Over the past couple of winters, Canandaigua varsity hockey coach Jim Armstrong felt that his program had reached a certain level.
It was a good level, to be sure.
In those two seasons, the Braves skated to 36 wins in 47 games. They completed an undefeated regular season, won a Monroe County North/South Division title and played in a state championship game.
All things that would make any coach smile.
But back in the offseason as Armstrong thought ahead to the 2008-09 campaign, he felt his program — especially his nine seniors-to-be — needed new challenges.
“You always want to challenge yourself, and I think our kids really like challenges,” Armstrong said.
So, he went to Academy officials first and then Monroe County hockey league officials and asked if his program could be moved from the small-school North/South division to the large-school East for 2008-09.
“I really thought that this year was the perfect year to go, after the records we’ve had the last couple of years,” said Armstrong, who is in his ninth season guiding the Braves. “We petitioned the league and said, ‘Hey, here’s our records, what do you think?’”
The answer: Come on up.
As a result, Canandaigua has been mixing it up this winter with the big boys, regularly battling well-established programs such as Fairport, Pittsford and the Websters — Thomas and Schroeder.
Gone are the days of gaudy records like last year’s 20-0-1, but Armstrong says his players have welcomed the step up in competition.
“When we told them last summer that this is what we were going to do, their eyes lit up,” Armstrong said of his squad. “And I think our team has enjoyed it more than I thought they would. I think our seniors really like it. More than anyone, the seniors really needed a change, they needed a step up.”
One of those seniors, forward Conrad Saxby, echoed his coach’s thoughts.
“Me, I play better when I have better challenges,” said Saxby, who is second on the team in scoring with 14 points on eight goals and six assists.
He said he likes being pushed, and moving up has definitely pushed him and his teammates to a new level.
“You have to hustle more. You have to do everything that much better, you have to be better in every skill,” said Saxby. “It’s just more exciting.”
And don’t think that the Braves have been slouches in the higher division. They managed only one win in their first five games, but going into Friday night’s home game against Rush-Henrietta, they were in fifth place in the eight-team East division and were a respectable 9-7-2 overall.
“I thought we weren’t going to do as well as we are,” Saxby admitted.
Their 23-game regular-season schedule includes eight games against teams currently ranked in the state’s large- or small-school polls — Webster Schroeder (twice), Webster Thomas (twice), Fairport (twice), McQuaid and Queensbury.
“The thing about the league that we were in last year is that those teams, including us, in any given year could be very, very good, but in some years, those same teams struggled,” Armstrong said. “This league has programs that are more consistently good. Before, we could play an average game and still win. Now, we play an average game, we don’t win. There’s no room for a bad game. I really like that.”
A sign, perhaps, of what the step up in levels has done for the program are two non-league games against teams that used to be in CA’s league — Geneva/Waterloo and Victor. In recent years, those games usually were dogfights. This year, CA beat Victor 6-0 and Geneva/Waterloo 5-1, snapping the Panthers’ record 13-game winning streak in the process.
“Last week, against Geneva, we had everything going,” said Armstrong, whose team has featured a tremendously balanced offensive attack. Through the first 18 games, five players had produced double figures in scoring — Sam Post (17), Saxby, Kolby Erb (11), Dan Figenscher (11) and Kenny Ballard (10).
In addition, the Braves have received solid goaltending from the combination of Nick Dilg (2.66 goals against average, 88 save percent) and Brandon Graves (1.94, 91).
In Armstrong’s view, the move certainly has been a success, but two questions still remain to be answered — one long-term and one more immediate.
First, will CA — with no JV program and fewer numbers on the varsity than teams like Pittsford and Fairport — be able to compete on a year-in, year-out basis with the big dogs?
“We need to develop our youth hockey and spread the word that this is the greatest game going,” said Armstrong, who is actively involved with the Canandaigua Knights youth organization. “We have to increase the number of kids in Canandaigua playing hockey.”
And secondly, will the more rigorous regular season translate into postseason success?
Even though the Braves are playing in the large-school division for the regular season, they are still a Class B team come Section 5 tournament time. Going into the weekend, they were seeded sixth in the 12-team class, behind even those two aforementioned former league rivals, Geneva/Waterloo (No. 1) and Victor (No. 5).
But, as Armstrong pointed out, sometimes those seedings don’t matter.
Last year, after the spectacular 20-0-1 regular season, CA was seeded No. 1 for the B postseason tournament and was upset in the first round by No. 8 Notre Dame.
“Last year, we played at the same level all year long,” Armstrong said. “This year, our last three games are against Webster, Pittsford and Fairport. That should help us going into the playoffs. It makes you battle-tested.”
