Former OHA Junior C Player of the Year Earns OUA and U-Sports Honours
By: Chris McLachlin, OHA Media
Photo: Alex D’Addese
(Originally published in the 2016-17 OHA Annual Report)

Teeswater, Ontario’s Aaron Armstrong was an extremely talented, standout Junior C hockey player for the Wingham Ironmen. He was named the MVP of the OHA’s Western Junior C league (now the Pollock Division in the PJHL) in 2012, 2013 and 2014; and was named the OHA Junior C Player of the Year in 2013 and 2014. This past season, in his second year with the Ryerson Rams, Armstrong led the OUA in points, was second in Canada and was named an OUA First Team All Star, U Sports Second Team All Star and won the prestigious Dr. Randy Gregg Award.

It takes a pretty special player to make the jump from playing Junior C in the OHA to being one of the top players in U Sports men’s hockey; it takes a player like Aaron Armstrong.

Armstrong put up monster numbers in Junior C, 367 points in 144 regular season games and another 94 points in 48 playoff games. He tallied over 100 points in each of his final two seasons with the Wingham Ironmen, including 124 points in 2012-13 in just 35 games. All told, Armstrong scored 461 points in 192 games in Junior C, almost 2.5 points per game.

Rob Harrison, Wingham’s current General Manager, was the Ironmen’s GM for Armstrong’s final two seasons with the club, and he considers Armstrong a very rare and exceptional breed. “He had lots of opportunities to play higher hockey along the way, but chose to stick it out and play with his friends in a small town. We were extremely fortunate to have him,” Harrison said. 

Harrison knew Armstrong was good, but this good? “The sky is the limit for this kid, he's got NHL talent, and he’s got NHL hands,” Harrison said. He added, “(he was) just an amazing player. He was like plasticine, you would hit the guy and he would just bounce. He battled through any injuries, never complained, was a leader in the dressing room, on and off the ice.”

Armstrong thoroughly enjoyed his time in Wingham, saying: “The time that I got to spend there with the teammates and the organization, the coaching staff and the community, it was such a treat to play there for 4 years. Some of my fondest memories from playing hockey come from my time in Wingham.”

Armstrong credits good coaching and great teammates for a lot of his success in Junior C. He said,” I got to play with some really good players while I was in Wingham, some players that are playing at the Junior B level now and have put up incredible numbers in that league. I was fortunate enough to play with quite a few guys that went on to play in that league and also some guys could have been playing in higher levels. It was great to develop as a hockey player with them. To be honest I think I was pretty lucky to play with those guys: Jamie Huber, and Drew Gross and Derek Elliott, and guys like that, and even Keaton Willis on the backend.”

“One thing that playing in Wingham, which I learned after this year in the OUA, is that I never lost my creativity, just my fun style of playing. It was never coached out of me, where I think you maybe see some of that at 16 or 17 and [players] are asked to play a role in the OHL and then maybe you lose a little bit of your creativity or your offensive things that you try that maybe you wouldn't try because you want to stay on the team. I think that playing in Wingham allowed me to keep my confidence with trying those things and then was able to translate that this year to the OUA,” Armstrong stated.

After completing his junior hockey career in Wingham, Armstrong played one season for Briercrest College in Caronport, Saskatchewan in 2014-15. In 30 games he scored 39 points, earning him the ACAC (Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference) Rookie of the Year Award and was named to the ACAC All-Conference Team. After his one season at Briercrest, Armstrong returned to Ontario and joined the Ryerson Rams for the 2015-16 season and study Business Management. In his first season with the Rams he scored 14 points in 28 games, scoring 5 goals and adding 9 assists as the Rams finished 6th in the OUA West.

Ryerson’s Head Coach Johnny Duco indicated that Armstrong played through a sports hernia his entire first year and that first year was a good learning lesson for him as he needed to figure out what the league was all about. Duco said, “He came back his next year, he was faster, he was stronger, he was more confident and he had some early success and he was just able to build off of it and he was definitely an extremely confident player no matter what situation he was in.”

To say that Armstrong’s second year with the Rams went well would be an understatement as he finished the season with 46 points in 28 games, scored 17 goals and added 29 assists as he helped the Rams finish in 1st place in the OUA West. It was a breakout season for Armstrong and a historical season for the Rams in OUA men’s hockey. His 46 points were the most in the entire OUA and the second most in Canada, only University of New Brunswick’s Philippe Maillet had more, scoring 55 points in 30 games for the Varsity Reds.

Armstrong describes himself as a pass first player, who tries to open up spaces on the ice by sucking defenders in and then trying to dish the puck off into some open ice for a teammate to score. Duco adds to Armstrong’s description by saying, “He's fearless to make plays in traffic, and he always comes out of 1-on-1 battles with the puck, he's a highly competitive guy in all areas of the ice and he's extremely skilled.”

Duco considers Armstrong a true leader, a team-first guy who is incredibly selfless and has such a positive attitude. Duco said, “He's just a genuine, nice, hard-working guy, and he leads by example and he'd put any one of his teammates in front of him if that's what was best for the team at any point.” 

“There's no secret to why he's gotten to be the player that he is today, because he puts the work in. The kid is an extremely hard worker and if he faces some adversity he finds his way to work through it and come out on top at the end of the day. He's the first guy on the ice at practice and he's the last guy off every single day, he's picking up pucks as our leading goal scorer after warmup and after practice,” added Duco.

The scoring accolades speak for themselves, but when you look at what it means to win the U Sports Dr. Randy Gregg Award, you start to get a clearer picture of how special Aaron Armstrong truly is. The Dr. Randy Gregg Award “honours the player who best combines outstanding hockey ability, academic achievement and community involvement.” 

To put it in perspective, Armstrong tutors and mentors his teammates, and just like his time in Wingham, he is extremely active in the community; volunteering alongside teammates to help teach a developmentally disabled class from Nelson Mandela public school how to skate; he’s a mental health advocate; and hands out clothing, food and coffee to the homeless youth in downtown Toronto through Light Patrol and “Curb Light”. 

After the OUA hockey season was over and he had finished writing all of his exams, Armstrong and a group of other Ryerson student-athletes travelled to Cambodia to run sports programs at orphanages and provide day care for mothers with young children so they were able to work. This summer Armstrong plans on running a hockey school to allow kids from low-income families the opportunity to go out and get on the ice and have fun with their friends.

Harrison says Armstrong is a one of a kind and added, “As good a hockey player he is, he’s a better person. All the work he did in the community with local sports teams, coaching midget teams, winning all Ontario championships, helping out the less-fortunate, food banks, going to third world countries on trips to support those different projects and initiatives he was involved in and just giving more than he took; that's what Aaron is all about, he gives more than he takes.”

Duco agrees with Harrison’s sentiments, saying: “He's a student first, he takes care of his academics, he's a positive role model in the community and he's a heck of a hockey player.”

Armstrong was honoured and humbled to receive the awards and recognition this year but said, “For me, my career, I just wanted to have fun, be the best hockey player I could be, try to help those around me. The way that this last year has went, it was just kind of indescribable in terms of the support that I have received over the years from coaches and teammates and fans. I just felt really blessed for the way that this year happened.” He added, “I just feel so fortunate to be able to still be playing the game and then the kind of season like this, that came from nowhere... when I was contemplating whether I would continue to play hockey or not, to have this season, to me it was very special.”

Aaron Armstrong had a phenomenal 2016-17 hockey season, and Ryerson Head Coach Johnny Duco said it best, “I've never met a more genuine, hard-working, character, team-first guy in my life, in all my years in hockey, and it's sincere; and I wouldn't be surprised to see him do it all again next year."