Second Puck-Stopping Paniccia Commits

Josh Brandwene received a new, yet familiar, commitment Wednesday evening - likely for 2015 - in the form of goaltender Daniela Paniccia.

Daniela Paniccia

Goaltender
Oakville Hornets AA/Appleby College
5'3" // Oakville, ON
DOB 1997

Oakville Hornets player page

Season	Team	Lge.	GP	Rec.	GAA	Sv%
2012-13	Oakville Hornets AA	Mdgt	13	11-1-1	1.31	0.893

Paniccia, for those who don't know and/or have an extreme amount of trouble connecting dots, is the younger sister of current starting goaltender Nicole Paniccia. In fact, Daniela's commitment was actually called out this past Sunday in a feature about Nicole by ComRadio's Ross Insana.

With Nicole having success at Penn State, the Paniccia family torch has been passed down to her 14 year old sister Daniela, who like Nicole is a talented netminder back in their hometown of Oakville for one of Nicole’s former teams the Oakville Hornets.

Paniccia jokingly said that “it’s pretty funny because my dad wanted two boy forwards and he ended up getting two girl goalies”.

Maybe in the near future, the Penn State hockey community could see another “Paniccia” nameplate on the back of a blue and white jersey between the pipes at the Pegula Ice Arena?

Nicole Paniccia has had an outstanding season in all respects by leading a young Nittany Lions team and facing a good deal of rubber in the process - and she claims sister Daniela is better at her age.

I'm guessing Insana will have a better track record than the Mayans soon enough. In a separate Nicole feature, on GoPSUSports.com, the junior goaltender indicated that we may be in for more of the same form that has made Nicole such an important part of the women's program's formative years.

"I actually think she is better than I was at her age," Nicole said about Daniela. "Whenever I'm having a bad night, or there's those days where you get tired and you don't feel like practicing, I kind of think of her and that I want to be a good mentor for her and just be a leader and show her the ropes. I want to be a good role model for her, so it definitely motivates me to do well."

So...Daniela's better at her age, according to Nicole (trust me, as an older sibling myself, that's not an easy thing to admit). And she's learning about leadership and the price of excellence from someone who embodies both of those things on a constant basis. Yes, please.

The younger Paniccia has gotten off to a great start between the pipes for the Hornets while splitting time with Stephanie Loukes. The tandem and their teammates are off to a 7-2-4 start in the Lower Lakes Female Hockey League, good for third place in the nine-team Central Division.

In November, Paniccia helped Oakville win the Bauer World Invite 16UAA championship in Detroit. Well, "helped" might be something of an understatement, since Paniccia put up a shutout in each of the three games she played during the tournament - 1-0 over the Anaheim Lady Ducks, 6-0 over Team Illinois and 6-0 over the Vaughan Flames in the semifinals. Can't do much better than that.

Paniccia also plays at Appleby College and was named the school's 2011-2012 athlete of the year, thanks to her talents as a goaltender and also as an accomplished soccer player.

Last season, under former Niagara coach Margot Page, Appleby advanced to the championship game of the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations AA tournament. Paniccia battled through catching the flu at the exact wrong time of year, but still had to settle for a silver medal after losing to St. Theresa. With an extremely young team, the Whippets will likely contend for the title again this year, and is appropriately off to a 4-1-0 start. Included in that mark: a 2-1 win over 2013 signee Kelly Seward and her Nichols School team on November 30th.

Penn State is now likely set in goal for quite a long time - although Nicole Paniccia will be a senior next season, current freshmen Celine Whitlinger and Brooke Meyer will be seniors for Daniela Paniccia's possible freshman year. Also in there somewhere is Minnetonka (MN) High School's Hannah Ehresmann, who committed to a 2014 entry last week.