The Detroit Fighting Irish announced today that the club will form a U18 Midget AA hockey club for the 2015-16 season.

The team will be established as a feeder club for the Junior A Irish.

It was also announced that the team has named veteran midget coach Mike Wylie as the head coach for the Midget organization.  Wylie recently coached the Southgate Midget AA hockey club that participated in the Michigan state playoffs in Fraser Mich.  

“We are very excited to welcome Coach Wylie to our organization and feel that the decision by our organization’s ownership in Lisa and Mark Cruz is a big step and reinforces the Irish commitment to develop, maintain and grow youth hockey in the Downriver area,” said Fighting Irish GM Dan Vasquez. “It further adds to our commitment to the ownership of our facility, the Brownstown Sports Center, and its youth association, Nitro Hockey, to participate and create opportunity in youth hockey for players at all skill and age levels not only for the present, but for the future. Our organization has a firm belief and practices mentorship and community involvement, which starts from top to the bottom and we feel that this is just a natural progression step for our organization. Several players from Coach Wylie’s teams played for the Irish in the 2014-15 season and we feel that Coach Wylie’s development process is conducive to our beliefs and approach to player development.”

Full operation procedures for the Midget program will be based on a cooperative effort between the Irish and Nitro Hockey and will fall under MAHA and USA Hockey governing bodies. The Midget AA team will begin joint prospect skate sessions in April with the junior team and will hold open tryouts in early June. The team will have joint training and practice programs with the junior team throughout the entire season.