UPON FURTHER REVIEW

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

Who: Arizona State at UNLV

When: 6:30 p.m. Friday, 6 p.m. Saturday

Where: SoBe Ice Arena, Fiesta Rancho

Tickets: $5; 631-7000

Oct. 5-6, San Diego State

Oct. 12-13, Metro State

Oct. 19-20, Arizona State at Oceanside, Calif. , tournament

Oct. 26-27, Texas Tech

Nov. 2-3, Loyola-Marymount

Nov. 9-10, at Utah Valley State

Nov. 16-17, Brigham Young

Nov. 30-Dec. 1, Northern Arizona

Dec. 7-8, at San Diego State

Jan. 4-5, San Jose State

Jan. 11-12, Utah Valley State

Jan. 18-19, Michigan

Jan. 25-26, at San Jose State

Feb. 1-2, at Metro State

Feb. 8-9, at Idaho

UNLV home games are played at SoBe Ice Arena at Fiesta Rancho. Call 631-7000 for ticket information.

Anthony Greener was ready to make the jump from the Nevada Rattlers to a Junior A hockey league in upstate Michigan. Maybe a Division-I program would notice and offer him a college scholarship.

It wasn't an ice dream. Buddies he played with while growing up are now at Air Force, Alaska-Fairbanks and Nebraska-Omaha, and Greener's youth coach considered him as talented .

Those hopes and plans, however, were derailed six years ago by a white construction truck.

"A Ford," says Greener, a 21-year-old junior who pays to play on the UNLV club team, which is not sponsored by the school. "It had a diesel engine, and it was huge."

The truck ran a red light at Alta Drive and Martin Luther King Boulevard and smashed into the front of the silver Ford Taurus that Greener's mother was driving.

Rescuers extracted Sue Greener from the mangled metal. A broken left shoulder and other injuries kept her from working for two years.

In the passenger seat, Anthony Greener instinctively straightened his left leg to brace for the impact. His left ankle and left hip were broken.

"It all happened in slow motion," he says.

He was in a wheelchair for three months. Doctors told his mother he would never skate again, but he was back on the ice in eight months.

Sue Greener will be as excited as ever to see her son, a 5-foot-8, 175-pound left winger, and the Rebels start their third season Friday against Arizona State at the SoBe Ice Arena.

"He shines in my eyes," she says. "The games are an adrenaline rush. Every year, I can't wait for the season to start."

At 15, Anthony Greener was the youngest member of the Junior B Rattlers when the accident interrupted his and his mother's lives.

At 5 a.m. that September day, the Greeners were en route to Metro Police headquarters, where Sue Greener processes incoming prisoners. Anthony was going to drive to Clark High after leaving his mother at Metro.

He laughs inside when friends get into fender-benders and call them accidents.

"No, not really," Greener thinks .

Two years later, after an eight-day civil trial, he received $14,000 for his pain and suffering. At that point, his medical bills were $8,000.

Randy Burrage, a former NHL player and Las Vegas Thunder left winger who was coaching the Rattlers, testified about Greener's bright future in the game.

Even though he was the youngest player on the team, Burrage said during the trial, Greener had the best hands on the Rattlers. He didn't shy from physical play, either.

"I thought this kid would go places," Burrage says.

Greener's lawyer was seeking roughly $70,000, about the cost of attending Wisconsin for four years with a Division-I scholarship. They didn't come close.

"Honestly, their lawyer was better," says Greener, whose lawyer didn't attend the final day's proceedings.

The other side's medical experts claimed that Greener had had a small hip fracture since he was 12 and that the accident only caused it to rebreak.

Greener said he had never injured his hip before the accident.

"Sometimes I think about what could have been," Greener says. "But you can't dwell on the past."

He learned that from his mother, who wrote him an inspirational passage about hope and faith after the accident.

Greener had it tattooed on the right side of his rib cage a year ago. Some teammates joked that it was his grandmother's lasagna recipe.

"When I'm mad, or sad, I look at it," he says. "It means a lot to me. It cheers me up."

When Greener was a year old, his biological father left him and his mother in Wisconsin. A year later his mother packed Anthony and their stuff and came to Las Vegas to live near relatives.

She met Sean Greener, an ironworker, and had two more boys. Sue and Sean divorced, but remain close.

Sean, whom Anthony calls " Dad," attends most of UNLV's practices and games, and he continues to be impressed by his adopted son's toughness.

Anthony Greener missed most of the last half of last season with injuries, but he tried to skate with a broken ankle in one game.

"He'll just put a Band-Aid on there so he can get out there," Sean Greener says. "His feet, man he has little bone chips that move around in there. He does whatever he can to be out there."

During games, adrenaline fuels Anthony Greener. Afterward, fatigue and pain kick in. He often needs painkillers to sleep after back-to-back weekend games.

The bum hip doesn't allow him to run long distances.

"Stuff happens," Greener says. "Deal with it."

He's majoring in business, with a minor in gaming, and maintains a grade-point average above 3.0. Rebels must have a GPA above 2.5 to be eligible.

He works three 10-hour shifts a week at the spa and weight room of the Marriott in Summerlin to pay for rent, food, tuition and the $700 a semester to play in the American Collegiate Hockey Association's Division II, the second division of the second tier of college hockey.

Often, he skates in tattered and torn pants. His four-year-old gloves were so worn they had no palms.

An aunt saved him recently with a pair of new gloves.

Last week, he was named an alternate captain on the Rebels.

"I'll look a lot to him," UNLV coach Rob Pallin says. "He's the one who will put the team on his back."

He's not in the Big Ten, but Greener is fine with representing the university in the city where he was raised and with players he's known all his life.

"I might not be doing it at the highest level I intended to," he says, "but I'm still doing it that's good. Couldn't ask for anything better."