Sarah Potomak among final Canada Olympic cuts

Minnesota junior forward Sarah Potomak was one of Hockey Canada's final three cuts Friday for the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

Having just turned 20, Potomak, who redshirted this season in order to centralize for Olympic preperations with 27 other players in Calgary, was the youngest remaining player. Along with Potomak, defenders Micah Zandee-Hart and Halli Krzyzaniak were not on the 23 woman roster named Friday (December 22, 2017).

Erin Ambrose and Sarah's younger sister Amy, who signed a letter of intent to play with the Gophers, were cut last month.

"Obviously it sucks," Sarah told me earlier this month when Team Canada was in St. Paul about seeing her sister cut. "It's obviously not fun for anyone to get cut, but it's part of the process. We just have to move forward as a team."

Potomak had five goals and seven assists during Canada's Olympic centralization, which was spent playing a mix of international and boys AAA midget teams. The Canadians won 5 of the 8 games played against USA, including four straight after the Americans took the Four Nations Cup.

"Since May we've just been training as hard as we can," she said about training 5-6 days per week. "That's one of our biggest focuses as well, being in good shape and strong.

Prior to Olympic centralization, Potomak had a pair of goals in 2017 World Championships as the Canadians won a silver medal. She led the Gophers last season with 20 goals as a sophomore and was tied for seventh nationally with 53 points.

Unlike the US team, Canada began with more players than allowed. Being cut was always an option.

“Obviously that’s always in the back of our minds, but we push each other. The end goal is to win gold and that’s our biggest focus right now, just pushing each other,” said Potomak.

While the Potomak sisters' dream to wear the maple leaf together in Olympic play will be put off four years, they will not have to wait as long to be teammates.

"I'm really excited to play with her wearing the Gopher jersey next year," Sarah said.