{"id":397038,"date":"2026-01-08T06:15:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T06:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/397038\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T06:15:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T06:15:16","slug":"sanheim-pleasantly-surprised-to-be-among-canadas-best-at-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/397038\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanheim pleasantly surprised to be among Canada’s best at Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Travis Sanheim<\/a> never expected to become an Olympian.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Elkhorn, Man., Sanheim was purely focused on just reaching the National Hockey League and solidifying a role for himself.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-4 left-shot defenceman has been one of the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a>\u2019 most consistent blueliners this season, contributing five goals and 19 points in 41 games with a plus-7 rating and averaging a career-high 24:32 of ice time.<\/p>\n

His play has solidified his place on Canada\u2019s Olympic roster as he gets set to represent his country on international hockey\u2019s biggest stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I never really thought I\u2019d ever really be a part of,\u201d Sanheim told TSN1050\u2019s First Up on Wednesday. \u201cGrowing up in a small town in Manitoba, I think to make the NHL was something that didn\u2019t seem realistic for me. Then I got there and established myself, but I didn\u2019t really see myself as an Olympic athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old blueliner put himself on the Olympic radar by continually improving as a member of the Flyers.<\/p>\n

Drafted 17th overall in 2014, Sanheim has seen his playing time go from 15:35 during his rookie season in 2017-18 to 24:30 last season.<\/p>\n

He recorded eight goals and 40 points in 82 games last year with a minus-6 rating and his play helped him make Canada\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off winning squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just tried to work on my game and get better and was fortunate to play at the 4 Nations last year,\u201d said Sanheim. \u201cGetting a taste of playing best-on-best was a great experience and I can\u2019t wait for the Olympics after experiencing that.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying for an Olympic medal is going to mean so much to me and I\u2019m going to have the support of my community and family. I just can\u2019t wait to get over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanheim is one of 19 players returning to Team Canada from the 4 Nations roster. Also returning is a coaching staff that is headed by Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> coach Jon Cooper.<\/p>\n

He believes that 4 Nations experience will only help the chemistry with his teammates and the team will have a better grasp on what the coaching staff wants out of them.<\/p>\n

\u201c[By] winning together and having the tournament last season, we built familiarity with each other, which will make things a bit easier,\u201d said Sanheim. \u201cIt\u2019ll help with the coaching staff as well because we understand what they\u2019re looking for from a systems standpoint.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Now] we\u2019re just going out and playing, trying to do it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanheim\u2019s continued improvement has coincided with the Flyers\u2019 improvement in the NHL standings.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia sits in third place in the Metropolitan Division headed into Wednesday\u2019s action with a 22-12-7 record. That is a 12-point improvement at this time last year after 41 games.<\/p>\n

Sanheim credits new head coach Rick Tocchet<\/a> as a key component to their success this season with the systems he implemented in training camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw right away the changes that [Tocchet] was making would be good ones,\u201d said Sanheim. \u201cIt was a lot of learning early on in training camp with a lot of system changes that a lot of us weren\u2019t familiar with. We were just trying to get better and implement them as fast as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest of the Eastern Conference has also taken a step forward. Ten of the top 16 teams in the NHL are in the East, indicating that there is an extreme amount of parity in the conference.<\/p>\n

Sanheim knows that the Flyers can\u2019t be satisfied with their current success with the rest of the conference applying pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can be happy with where your situation 1767852916 and then you lose a couple and all of a sudden you move quite far down the list,\u201d said Sanheim. \u201cI think it\u2019s a good thing, it makes every night to be an exciting matchup and a challenge, which is good for the league. Any team can beat any other team on any given night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travis Sanheim never expected to become an Olympian. Growing up in Elkhorn, Man., Sanheim was purely focused on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,5,33299,4,32987,50347],"class_list":{"0":"post-397038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-hockey-canada-sports-hockey-hockey-canada","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-4","13":"tag-travis-sanheim-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8477948"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115858015917337585","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}