Kori Cheverie | Mighty Ducks, garage sale and daycare

You had to really love hockey.

To pack his bags for the first time at 16 and go play in another province. To do it again at 23, without a penny in his pocket, and try a so-called professional career. To work all day in a daycare, train late at night and play matches without getting paid. To make the jump behind the bench before the age of 30. To lead work sessions in the middle of the night during the Olympic Games. Or to pack your bags a third time, move to Montreal and lead a (real) professional team while learning a new language at full speed.

The story of the career of Kori Cheverie, head coach of the Montreal team of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (LPHF), is somewhat breathless. Not in form, mind you. On this frosty Tuesday morning at the end of January, in a café on Wellington Street, a stone’s throw from the Verdun Auditorium, the discussion is cordial, almost hushed.

Behind a cup of black coffee (she tells us the nature of her drink in French), the 36-year-old manager is dynamic, but not exuberant. The look, like the handshake, is decided. We quickly understand that she will take all the time necessary to answer the questions… but that she has no time to waste.

Work, since his arrival in the metropolis at the end of summer, has occupied almost all of his daily life. The day before our meeting, she had taken a rare day to discover the city. She chose Old Montreal, which she regretted not having explored more sooner, as she wanted to know the “history and heritage” of her adopted city.

This apprenticeship, however, must be done very part-time. Because building a team from scratch essentially eliminates any notion of time off, even more so when you combine this task with that of assistant coach of the national team.

When the players are not at the arena, the coaching staff takes the opportunity to meet, analyze, plan.

“You have to make a real effort to separate yourself from work,” she notes. It’s difficult. »

However, the burden is less heavy when that job is hockey, and hockey is a lifetime.

Late

Born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Kori Cheverie grew up playing baseball, basketball and soccer. It was only late in life, at age 10, that she took up hockey, a sport that no one in her immediate family played.

For as long as she can remember, she has loved skating. She describes the most Canadian scene imaginable, recounting how she loved jumping on the frozen pond with her sister – “maybe it was more of a stream,” she concedes with a laugh.

Surprisingly, the film franchise The Mighty Ducks (Power play, in French) encourages him to “prioritize” hockey. At the time, seeing girls playing in a boys’ team moved him very little: it had in fact been his reality since he was little.

Hockey brought together everything she loved about sport. “I was very competitive, and I still am,” she says. I didn’t like losing. »

The problem, and it’s a big one: hockey is very expensive. With her mother, who raised her three children alone, she made a deal: if young Kori raised the money needed to buy equipment, she would receive the registration as a gift.

The little girl therefore organized a garage sale which brought her… $90. She found someone who sold her a bag of used items for that price. And his mother honored her end of the deal.

From her debut in organized hockey, it was clear that she was talented. “Organized” is undoubtedly a big word to describe the women’s side in New Glasgow in the late 1990s. As a teenager, she joined the provincial team then participated in the Canada Games in 2003, within the same team. delegation than a young man his age named Sidney Crosby.

At this event, she noticed that some of her teammates were preparing to go play in Ontario. She decides to do the same and finishes high school away from home. Back in her native province, she enrolled in criminology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

At this point in the story, The Press underlines that it is not trivial that the Montreal team today has a coach with a degree in criminology and a general director, Danièle Sauvageau, who had a career with the SPVM and the RCMP.

Cheverie smiles and notes that the two actually get along like thieves.

In Toronto

After a prolific career of five seasons in university hockey, Cheverie plays his best. Without a penny in her pocket, and not knowing where she’s even going to stay, she packs up her car and leaves Nova Scotia to try her luck among the professionals. Direction: Toronto.

Here too, the meaning of the words must be clarified. The defunct Canadian League, which existed from 2007 to 2019, enjoyed a good reputation, but it was professional in name only. The players were only paid during the last two seasons of the circuit’s existence, and even then, we were talking about a few thousand dollars. “At least we didn’t pay to play, that was already good,” she says, without irony.

If there is a contrary to glamour, she experienced it. Living with her 87-year-old great-aunt, she supported herself by working in a daycare, as she already did every summer with her mother, an early childhood educator.

“It was really hard,” confirms the one who, after her day at work, had to wait until 9:30 p.m. to train with the Toronto Furies.

In 2016, a few weeks before his 29th^e birthday, and while she was still having success on the ice, Cheverie decided to hang up her skates.

“I was at a point in my career where I had to make a decision,” she says. This reflection, hundreds of other players her age have been forced into it over the years. Continue or not? If yes, for how long? In what conditions ? Spending six years in the league, she was one of the most hardened players: her 152 matches in season place her in 10^e rank in the history of the circuit.

Having already dabbled in the role of coach in minor hockey, she saw “opportunities” present themselves in this niche.

“I felt the longer I waited, the less likely they would be there. I decided to go straight to coaching, and it is now my full-time job. It was a very good decision. »