By Delorean Fleetwood
Tacoma, WA: The 12th season of the Western Indoor Soccer League will be kicking off on Saturday November 7th. Six teams will play a 12 game regular season schedule from November 7th 2026, ending on February 27th, 2027.
All WISL-M games are played on Saturdays. Most games are played at around 7-7:30 PM, while two games have a 6PM start time and three others will begin at 5PM.
Teams will play against two of their league opponents three times (two at home and one on the road for one, two on the road and one at home for the other) while the other three will be played twice (one home and one road).
Here’s the schedule breakdown of who gets the three game schedule:
TACOMA: BELLINGHAM (2H/1A)
SOUTH SOUND (1H/2A)
BELLINGHAM: TACOMA (1H/2A)
OLYMPIA (2H/1A)
SOUTH SOUND: TACOMA (2H/1A)
VANCOUVER (1H/2A)
SNOHOMISH: OLYMPIA (1H/2A)
VANCOUVER (2H/1A)
OLYMPIA: SNOHOMISH (2H/1A)
BELLINGHAM (1A/2H)
VANCOUVER: SSFC (2H/1A)
SNOHOMISH (1H/2A)
While not announced, it is assumed that the top four teams will make the WISL-M playoffs for 2027. The WISL Championship Game will likely be played on either March 13th, or March 6th (if only the top two teams are chosen to play).
We will be focusing on the WISL Men today. The WISL-W 2026-27 preview will be released on Wednesday, November 18th, two weeks from today.
2025-26 RECAP
We start with a small recap of last season. Bellingham throttled the four time defending champions, their longtime rivals, the Tacoma Stars Reserves, in an 8-4 shellacking that brought the trophy back up North by the border.
The Hammers had to come from behind twice in the regular season to get ties, ultimately handing the Stars Reserves the top overall seed, despite having defeated Tacoma twice during the regular season.
But, on that fateful night of March 7th at the Tacoma Soccer Center, everything changed. The Stars fell on their home turf as they got throughly hammered by poor disciplined play and a number of errors that led to the changing of the guard on top of the WISL-M.
Everett and South Sound each made trips to the postseason, but were swiftly defeated in their WISL semifinal matchups. As has been the case from day one, the WISL-M Championship went to either Bellingham or Tacoma. Tacoma (6) and Bellingham (5) have won all 11 WISL-M Championships since the league’s inaugural season.
OLY RETURNS
One of the biggest pieces of off-season news, was the return of former Artesians, who have rebranded into FC Olympia, or FC Oly as they will be known. Playing out of Evergreen State College’s pavilion, the Artesians enjoyed a 10 year working relationship before deciding to seek out other ventures in terms of their playing field.
OLY ARENA
Lost among the off-season buzz of other announcements was the completion of a brand new facility for the team (appropriately branded as “Oly Arena”). The facility is located on Center Street in Tumwater, WA, just south of the Olympia downtown area.
This is not only a critical piece of infrastructure for the team, but also vital for the WISL going forward. Getting arena dates can be difficult for other teams, while easier for others, such as Tacoma. Seeing teams control and manage their own arena is something that we can and should look forward to in the near future as well.
With everything out of the way, let’s break down our six WISL squads that will be competing this season.
BELLINGHAM
Led by their coach/player Richard Henderson, the Hammers will look to set the tone for the season. Bellingham was arguably one of the most resilient squads in the league last season, twice coming from behind to get ties in two games, while defeating their long time rivals in Tacoma all three times that they faced each other. Look for the Hammers to end up back in the WISL-M Finals this March.
TACOMA
The Tacoma Stars Reserves will look to avenge their 8-4 defeat at the hands of their long time rival, Bellingham United. The reserve squad of the MASL’s Tacoma Stars, Tacoma is year in and year out arguably the most consistent and difficult team to play against. Don’t be fooled by their lack of accolades from last year. This was the best team in the regular season, going 9-3 on their way to the top seed.
Given the history of this league and the consistency between the two combatants, look for a rematch between Tacoma and Bellingham next March. As to where that takes place? It all depends who wins the season series in their three games.
SOUTH SOUND
Led by the brothers Johnson and backed by the goalkeeping of Brandon Limes, South Sound comes into the 2026-27 season as the biggest threat to end the reign of Tacoma and Bellingham. Last year saw Craig and Derek Johnson combine for 30 goals and 13 assists for 43 points, making them the best one-two scoring punch in the WISL-M for the 2025-26 season.
With a renewed roster and the return of the best one-two attack in the league, look for South Sound to make some noise in the WISL-M.
SNOHOMISH
The Snohomish Sky will look to improve on their 3-7-2 mark from a season ago that saw them finish sixth in 2025-26. Adan Fernandez and Andrew Escalante combined for 39 points on 26 goals and 13 assists. With the absence of Everett and Oly Pen this season, Snohomish mathematically can’t finish any worse than last season. But will a renewed purpose be enough to score more wins for the Sky this season? Only they can answer that.
OLYMPIA
Oly is back. And this time, they have a new arena bearing their name for all home games beginning in 2026-27. Olympia was a bellweather place for indoor soccer during the wet and dark months of Washington winters in the past.
Now the former Artesians have returned and are ready to grab ahold of the rest of the WISL by storm. Can the Oly magic resonate in their new building? Or are the trees but mere saplings and will need more time to grow and mature? Only time and a few rainfalls in the area will tell.
VANCOUVER
Last, but not least, we have the lone club that neither plays in the Seattle area, nor at the Canadian border, but rather, the other side of the Columbia River separating Oregon and Washington. Officially representing the Portland metro area, the Storm have a ways to go before being among the elite in the WISL going forward.
The Storm aren’t lacking for talent, despite going 2-10 a season ago. Jared Armenta-Reyes was the only player on the roster to score more than 10 points in the regular season (10-5-15). No one else had more than 7 points last season.
Mathematically, Vancouver cannot finish any worse than they did last season, in fact, they are guaranteed to be better. However, will that result in more wins for the Clark County based squad? Or are we in for another rough season just north of the Oregon border in Vancouver?
Off-season tournaments will grab headlines, but wins in the colum are what matters in the Western Indoor Soccer League.
There are other topics that I wanted to touch base on in this article, but as of this article’s posting, my attempts and questions to WISL Commissioner John Crouch have currently gone unanswered.
The 2026-27 Western Indoor Soccer League season promises to offer not only a refreshing experience, but a stark reason why the Cascadia region is the greatest when it comes to the beautiful game indoors.
For more news regarding the Western Indoor Soccer League head over to wisl-soccer.com.
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