the expansion draft.
“It was not a decision to be popular,” Daoust explained. “It was a decision to make the organization better in the window that we were in.”
If resurrecting a struggling culture was the mission statement, then retaining Zandee-Hart was the key to Daoust’s master plan.
“You’re looking for players that can bring you 60 minutes of consistency. She brings you 24 hours a day of consistency,” Daoust explained. “She’s the daughter that you want. She is the captain that you have the privilege to have. She’s the partner that you want your daughter or your son to have. She is a role model.”
Zandee-Hart’s loyalty resonated within the locker room.
“Instead of going home to be with her fiancé and her cat, she decided to stay here and play with all of us weirdos,” chuckled defender Jaime Bourbonnais, a longtime teammate of Zandee-Hart. “She’s a loyal person, loyal friend, loyal captain. There’s no one else that I’d rather play with.”
“It’s just exciting to see someone who wears the ‘C’ on her jersey to be completely bought into that,” Fillier added. “We all know in that locker room that she’s dead set on being a Siren, and we’re happy to have her.”
Zandee-Hart ‘setting the standard’ for Sirens hockey
New York has a few people to thank for its improved success in 2025-26. It helps to have the PWHL’s leading goal scorer in Kaltounkova, or a rising star in net like Kayle Osborne. But Zandee-Hart’s fingerprints are all over this Sirens squad.
“She is setting the standard for us every single day,” Fargo stated. “I think when you have leaders like that who are consistently showing up, pushing herself, pushing others — as a young player coming here, or anybody who walks through the door or steps on the ice, it’s really hard to go any other direction other than the direction that your captain’s going.”
“She’s going to teach without asking to teach,” said Daoust. “She’s going to do her things, and people will just look at her and understand, ‘okay, this is how you become a pro.'”
Zandee-Hart isn’t the boastful type. Fortunately, Bourbonnais is more than willing to pick up the slack.
“I’m definitely biased, but I think she’s the perfect person to be wearing that ‘C’,” said Bourbonnais. “She really embodies a leader in all facets. She works hard, leads by example, but she’s also not afraid to give us shit when we need it, and I think that’s really important. And she’s a good friend, first and foremost. So yeah, I mean, I could talk forever about her.”
Few players are better qualified to talk about Zandee-Hart than Bourbonnais. Along with Sirens center Kristin O’Neill, Bourbonnais played at Cornell for the entirety of Zandee-Hart’s NCAA captaincy. Bourbonnais and Zandee-Hart were reunited in the PWHL, playing together in New York for the last three seasons. With the departures of Carpenter and Shelton in the offseason, Bourbonnais and Fillier were appointed as Zandee-Hart’s alternate captains.
“She’s been my captain for a long time. I just think she does a really good job of making everybody feel really comfortable. I think she really puts in effort to get to know everybody,” Bourbonnais explained. “And that’s something that is very rare, especially at this level. Everybody has their own lives, but you can really see that she puts in so much effort talking to everybody one-on-one. That goes a long way, especially with a young team.”
Zandee-Hart’s impact isn’t lost on Fargo, either — whether it’s on or off the ice.
“There’s a lot of things that make Micah a special person, and therefore, a special leader. The first thing that comes to mind is her ability to see the perspective from every seat in the locker room. She has such an ability to see beyond just herself and those that she’s closest with,” Fargo observed. “But to me, it’s not her trying to be anything other than who she is. She’s just so authentically herself, and it’s so easy for everybody to see how, how much she cares.”
“It’s quite frankly like nothing I’ve ever seen before from a captain. She’s incredible.”
On the ice, Zandee-Hart is a fixture on New York’s top defensive pair, often drawing the opponent’s top offensive matchup.
“I think her play is elevated from a year ago,” said Fargo, who first coached Zandee-Hart in 2024-25. “She’s stronger. She’s more mobile. I think because of that, she’s able to play the game at a different speed. The game, in some ways, has slowed down for her because of the way she’s moving out there this year.”
Zandee-Hart became the first British Columbia-born skater to make the Canadian Women’s Olympic team at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, helping Canada take gold. Despite being on the bubble roster for the 2025 Rivalry Series, Zandee-Hart was not selected to Team Canada’s Olympic roster in 2026.
“I feel like Micah did everything she can to play her way into a role on that team,” said Fargo. “Unfortunately, they had different plans. But to me, she earned that opportunity.”
Sirens coach Greg Fargo kept it respectful, but he was clearly not pleased that Micah Zandee-Hart was left off Team Canada for the 2026 Olympics.
— Lou Orlando (@SweetLouuuuu) February 6, 2026
“I know those that pick the team for Team Canada — all these teams in the Olympics — it's a hard job. But I feel like Micah did…
Zandee-Hart recorded three assists and a plus-one rating in 16 games this season. What the stat sheet doesn’t show, though, is how New York’s captain forged a new identity for a team in desperate need of one.
