DREAM AM COME TRUE: A Star Recruit Fully Signed to Colorado Avalanche NHL Despite SEC Interest
The sun hadn’t even cracked the edge of the frozen horizon when Aiden Wexler laced up his skates at the icy pond behind his family’s farmhouse in Oxford, Mississippi. Born into a football-first world, it was never supposed to be hockey. The SEC had been calling since he was twelve—not for touchdowns, but because everyone assumed that’s what a Southern-born phenom with legs like steel cables was destined for.
Everyone except Aiden.
“I just always liked the sound of blades on ice,” he said, half-smiling as if still not quite believing he could say it out loud without someone laughing.
They’re not laughing now.
At 18 years old, Aiden Wexler is officially signed to the Colorado Avalanche, becoming the first Mississippi-born player to be drafted in the top ten and the only one to turn down multiple SEC football offers in favor of the NHL.
“It’s a dream come true,” Wexler said during his signing day in Denver. “I had posters of Nathan MacKinnon in my room. Now I’m going to be in the same locker room.”
Growing up in a part of the country where “rink” meant a wrestling match or a rodeo arena, Wexler’s journey to the NHL was nothing short of miraculous. His father, a former Ole Miss linebacker, thought his son’s fascination with ice was just a phase.
“We built him a net in the backyard,” his mother, Leslie, recalled. “He shot pucks at it until the siding on the barn was full of dents. We didn’t even have a real rink for 200 miles.”
That never stopped Aiden. He watched YouTube videos late into the night—Ovechkin’s slap shots, Crosby’s vision, MacKinnon’s speed. His dad eventually relented, driving him across state lines for youth tournaments in Tennessee and Georgia, where he became a mystery on skates: the Southern kid with a football name playing Canada’s game.
By fourteen, Wexler was playing for a AAA team out of Dallas and boarding with a host family. Recruiters from SEC schools still showed up—mostly out of curiosity—but they quickly realized Aiden was something else.
“He had football genetics,” said Luke Carlson, a junior scout for the Avalanche. “But he had hockey instincts. You don’t teach that kind of vision, that kind of drive.”
His break came at the USA Hockey National Development Camp when he notched 11 points in four games and clocked one of the fastest straight-line times of the tournament. Scouts buzzed. Suddenly, the kid from Mississippi was a top prospect.
Colleges came hard. Alabama. LSU. Even Georgia offered him a full ride to play wide receiver—after watching him skate.
“I got calls from Saban’s staff,” Aiden laughed. “They were like, ‘You sure you don’t want to try a real sport?’ I told them, ‘Hockey is the real sport. Just not around here.’”
Despite the pressure, Wexler stayed focused on the NHL dream. He joined the USHL’s Sioux Falls Stampede, where he led the league in rookie scoring and proved he wasn’t just flash—he had grit. His forecheck became feared. His stickhandling, legendary.
The Avalanche kept tabs.
“He reminded us of a young Landeskog,” said GM Chris MacFarland. “He’s got that leadership gene. It doesn’t matter where he’s from—this kid’s got NHL in his bones.”
The draft was a whirlwind. Rumors swirled about Carolina or Ottawa snapping him up, but when Colorado’s pick came at No. 9, his name was called.
Aiden sat frozen for a second—then leapt from his seat, hugging his dad like they’d just won a national title. Which, in their way, they had.
Now, weeks later, the contract is inked. The locker is ready. The number 47 jersey—his lucky number from the Mississippi Junior Bulldogs—is stitched and hanging in the Avalanche facility.
“I want to show kids down South that they don’t have to pick football,” Wexler said. “You can chase something different. Even if it looks impossible.”
In Colorado, he’s already a fan favorite. Social media has lit up with clips of his no-look passes and laser wristers. One particularly nasty toe drag in training camp went viral. The Avalanche’s head coach, Jared Bednar, isn’t getting carried away just yet.
“We love his energy,” Bednar said. “But we’ll take our time. Let him find his game at the NHL level.”
Still, the whispers have started—rookie of the year potential, maybe a third-line debut by midseason, and even comparisons to American-born stars like Auston Matthews.
“I’m not trying to be anybody else,” Wexler said. “Just trying to be the best version of me.”
Back in Mississippi, the local ice rink in Tupelo is renaming one of its training rooms the “Wexler Room.” Youth hockey enrollment has jumped 28% since his draft announcement.
“Kids are calling him ‘The Ice Rebel,’” said local coach Dean Hadley. “Because he broke every rule of where hockey dreams are supposed to come from.”
Aiden doesn’t mind the nickname.
“Rebels run in my blood,” he said, a nod to his Ole Miss roots. “But I’m skating my own path now.”
As he took the ice at Ball Arena for his first full-team skate, Aiden paused at the bench, looking up at the Avalanche championship banners.
“I used to dream about what this moment would feel like,” he said quietly.
And then he smiled.
“Feels even better than I imagined.”
Let me know if you want this rewritten in a different tone—more newsy, dramatic, or personal.