Sanheim beating the odds with the Hitmen

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This article was published 30/04/2015 (3784 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CALGARY — It’s going to take a major effort for Taylor Sanheim’s current team to play longer than his last team this spring, but the Western Hockey League rookie from Elkhorn is willing to give it a try.

After an unsuccessful attempt to stick in the WHL with the Brandon Wheat Kings for the 2013-14 season, Sanheim joined the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Portage Terriers, the host of this year’s RBC Cup Canadian Junior A championship. He’d likely be with them again this season had he not beaten the odds by landing a spot on the Calgary Hitmen, joining his twin brother, Travis.

The Terriers are “going to be playing for a while, so hopefully we can keep it going too,” Taylor Sanheim said.

The Terriers rolled to the MJHL title this season and are currently playing in the Western Canada Cup in Fort McMurray, Alta. Regardless of how they fare, their role as hosts will earn them a spot in the RBC Cup, which runs from May 9-17. To outlast them, the Sanheim brothers and the Hitmen will have to get by the Wheat Kings in the Eastern Conference final — Brandon led the best-of-seven series 2-1 going Game 4 on Wednesday in Calgary — and make it to the WHL’s Ed Chynoweth Cup championship series. Sanheim still has a lot of friends on Portage — the Bowles twins, Bradley and Shawn, and Brett Orr are all fellow Elkhorn natives on the Terriers — and he’s followed their season, but he’s happy to be where he is right now.

“I knew coming into this year this is probably one of my last shots to make the WHL,” said Sanheim, who made the Hitmen at 18, an age where most prospects’ best chances to make the jump have already passed by. “So I just tried to work hard and tried to do my part as a player. Just tried to work hard on the ice every day and tried to get stronger on the days off. That’s what I did and I was lucky enough to play with the team. And now we’re in the playoffs and we’re battling it out with Brandon, so I can’t say anything went wrong, it’s all good.”

Travis, Calgary’s top defenceman, made the Hitmen a year earlier and established himself as a rising star, being chosen 17th overall by the Philadelphia Flyers in last year’s National Hockey League draft.

Taylor, a five-foot-11, 188-pound forward, has carved out a more blue-collar role, getting under opponents’ skin, but earning the appreciation of his coach.

“Taylor does a lot of things that go very unnoticed until you sit down and get a true appreciation of what he brings to his game,” Hitmen head coach Mark French said.

Sanheim had four goals, 19 assists and 65 penalty minutes in 53 regular-season games. He entered Wednesday with a goal and four assists in 15 playoff contests, including setting up Brandonite Jordy Stallard for an overtime goal in Game 4 of Calgary’s second-round victory over the Medicine Hat Tigers. It was a goal Stallard said was the result of a great pass and a shot that he was lucky went in. As someone who spends most of his time out of the spotlight doing the dirty work, Sanheim, unsurprisingly, saw it differently.

“It was a good goal by Jordy,” he said. “Just a lucky pass, I guess you could say.”

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