With one goal and one assist in this last weekend’s game against Niagara, senior Colin Greening continues to demonstrate his swift skills with the puck and reiterate his passion for the sport. It was no doubt to men’s hockey head coach Mike Schafer ’86 to make Greening a returning captain for Cornell to help lead the team to a victorious season.

“He is such a physical beast on the ice; he overpowers kids. His strength is that he is, in school and in hockey, 100 percent all the time, both academically and athletically,” Schafer said.

Coming into Cornell as the seventh-round draft pick for the Ottawa Senators in 2005, Greening knew he had high expectations to fulfill. During his freshman season, he appeared in all 31 games and accumulated 11 goals as a rookie.

Named alternate captain in his sophomore season, Greening led Cornell in scoring with a team-best 33 points and 14 goals. Greening earned a spot on both the All-ECAC Hockey and All-Ivy League second teams, after leading the Ivy League in scoring. In addition, he earned the Red’s first hat trick in almost three years in a 6-0 victory against Dartmouth in 2008.

Last season, Greening was in the top class of college hockey, finishing ranked 56th in the county in goals per game and 87th in points per game. Earning second team All-ECAC Hockey honors and unanimously selected to the All-Ivy League first team, Greening, as a co-captain, tallied his career-best 15 goals and 16 assists for a combined 31 points.

As this season progresses, Schafer has high expectations for his senior superstar as he begins to add patience to his mentality and lets plays slow down. A candidate for the 2010 Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, Greening has demonstrated his go-getter mindset both on and off the ice, as he returns in his last season playing for the Red.