Cohen Hayes '26 Recruiting Profile

 My name is Cohen Hayes (2026), and for the 2024-2025 season I will be playing for the U18 AA West Central Wheatkings. I am a 200 foot forward who creates offensive chances for my teammates and I. What I am most proud of is my defensive zone. I excel at positioning and finding my guy. Hockey has been the biggest teacher for me in my life as it teaches me many valuable lessons. The biggest value hockey has taught me is communication. Communication is the key to success and without it you will continue to fail. As it is very fun to succeed and win championships, sometimes it is the losing seasons that you improve and learn the most. My 2022-2023 season was a tough season for myself, coaches, and teammates. Our record was 2-28 and because of that it challenged my mental side of the game to an extreme extent. Halfway through the season when we had not won a single game, it began to show the true players on the team. You could easily see which ones still put in the effort to win, even though the rest of the team had given up. I was one of these few players to continue to push. The thought that the other team was thinking it was an easy win pushed me to put in 110% effort no matter what the score was. I feel because of this season, I can set myself apart from other great players, and this is because after experiencing these extreme lows, I think I can better control situations that my team and I are in. Academically, I take my schooling serious as I know it will help me in the long run. My goal academically throughout highschool and college would be to maintain the 90-100% grade range. This is because I have high expectations on what I want to achieve in school. Taking things back to hockey, I think why teams might want me is because I have played several roles on a team, whether I am the first line star or fourth line grinder, I still continue to excel wherever I am playing. Whatever opportunities I am given, I use them to prove myself and to better my team and I. Obviously, my goal is to attend college or university and win a championship, but I am willing to take on any scenario there is.