It's an exciting time to keep an eye on the Pembroke Pandas.

Photo of Brown winning the Mayor's Cup against Providence College (source).

The offseason is finally over! As of this week, BROWN HOCKEY IS BACK!!!

We are now in the 5th year under head coach Mel Ruzzi, and if the last four years are any indication, Brown should be making some landmark steps this season. What do we mean by this? Every year under Mel Ruzzi has shown an improvement over the last, seen notably in the increase in win record year by year.

The 2021-22 season, Mel Ruzzi's first as head coach had a result of 6-18-5. The 2022-23 season (fun fact: this was my first year at Brown), ended with a record of 9-19-1, and then the 2023-24 team finished 12-17-3. In this last season, the Bears finished with a win record of 14-13-3, the first time Brown finished above .500 since the 2005-06 season under legendary former Head Coach Digit Murphy. They also won the Mayor's Cup against Providence College for the first time since 2014. And speaking of the 2005-06 season, the 2024-25 season was the first time in almost 20 years that Brown was nationally ranked by USCHO, going as high as 14th in November.

Bar graph showing the results of each year for Brown under Head Coach Mel Ruzzi

This was a monumental result largely due to a blazing 6-0 run by the Bears to start their season, concluding with a 5-1 shellacking of the Harvard Crimson at Bright-Landry, contributing to what would be a disastrous 2-win season for the ladies in Cambridge. These last two seasons also featured back-to-back home-ice first-round games to start the ECAC Tournament, with Brown winning in 2024 against RPI but being shutout in 2025 by Union. There's still room for growth, but we have the evidence to prove Head Coach Ruzzi's determination in pushing Brown higher with each season.

Brown taking on the Harvard Crimson on November 2nd, 2024, winning 5-1 in Harvard's barn.

Departures & Recruits

An important offseason indicator measuring this push forward is looking at Transfer Portal activity. Thankfully, Brown only lost Jess Ciarrocchi, who graduated and has transferred to Mercyhurst on a sixth year of eligibility, having spent three years at Brown since transferring from Penn State. Goaltender Megané Pilon has also departed Brown, and the United States, going to McGill University in Montréal, Canada. Along with these two transfers, there were 4 departing seniors: Abigail Hancock, Paige Gross, Anna Shelden, and Cameron Sikich. Of these seniors, Sikich is the biggest loss, who had 18 points on 5 goals and 13 assists, I was hoping that one of the PWHL teams would pick her up in this year's Entry Draft, but alas, it wasn't meant to be just yet.

So Brown only lost one skater and one goalie to the Portal, but there were no transfers to College Hill as of writing this. Several of the important pieces like freshman phenom Monique Lyons, Captain Jade Iginla, and India McDadi are staying, along with goaltenders Rory Edwards and Anya Zupkofska, both of whom are likely to experience further growth this year. I personally think Edwards can have the better year of the two goalies, and we will have to wait and see if Mel Ruzzi decides to do another goalie tandem situation like she did for a chunk of last year. It is, without a doubt, very encouraging for Mel Ruzzi to retain most of the scoring from last year (a staggering 85%!), and her two excellent goalies, which will now be augmented by the incoming recruiting class.

The recruiting class has opportunities to fill in the gaps left by the departing seniors. This year's incoming first year students are Martina Accardi, Noa Brown, Isabella Gratzl, Zoe Li, Avery Lian, Grace Morin, Cadence Richards and Ella Warcop. Accardi seems like the most promising forward so far, contributing over 60 points to the Durham West Jr. Lightning in the last two seasons in the OWHL. Goaltender Noa Brown will look to learn a lot from both Rory Edwards and Anya Zupkofska. Cadence Richards is one to watch on defense, scoring 8 goals and contributing 18 assists last year with the Edmonton Jr. Oilers U18 AAA program, winning the 2025 Esso Cup with them. I think Richards can contribute a lot to the defensive gap left by Cam Sikich, I'm excited to see how she develops along with Isabella Gratzl on defense.

Schedule Summary

Kevin already wrote an excellent article breaking down the 2025-26 schedule while we were all waiting for other college hockey teams to start their season. As far as the non-conference schedule is concerned, we have some interesting matchups incoming this year. Most notably this season will feature Brown's first ever series against the University of Delaware Fighting Hens who will play their first season in Division 1 women's hockey, with a two game series in Meehan Auditorium on November 8th and 9th. The rest of the non-con slate is filled with mostly Hockey East matchups, with the Pandas starting their non-con slate by shipping up to Boston University to play the Terriers on October 17th (a matchup that I am personally very excited for, for having attended both institutions). Later, facing Merrimack (October 19), Providence College to defend the Mayor's Cup (November 29th), New Hampshire (November 30th) all on College Hill, and the University of Maine, playing the Black Bears on December 30th in...Portland? Not at the Alfond? To close out the non-conference slate, RIT will visit for one game around the end of January.

My genuine reaction seeing Brown take on the University of Maine in Portland's ECHL rink and not THE Alfond.

Conclusion

There's a lot to be excited for when it comes to this year's iteration of the Brown Women's Ice Hockey team. The ECAC Head Coaches' Poll has picked Brown to finish 8th again this year. I really want to see Brown tear through and break into the top 6 of the league, and hopefully make a deeper run in the ECAC playoffs (fun fact the semifinals and final will finally be in legendary Lake Placid as of this season!). There's a lot of opportunities for revenge here, not getting swept by Yale would be a great start, beating Union consistently after getting shutout by them in the first round last year would be a great morale booster. And even though it would pain me, getting a first win against the defending Hockey East Champions Boston University Terriers would immediately set Brown up for success for the season, maybe even getting them into the USCHO polls once again.

Jade Iginla is once again Captain of the Pandas, now alongside India McDadi as she was voted by her teammates to be Captain. Gali Levy and Ellie Gauvin are the Alternate Captains.

We'll be writing updates throughout the season both on this site and on our Twitter account as well (@BrownHockeyBlog), stay tuned and most importantly...

GO BRUNO!

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