WENATCHEE, Wash. – A hockey lover from a young age, Josh Chamberlain has spent a lot of time developing his skills to become the best hockey player he can be. A few short years after finishing his competitive playing career, he is now helping young players do the same thing as an assistant coach in the Wenatchee Wild Hockey Academy.
Chamberlain grew up in Spokane, Washington, where the hockey community has grown tremendously over the last several decades. With a family that had Spokane Chiefs season tickets and an older brother who played hockey, it was no surprise that he put on skates at just three years old, and has never exactly taken them off.
“I got put on a pair of skates, and luckily, my brother had been playing for a couple of previous years,” said Chamberlain. “I just followed in his footsteps. That’s exactly what I did. It was exactly what any little brother would do at that time.”
There was no shortage of ways to learn the sport in the Lilac City, either. In addition to the Chiefs, the Spokane Braves have operated in town since 1971 and the Coeur d’Alene Lakers briefly operated in the Northern Pacific Hockey League just a half-hour away. Eventual Stanley Cup champion Tyler Johnson scored 120 points for the Lakers in just 39 games in 2006-07 before playing for the Chiefs under current Wenatchee head coach Don Nachbaur. Planet Ice in Spokane Valley and the Riverfront Park Ice Palace were also options before the two facilities closed in 2005 and 2017.
“There was hockey all over the place,” said Chamberlain. “I am very lucky to have grown up in Spokane, where it was thriving at the time, and I believe it still is. With the demand of hockey in Spokane, it’s always been growing. They do a really good job of getting the youth programs involved.”
The community of Missoula, Montana would feature in his story more than once as well. During the 2013-14 season, Chamberlain kicked off his junior hockey journey at 16 years old alongside his brother, with the Western States Hockey League’s Missoula Maulers. The first stay in Missoula lasted a single season – Chamberlain had played in Wenatchee on weekends as a 14-year-old before moving on to juniors. Current Wenatchee 16U head coach Pat Norlin saw an opportunity to bring him into the Wild organization with an intriguing new opportunity: joining a program called the Wenatchee Wolves, an 18U AAA hockey team competing in the NorPac junior league.
The results were just as intriguing – with no players on the roster over 18 years old, the Wolves took the league by storm. In their first season in 2014-15, they finished third out of the league’s six teams and nearly bumped the second-seeded Bellingham Blazers in the semifinal round of the Cascade Cup playoffs. The following year, they combined to go 45-1 through the regular season and playoffs, running away with the NorPac championship.
With or without the older players, Chamberlain was able to quickly find his stride with the Wolves, piling up 53 points in league play but also earning a pair of appearances in the North American Hockey League with the Wild. The following year, he played in only one NorPac game, but found a spot in the lineup for five Wild games as the newest member of the British Columbia Hockey League. He became one of only 13 players to play for the Wild in both the NAHL and BCHL.
“It was really special,” said Chamberlain. “Throughout my season, I got a couple of chances to practice with the Wild. There were a couple of moments in and out where I’d familiarized myself with the group. At the end of the season, the Wolves didn’t get to end as well as we’d wanted to, but it offered a unique opportunity for me to join the Wild immediately after our season ended. Hunter Alden and I made the jump and got to play a couple of games down in Texas.”
By the end of the season, he had returned to Missoula and the WSHL, rolling up 13 points in his 14 appearances on the old circuit. He continued his final two junior seasons making a massive impact for both the Missoula Jr. Bruins – now part of the North American Tier 3 Hockey League – and the WSHL’s Oklahoma City Jr. Blazers. Chamberlain finished as the second-leading scorer on both teams, racking up 63 points in Missoula and an impressive 112 points with Oklahoma City. During his final year with the Blazers, he even helped recruit several former Wenatchee teammates to the Blazers, bringing the group together for one last ride on the junior stage.
“[Ivan Bondarenko] was a major component in me going to Oklahoma City,” said Chamberlain. “They’re familiar with him here – he was a tremendous player. I think the crowd will remember him fairly well for his ability to handle the puck, and his ability to be a great, great playmaker. When he and I got a hold of each other that summer, we decided we’d try to put together as good a team as we could in Oklahoma City.”
Bondarenko paced the Blazers in scoring with 126 points, while former Wolves teammate Griffin Weincek cranked out 107 points of his own. Even Wolves alternate captain Connor Dunn jumped on board to the tune of 40 points in 2017-18, helping the Blazers reach the league’s Thorne Cup championshp tournament before finishing fifth.
He and Dunn continued on to college together, recruited from a showcase in Las Vegas to join the group at New England College, an NCAA Division III school in Henniker, New Hampshire. Chamberlain played regularly, netting four points over 43 games during his first two seasons. Thanks to COVID restrictions, the 2020-21 season was an odd one for many – for NEC, competition that season never began until February. It was a good season for Chamberlain, picking up seven points over just 10 games, and the end of a memorable three-year run.
“It was a really great time,” said Chamberlain. “I’d never spent much time on the East Coast prior to my college commitment, so it was a whole new experience that I never thought I’d get the opportunity to do. Living in New Hampshire in a tiny little town, I ended up meeting my now-wife, so there was a lot that came with it. It was a unique experience – I went from playing forward as a junior hockey player to making the transition to a defenseman in college, but it was really a great time. I have friends for a lifetime that I’ll never forget, and opportunities and memories that I’ll never forget.”
The opportunity for Chamberlain to return to his old stomping grounds in Missoula and play ACHA hockey at the University of Montana was too great to turn down. The two-year stay with the Grizzlies was a fitting final chapter to finish his competitive career, returning to the same place where he had first broken into juniors nearly a decade before. After a brief 2021-22 season with the Grizzlies, he wrapped up with a point per game as a graduate player in 2022-23.
“They are building something unique in Missoula, and honestly, all of Montana hockey is growing,” said Chamberlain. “It has been a really cool experience to watch, and I got to play at home again in front of my parents for one last year, which was really cool.”
Chamberlain stayed near the sport in the two years after his time in Montana wrapped up, and he now has a niece and nephew who are also learning the sport for the first time. Being hired at the start of the 2025-26 season has brought his journey in the sport full circle – after reaching the BCHL during his own junior career, Chamberlain now coaches in the continent’s top education-based league after the Wenatchee Wild Hockey Academy became a Canadian Sport School Hockey League member in 2023. The same AAA program that he suited up for as a teenager had 49 former players active in junior hockey last season, with more than two dozen more lacing up the skates for NCAA and ACHA college programs.
For Chamberlain, seeing the game evolve in real time through the talent of the next generation has become perhaps the biggest highlight of his coaching career.
“Playing in the CSSHL is one of the most premier things you can do as a youth hockey player,” said Chamberlain. “Being able to coach and watch the talent that comes in and out of that door every day is unique and really fulfilling. Everybody knows that (hockey) is constantly changing and you never get comfortable, so it’s unique to get to come in here and get to be in the CSSHL and watch this talent all the time.”
*The Wenatchee Wild wish to thank media intern Brittany Howe for her contributions to this feature*