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WENATCHEE, Wash. - While the Wenatchee Wild Hockey Academy teams enjoy a weekend off from competition, one of the program's top alumni has returned to town after earning a spot on the Western Hockey League team's roster.

The big news of the week for the Academy saw the signing of Brayden Pankey to a Scholarship and Development Agreement with the Wild, the first player for the Wenatchee development program to earn a spot on the Wild roster since the team joined the WHL in June. Pankey played two seasons for the Wenatchee 16-and-under team in 2021-22 and 18-and-under in 2022-23, and appeared in one British Columbia Hockey League game for the former Wild entry last season. He had been playing in the North American Hockey League for the Colorado Grit before making the move back to Washington.

"“I couldn’t be happier for that young man,” said Wenatchee Wild Hockey Academy hockey director Troy Mick. “He’s such a good kid – he puts a lot of time and effort into it. To say that you always have to play at the ‘big-boy’ schools to advance is not true – you go to a place where coaches are going to develop you and teach you. The Wild are going to look in their own backyard first before they go outside it, and they remembered him last year as an AP with the Wild. They kept an eye on him, and saw that he kept developing. Looking at [Wenatchee’s] list, he fits in their future plans very well.”

Pankey made his WHL debut last Saturday, playing in an 8-6 Wild victory over the Spokane Chiefs, just a half-hour from his hometown of Colbert, Washington.

The Academy's two weekend programs also stepped onto the ice last weekend, taking part in tournaments north of the border - the Wild 14U team reached the quarterfinals of the Pat Quinn Classic's U15 Elite Division in Burnaby, British Columbia, highlighting the weekend with a tie in the opening matchup against the Pacific Coast Academy. The Wild 2008 team took a step up in competition last weekend, traveling to the West Kelowna U18 tournament and earning a bronze medal. 

"We played really well," said Mick. "We were a couple goals short of playing 1 vs. 4 (in the semifinals), but we played 2 vs. 3 - we played Cranbrook and lost in a shootout, so it put us in the bronze medal game to play Trail, who we beat before, 5-0. We ended up winning 3-0, and it was a very good opportunity. We played 18U teams up there and our players are all 2008s. It was great competition, and they had a couple of guys hurt for the last game, so they rallied around and played hard, and we came home with a medal."

The Wild U18 team wasn't in action over the weekend, but spent Monday evening on the ice, traveling west to take down the Seattle Jr. Kraken 6-0 and clinch home-ice advantage in their best-of-three Pacific Northwest Amateur Hockey Association series after the Christmas break. The winner of that series will earn the state's bid to the USA Hockey Pacific District tournament in late November.

The competition schedule heats up for all teams in December, with both CSSHL teams back in action - the U18 group heads back to Canada next weekend for the Yale Showcase, while the U17 team welcomes the North Shore Warriors to Wenatchee on Saturday and Sunday.