This year’s U18 World Championship runs April 25-May 5 in Espoo and Vantaa, Finland. The U.S. will compete in Group A alongside Finland, Latvia, Norway and Slovakia.

Hagens — along with forward Cole Eiserman (Newburyport, Mass.) and defenseman Cole Hutson (Chicago, Ill.) — won a gold medal in 2023 as an underage player, which gives him the knowledge of knowing what it will take to reach that goal again this year.

“It’s a tournament but you still have to know that you have go in and give it your all every game,” Hagens said. “You do not have a lot of time to make mistakes and you can’t take your foot off the pedal. We're going over to win the gold medal. Everyone in room will put out their best effort. Everyone knows that is what we have to do. I’m really excited to see what we can do with it.”

In addition, Hagens can use those experiences to help out in the locker room and on the ice, when needed, especially playing in those big games in front of a sold-old arena.

“It’s definitely helpful having been able to go through [Worlds] before and the little factors that go into it,” he said. “I can definitely be someone that the guys can ask questions to or look at stuff that you are preparing for it. It goes with having that year of experience.”

For Stiga, he understands that it will be the little things that will make a difference in having success as a team.

“We need to buy in and play to our systems and really buy into our roles,” he said. “We have the team to do it, but it comes down to will and drive. We have the talent and skill. We need to buy in and play our best.”

To capture a medal at U18 Worlds, it will be a simple formula for success as players can attest to. Both Hagens and Stiga bring different experiences to the ice but they both know it takes a team effort to win.

“We have to play as a team and not play afraid,” said Stiga, who will be one of the alternate captains for the U.S. “We have to have confidence in ourselves. We need to buy in and play our game. We have to do stuff the right way and play our best game.”

Hagens remembers the gold-medal game from 2023 like it was yesterday. Down 2-0 going into the third period against Sweden, the U.S. came back to win 3-2 in overtime.  

“I’ll never forget that game, when we went into overtime after taking a penalty at the end of the third period and we were down a man,” recalled Hagens. “We rallied around each other in the locker room and there was no doubt that we were going to go out and win that game. You just had that feeling. We knew we had to bring that energy. Every player in that room could talk about that moment.

“To see the guys kills it off, and then, on the next play, go down and score the game-winning goal. It felt like an ending to a movie. It was having that confidence that we could win and there is no feeling like that at all.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.