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WENATCHEE, Wash. – Over the last several years under head coach and Wenatchee Wild Hockey Academy director Troy Mick, the standard for the 18-and-Under team has been set: state champions.

This year’s team met that standard again, winning a state title all four years under Mick, and taking a third-place finish at the USA Hockey Pacific District tournament in San Jose, California last month. The Wenatchee 18s finished with 11 wins overall on the season, opening up the campaign with three straight wins against the in-state rival Seattle Jr. Kraken. League wins were slow in following, though there were several close calls early in the season, including a one-goal defeat against Burnaby Winter Club and a pair of close games against Coeur d’Alene Academy.

“For the 18s, this was our worst year for injuries,” said Mick. “I think we had one game where we had to sit one player, and we had a 22-man roster. We had games this year where we were playing with three d-men, we had forwards playing back on the back end. We always had a close-knit team, and hopefully they get the values of what it’s going to take to play at the next level.”

Mick’s team landed in the win column against Shawnigan Lake after Christmas, and immediately scored a best-of-three state playoff sweep against the Jr. Kraken. In all, the Wild Hockey Academy faced Seattle seven times this past season, earning wins in six and taking their only loss to a shootout. Wenatchee dropped a one-goal must-win game against Team Alaska on the final day of round-robin play at the district tournament – that same Team Alaska group would go on to wipe away a 3-1 Anaheim Jr. Ducks lead in the final two-and-a-half minutes of the district final and earn a spot in the national tournament with a shootout win.

Sean Strasser led all 18U scorers with 66 points, including 22 goals, while Anderson Carter’s 27 goals led the roster. He and Aidan Yu all finished with at least 40 points on the season.

For Mick, it was the swan song of a four-year stay in the Wild organization that saw the program grow in measurable and immeasurable ways, including the return of the Wenatchee AAA program to the CSSHL ranks. Wenatchee became only the sixth member of a then-fledgling league when it joined in 2011, and departed after just two seasons. The 2025-26 campaign was its third season back in the league, this time with 38 programs spread from Washington and Idaho in the United States to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in the Canadian Maritimes. The league celebrated its first Olympic medalists in February, as American Jake Sanderson left Italy with a gold medal, and Canadian Seth Jarvis took silver.

“Tier I hockey evolves all the time, and we needed something that would be a good recruiting background,” said Mick. “As close as we are to the CSSHL, that was my main topic when (Wild general manager) Bliss (Littler) asked me to come out here. My first year, we were guest members in three or four events, and then we were able to get full membership. That’s going to be a real big thing moving forward for this franchise, as far as the Academy goes.”

Earlier this month, the Wenatchee Wild Hockey Academy announced that Jordan McTaggart would return for his ninth season in the program – the 18U team’s new head coach has signed with the organization, and will be announced upon the conclusion of his team’s current season.