How Jack O’Leary blossomed in second season with Cornell

Jack O'Leary provided a boost for Cornell this season.

As a rookie in 2021-22, Cornell forward Jack O’Leary (Smithtown, N.Y.) was just trying to break into the Big Red lineup. This past season, he became an integral part of the depth chart.

“It’s been tremendous,” he said of the difference of a year’s time. “Last year was difficult — but I learned a lot from the older guys, and cherished a lot of the little things.

“It gave me a lot of motivation for this year, for sure.”

Playing time in his first season in Ithaca was sparse. He appeared in 11 contests, notching one goal and one assist. Both points came in his just second game ever for Cornell, a 4-3 victory at North Dakota. One reason for his suiting up sparingly as a rookie was learning to compete at the NCAA Division 1 level, while another was trying to find an opening on the roster among his older teammates, while also learning from them.

“The big thing was, we had a lot of fifth years back who had more experience,” said O’Leary, 23, a junior, of last year. “To see what they did on a daily basis, I’ll incorporate and keep those lessons the rest of my life.”

Fast forward 12 months, and it was O’Leary being named ECAC Hockey Forward of the Week, contributing two goals and four points in two games the final weekend of February, as the Big Red swept Brown and Yale to clinch its latest Ivy League crown. Cornell also went 18-9-2 overall and finished third in ECAC Hockey behind Quinnipiac and Harvard with a 15-6-1 conference mark.

One year after appearing in less than a dozen contests overall, the 5-foot-7 O’Leary was tied for 10th in team scoring with five goals and nine assists for 14 points in 24 regular-season outings. He then assisted on Cornell’s game-winning goal in a 2-1 victory over Clarkson in their ECAC Hockey quarterfinal opener, before a 3-1 triumph the next night propelled the Big Red to the league semifinals for the first time since 2019.

Cornell also earned a berth this past season in the NCAA tournament, where O’Leary scored a goal and notched an assist in a 2-0 Big Red win over Denver. Cornell lost to Boston University in the second round.

“Cornell has a lot of tradition and winning championships, and I wanted to be part of that legacy,” admitted O’Leary. “The biggest thing was developing under coach (Mike) Schafer. He’s an historic coach, and to make a footprint and win some championships is the biggest thing.”

The undrafted O’Leary actually got his start in the sport early on by playing DekHockey, before transitioning to skates when he was 10, 11 years old.

“I kind of wanted to take to the ice,” he recalled of the shift away from dry land. “My dad played a bit and was a big hockey fan, and that definitely helped.”

O’Leary then played several seasons with the P.A.L. Junior Islanders program, highlighted by a 33-goal, 88-point campaign with the 16-U AAA club in 2016-17.

“It was awesome,” said O’Leary. “Coach Bob Thornton took that program and turned it around. … It helped my development, and I loved all my years there.”

After the Juniors Islanders it, was off to Iowa and the United States Hockey League for O’Leary, where he skated two seasons with the Cedar Rapids Roughriders. His first year in 2018-19, he notched seven goals and 15 assists for 22 points to go with 12 penalty minutes.

“Jack really personifies the way we want to play,” Cedar Rapids GM/coach Mark Carlson told The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette early in O’Leary’s second season with the RoughRiders. “He has a lot of juice, a lot of energy. He is an unbelievable team guy.”

O’Leary finished that season with 10-17—27 points and 75 PIM in 46 appearances, and then was off to the collegiate ranks — at least at first. After the Ivy League canceled all 2020-21 athletic seasons due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, O’Leary decided to skate another season in juniors rather than head right to Cornell, which didn’t play at all that winter.

“It was a very weird year,” he recalled. “I could have stayed and trained (at Cornell), but I wanted to play. There’s nothing like playing in a game, and that was the biggest thing about my decision.”

Returning to Cedar Rapids, though, wasn’t an option, as the RoughRiders also had suspended operations that season due to windstorm damage to their home arena. He subsequently took his talents to Nebraska following a USHL lottery draft.

“I got a call from the Lincoln Stars, and they told me they had my rights,” he said. “It was pretty funny — but I loved Lincoln, and it was special as well.”

He posted career-best junior numbers of 11-21-32 points in 47 games in his sole season with the Stars before finally joining Cornell, where he still has some parts of his game he wants to round out.

“My strengths are my skating and my speed,” he pointed out. “I actually want to work on slowing down, and working on change-of-pace, to take that next step.”

One of the next steps would be playing pro hockey, after first exhausting his remaining NCAA eligibility.

“It’s what I want to do,” he said. “I’ll work as hard as I can and see where it takes me.”

A communications major who is also minoring in business academically, O’Leary isn’t sure what his future employment will entail once he hangs up his competitive skates.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” he chuckled.

In the meantime, he has two years left to play for Cornell, working to remain a fixture in the Big Red lineup while trying to help lead it to additional titles for its storied trophy case.

“It’s just being competitive every day,” explained O’Leary. “Every guy here has that same mentality, and you have to work harder than everyone else. The standard is so high, and you just have to figure out how to separate yourself and do more than the standard.”