Aiden Welch's goal had been to play college baseball. As a 6-foot-2 right-handed pitcher, he had fallen in love with the sport at a young age and would spend most of the year either working out for baseball or playing the game.
Welch would play and work out with his hockey teams during the winter.
But the last two summers, his father, Keith, got him to work with skating coach Katie McDonough at Cutting Edge Performance. He went from having six goals and 19 points points in 21 varsity games for White Bear Lake High School as a sophomore to 15 goals and 30 points in 27 games as a junior and then 21 goals and 51 points in 25 games as a senior.
The 200-pound forward got off to a hot start as a senior with four goals and nine points in his first three games. Welch went from not having any junior or college teams interested to NAHL teams making offers and NCAA Division I hockey teams showing interest.
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One of the first colleges on the scene was St. Cloud State. Welch would eventually get taken by the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in the USHL Draft. After Cedar Rapids' camp, the Huskies turned up the recruiting heat and Welch verbally committed to play for the Huskies on July 25.
Welch was also being recruited by Minnesota State University-Mankato and Bemidji State. There were a number of factors that helped him pick SCSU.
"I live in Forest Lake ... and from where I live, the rink is only an hour and 10 minutes away and I'm really close to my family and my family is really a big thing to me," said Welch, who went on a recruiting visit the first weekend of December. "They've been super supportive throughout my career, love watching me play, love watching me succeed. My whole family comes to my games, so it was huge thing to have them close and be able to come watch me in college because they've done a lot to get me where I am.
"The program itself, the history of it, the facilities they have, the coaching staff ... I think I've built the best relationship that I possibly could have with the coaching staff. They've done a phenomenal job getting to know me."
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Assistant coach R.J. Enga spent the most time among the SCSU staff watching and talking with Welch. Enga had gotten a heads up about Welch from White Bear Lake then assistant coach Chris Anderson, who played defense for the Huskies from 2004-08.
Anderson, who was named White Bear Lake's new head coach in April, said that he began talking with Enga about Welch at last year's SCSU alumni golf event. The Huskies had a strong interest in Nolan Roed at the time and he would commit to the Huskies in September.
"I golfed with R.J. Enga at the alumni golf tournament and, at that time, I was talking about Nolan, but I was also talking about Aiden and a couple other kids," Anderson said. "Athletically, (Welch) is DI caliber.
"Through the fall elite league, they probably watched him a few times. Then R.J. was at quite a few of our games throughout the season last winter," Anderson said. "The Huskies were there the longest (recruiting) and watched him the most."
What was it about Welch that inspired Anderson to sing his praises?
"Athletically, he's a man already from a high school standpoint," Anderson said. "He's a big, strong kid who skates very well. He's solid, hard to knock off the puck. He can handle a puck well, but I think one of his biggest assets is he can shoot the heck out of the puck.
"He makes great plays, uses his size, can protect the puck, handles it and can bury it ... His size and his frame and athletic ability are his greatest assets."
If you believe Welch, the skating part of his game came a long ways in his last two seasons of high school.
"I don't know how it happened, but before my junior year, my dad got me a skating coach," Welch said of McDonough. "I probably did a month, a month-and-a-half of that before my junior year and made big strides.
"I wasn't the strongest skater — and I'm still not. But junior year helped me a lot and I had a decent year and I saw some flashes that I might have a future in hockey. But I was still pretty big into baseball."
How big was Welch into baseball? He would train 3-4 hours a day for baseball and played for the Minnesota Blizzard, a select team, during the summers.
"I just fell in love with the game," he said of baseball, where he was receiving recruiting interest from NCAA Division II schools. "My dad is from Boston and we would watch baseball games at night when the Red Sox used to be a good team. I loved watching it, loved training for it and I go to the cages to hit and play catch with my dad and we formed a great bond."
Keith played safety for the Northeastern University football team.
Welch's love of hockey comes from his older brother, Austin, a former White Bear Lake forward.
"I grew up watching my brother and I could probably barely walk when I first put on hockey skates," he said. "My brother was always was super big into hockey and I loved watching him and I really learned from him a lot. Even if I was just messing around, I would still watch and pick up on little things and I've always been around hockey because of him."
As a freshman in high school, Welch played in 17 games, but did not pick up a point. But he's improved each year and his outgoing personality made him a popular teammate at White Bear Lake.
"He's a teddy bear, a fun guy to be around," Anderson said. "He comes from a great family. He jokes around, he kids, a great locker room guy.
"His personality is infectious. People want to talk to him, want to be around him. He can turn it on and off, too. Before a game or a practice, he's determined, ready to compete. In the locker room after a game or a practice, he's everybody's best friend. He's a super great guy to be around."
Welch is now preparing for his first season of junior hockey with the RoughRiders where he could play against Roed, his former linemate, early in the season. Roed plans to begin the season playing for the Tri-City Storm in the USHL before playing his senior season with White Bear Lake.
And Welch is looking forward to working on his hockey skills full time for the first time in his career. He knows what his strengths are and some things he will need to work on.
"I would say I'm a pretty physical player, but I don't use my body as much as I should with how big I am," he said. "I'm more of a power forward. I like to get in the corners and I like to work in the corners. I probably don't shoot as much as I should either.
"I feel like I have pretty good vision for how big I am. I love passing and making great plays and getting that pretty assist."