“I know that she took our last two seasons a lot on her own shoulders,” said Bourbonnais.
The Sirens earned 63 out of a possible 162 points across their first two seasons — good for a League-worst .389 points percentage. Both times, they recorded the worst goal differential and allowed the most goals. Zandee-Hart posted a negative rating in both seasons; she trailed all Sirens skaters as a minus-18 in 2024.
“I think she really wanted to make a change for this group and to come in and change the culture and change the way we play,” continued Bourbonnais. “And I think the on-ice physicality — I feel like our team has been really good at that, and I think that starts with her.”
Zandee-Hart set the tone during New York’s 2025-26 season opener against the Ottawa Charge. At 11:17 of the first period, New York’s captain challenged Gabbie Hughes after the Charge forward delivered an illegal body check to Bourbonnais. Zandee-Hart directed a cross-check to Hughes’ helmet — a response that netted her a five-minute major and a game misconduct — inciting a larger scuffle in the process.
Micah Zandee-Hart has received a major penalty and a game misconduct for cross-checking following this play.#PWHLpic.twitter.com/faH7eTw34A
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) November 23, 2025
“I think in the last two seasons, we’ve maybe been a team that’s let teams dictate how the game was going to go,” Zandee-Hart said afterwards. “We don’t want to be that team this year.”
The rest of the team followed suit. At the Olympic break, the Sirens have three players that rank top 10 overall in hits — rookie forward Maddi Wheeler (30), Kaltounkova (24), and Bourbonnais (24). Wheeler ranks second overall, trailing Toronto Sceptres forward Blayre Turnbull by two.
“[Micah’s] always been a really physical player, but I think she’s just created an environment where we all want to step up for each other, and we know that being physical is going to help us win,” explained Bourbonnais. “And she’s made that clear. That is a huge part of our game, and I would say that that definitely stems from her.”
Rookies blossoming under ‘great leadership group’
That’s not to say that the buck stops with Zandee-Hart.
“I’m a big believer that just because you have a letter on your jersey, it shouldn’t change how you act,” said Zandee-Hart.
The Sirens captain shared during training camp that she encouraged all of her teammates to adopt a mentor role when possible, promoting a communal team leadership structure rather than a hierarchical one.
“The minute you feel that you only have one leader, you’re in trouble,” Daoust asserted. “As I told the players in the past, you don’t need to be the lead singer to be a leader. There’s tons of leaders that are part of the show that maybe sometimes you don’t see.”
That leadership became especially important with New York’s large rookie class. The Sirens have the youngest active roster in the PWHL, featuring seven rookie skaters and a pair of first-year goalies.
“So just trying to bring some of those younger players with us and create an environment where everyone feels like they’re a part of it and they have a voice,” Zandee-Hart continued. “And I think the range of ages we do have on our team — that comes quite naturally. We have players that have experienced a lot of different roles on a lot of different teams.”
That range includes a former No. 1 overall pick (Fillier), an undrafted forward (Savannah Norcross), an NCAA national champion (Paetyn Levis), and a former USA Olympic defender (Jincy Roese). Still, the Sirens are the only team in the PWHL without a player over the age of 30. Zandee-Hart is the elder of the locker room; she turned 29 on Jan. 13.
“I think Micah’s been great. She’s helped all of us kind of settle in. She is really good by leading by example,” noted Wheeler. “But I think leadership doesn’t just fall onto a captain. We have a great leadership group with ‘Fil’ and Jaime as well. They’ve done a great job with us.”
New York’s youth has been intrinsic to its success in 2025-26. The Sirens lead the PWHL with 21 goals from rookie skaters — nearly double the Boston Fleet’s mark of 11, which ranks second overall.
Fargo wasn’t afraid to let those rookies off the leash. Kaltounkova and O’Brien rank eighth and ninth among PWHL forwards in average time on-ice; Anne Cherkowski (No. 9 overall) isn’t far behind at 15th. Kaltounkova, O’Brien, and Wheeler rank first, second, and fourth, respectively, on the team in scoring.
At Zandee-Hart’s behest, New York welcomed the rookies with open arms and open ears.
“I think our captains have done a really good job at just helping us feel included, and getting us a part of the team,” continued Wheeler. “I think that it’s very different from college, where you come in as a freshman [and] you feel like you’re a freshman.”
It’s not easy to eradicate the stench of losing. New York is the only team of the PWHL’s original six that did not make the playoffs in either of the League’s first two seasons. The Sirens have done their best to flip the page in 2025-26.
“It just feels super light. I think that’s the best way I can explain it. I think we all genuinely want each other to succeed, and that’s rare on a team,” Bourbonnais remarked during the Olympic break. “I think when a team is really succeeding and wanting each other to succeed, that’s when I think we’re going to go far. And I feel like we have that this year.”
New York’s fight for its first playoff berth in team history resumes Feb. 26, when the Sirens host the Montreal Victoire at Prudential Center.
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