The Glen Echo is happy to announce the official Winter Athlete of the Year: Senior Colin Redmond.

From the moment he first stepped on the ice, Colin Redmond fell in love with the game of hockey. “I grew up going to the Ice House playing youth hockey with Glen Rock and the North Jersey Avalanche, and just had fun”.

“I don’t really know why I started playing the sport, I kind of just fell in love with it at the young age of four.” Redmond alluded to the physicality of the sport saying, “There’s not many sports where you can just obliterate your opponents, and shoot pucks at a goalie, I always just found a way to have fun with it.”

When he entered high school, Redmond quickly became a staple on the varsity defense his freshman year when coach Dean Portas named him a member of the team’s first line.

Despite dealing with several injuries during his freshman season, Redmond missed just two games during that season, and would make sure that the Panthers were able to improve from their disappointing 7-9-4 season.

During his sophomore year, Redmond and his teammates worked tirelessly in the off-season, avoiding the dangers of COVID to prepare for the new division that they were moved to, the McInnis. Being placed in this division would mean the Panthers would be competing against some of the states’ top teams including Summit, Westfield, and Livingston on a nightly basis, and compete they did.

Despite three shutdowns during the season, Redmond led the Panthers to the McInnis Cup playoffs as the fifth seed where, in the first round, they would face off against longtime rival, fourth seeded Summit.

Coming into the game Redmond was looking to flip the script on a Summit team that the Panthers hadn’t beaten or even scored against in five years.

“The day before the game I learned that my grandma had passed away, the next day I went out and scored the first goal against Summit in five years which got us going and helped us win 4-1, so that’s probably one of my favorite games I’ve been a part of in any sport.”

Not only did that performance from Redmond help propel the Panthers to a win that night, but it helped spark an unbelievable Cinderella run that ended with the Panthers lifting the McInnis Cup in their first year in the division.

Redmond would continue his successes into both his junior and senior seasons for the Panthers. Thanks to his accomplishments early in his career, he was named a team captain at the beginning of each season, and the team MVP at the end of both seasons.

As a junior Redmond was named to both the All McInnis Second Team, and all Bergen County Third Team. Redmond was also named a top 100 player in his class by nj.com.

Despite the unbelievable accomplishments during his junior season, Redmond only improved upon those awards as a senior being named to All McInnis First Team, all Bergen County First Team, and All Public B First Team which is composed of some of the top players in the state.

The final accolade that Redmond added to his outstanding hockey career at Glen Rock was the Winter Athlete of the Year. “I’m super excited that they chose me, and it’s a really cool way to sort of wrap up my hockey career.”