FINN-ISHING TOUCHES
Canada moves on to final
Out with the old and in with the new.
That’s one way of explaining the shift taking place at the women’s world hockey championship. With Hayley Wickenheiser having retired in February and Caroline Ouellet transitioning into coaching, a new wave of Canadian players is being leaned on to continue the string of four consecutive Olympic gold medals next year in PyeongChang, South Korea.
One of those new names is Sarah Potomak. The 19-year-old is the youngest player on Team Canada, but with two goals and an assist in four games at this year’s world tourney, including the game-winner in Thursday’s 4-0 semifinal win over Finland, she isn’t waiting around to make an impact.
“Playing for your country is such a huge honour,” said Potomak, a native of Aldergrove, B.C.
Potomak said her teammates “definitely encouraged me to play free and play my game and just play with no pressure. It’s an amazing tournament and an amazing feeling to wear this jersey, so for me, it’s just go out and enjoy it.”
While this was a coming-out game for Potomak, it was also a comeback game for Canada, which had been stunned with a 4-3 loss to Finland in the round robin portion of the tournament. Based on Thursday’s win, the earlier loss seemed more like a fluke than a sign Canada’s stranglehold atop the women’s game was coming to an end.
In the semi, Canada played the aggressor, outshooting Finland 35-23 and taking a first-period lead when Potomak scored on her own rebound. Goals from Marie-Philip Poulin, Rebecca Johnston and 21-year-old Emily Clark, combined with a shutout from goalie Shannon Szabados, put the exclamation mark on Canada’s most dominant win of the tournament.
“I think we wanted to just play our game,” Poulin, the team’s captain, said. “We wanted to play with a lot of energy, get a lot of pucks on net and, shift after shift, put pressure on them. I think we did that.”
With the win, Canada keeps alive its perfect streak of advancing to the final, where it will play their perennial nemesis, the U.S., on Friday. The Americans were 11-0 winners over Germany in Thursday’s other semifinal.
Canada, which lost 2-0 to the U.S. in the first game of the round robin, has lost to the Americans in each of the last three tournament finals. But with the country’s next generation playing a more significant role than ever before, Canada is confident it can get the job done this time around.
“I was really happy with our performance today,” head coach Laura Schuler said. “One of our goals was to come out and play fast and to get pucks deep and early on them. I thought our girls did a good job of that. When you get contributions like that from all our young players, it just speaks to the depth of our team.”
Potomak was not the only youngster who has impressed Canada’s coaching staff.
Clark, who is the secondyoungest player on the team, was bumped up to the top line and also relied upon to kill a crucial penalty late in the third period, where she picked up an emptynet goal.
“How she plays the game is how we want to identify ourselves,” Schuler said of the Saskatoon native, who has two goals. “Her work ethic is outstanding, she never gives up, she plays tough and physical and she’s selfless — she’ll move the puck. We’re really excited to have her on that line.”
Despite her age, this is the 21-year-old’s third world championship. “She’s definitely come a long way since she started in our program,” Johnston said.
Szabados, who picked up her second straight shutout of the tournament, won the battle of the goaltenders. But opposing netminder Noora Raty said Finland made it too easy on the Canadian goalie.
“When you get a shutout, you’ve done your job,” Raty said of Szabados. “But I was really disappointed that we couldn’t really screen her. We were taking easy shots on her hands. Our plan was to screen her, but I could see her most of the time, so obviously we needed more people in front of her.
“She’s one of the best goalies in the world, so you’re not going to score on her from the blue-line.”
Facing the hometown Americans in the final, a key to victory for Canada will be the team’s start. In each of their two wins, the Canadians have scored first. In both losses, they gave up the first goal.
“Against Canada in the first game, we scored the first goal, so we got the momentum and you get that confidence,” Raty said. “But if you’re down 2-0, 3-0, of course it’s huge for them. You could see after they scored the third goal, they just started playing defence.”