WENATCHEE — At one time or another, most young athletes dream of being in the big leagues, of becoming the next Michael Jordan, Tom Brady or Wayne Gretzky.

But it’s one thing to dream of being in the pros and quite another to have your favorite professional league acknowledge your existence. Welcome to the world of four Wenatchee Wild players.

Mac Carruth, Tyler Parker, Sean Pauly and Christian Hilbrich were named last week to the National Hockey League’s Central Scouting list, placing them among the top 130 prospects in North America for the big league’s 2010 entry draft.

Being picked for the list is an honor for the players, but having four players named is also a feather in the cap for the Wild. Just three other teams in the 13 Tier II and Tier III hockey leagues in the U.S. and Canada had as many players named.

Wild coach Paul Baxter said having a number of young players on the team gave the Wild better odds of landing a higher number of players on the scouting report.

“I think we have six or seven ’92s, and that certainly improved our chances,” Baxter said. “If you don’t have 17-year-olds, you have a hard time getting people on the draft list.

“I think we proved last year that you can go with a younger team and still have some success.”

All four of the Wild players named to the list — compiled by the NHL’s 23 full- and part-time North American scouts — were born in 1992 and will be in their first year of draft eligibility in 2010.

Parker, a big Gretzky fan when he was growing up in California, has already started to develop relationships with a few pros.

“I’ve got a real good relationship with San Jose,” he said. “I’ve gotten to work out with Danny Heatley, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau.”

He said one of his roommates clued him in about the scouting report.

“I went on the Web site and checked it out,” he said. “I called my dad right away when I found out, and he was pretty excited. It’s kind of an accomplishment, like all my hard work has paid off.”

Hilbrich stumbled onto a story about the scouting report on the North American Hockey League’s Web site — more or less by accident.

“I was checking the NAHL site, because when you’re on the road and you’re bored, that’s what you do all the time,” he said. “I saw Pauly’s (photo) right up front, and read it and saw my name. That was pretty exciting.”

Hilbrich said one of his first calls was to his brother, who plays for the Alpena Ice Diggers in the NAHL.

“He was very happy for me,” Hilbrich said.

Pauly learned he was on the Central Scouting list from his mom.

“My mom told me to go to the NAHL Web site, and that’s how I found out,” he said. “It’s definitely cool, probably the coolest thing in hockey so far.”

Carruth, the only one of the four players who didn’t already know about being on the list when asked about it Wednesday afternoon, said he hadn’t bothered letting his parents know.

“I just assumed they already knew,” Carruth said. “It’s exciting, something to shoot for to be on the list (again) next time. I’ve just got to keep my head on straight and win some games here.”

Baxter said that while all four should be proud of the accomplishment, it doesn’t mean they should stop working.

“They deserve some credit for the way they’ve prepared, some last year and some this year, to garner that attention,” Baxter said. “They’ve all got a lot of potential, but that can go one of two ways. For sure, none of them are a finished product.”

Corey Voegele: 661-5223

cvoegele@wenworld.com