On Wednesday, May 20, Montreal Victoire’s Kori Cheverie became the first female head coach to secure the Walter Cup victory at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa. Her team achieved the incredible feat after defeating the Ottawa Charge 4-0 in Game 4 of the best-of-five Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) Finals series.

Cheverie, 38, hoisted the Walter Cup after taking the Victoire to the promised land for the first time in their brief history. Notably, in the first couple of seasons of the PWHL in 2024 and 2025, the Walter Cup was won by a male coach named Ken Klee with the Minnesota Frost.

For Montreal, their captain Marie-Philip Poulin was the star of the show on the ice, becoming the winner of the Ilana Kloss Trophy for the Most Valuable Player of the postseason. Herself and Cheverie were the two key figures at the Victoire throughout the 2025-26 season, which ended up becoming their best yet in the PWHL.

Looking back at Cheverie’s journey to the coveted glory, it all began in her homeland of Canada, where she initially became a professional ice hockey player. She competed in a forward position and captained the Saint Mary’s Huskies during her time from 2005 to 2010, getting named Academic All-Canadian.

After that, Cheverie spent six seasons at the Toronto Furies from 2010 to 2016 in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL), winning the Clarkson Cup 12 years ago.

She also represented Team Canada at the 2009 Winter Universiade in China, winning the women’s ice hockey gold before playing for Italy’s women's national ball hockey team at the World Championships in 2015.

Also, Cheverie gradually started transitioning into ice hockey coaching during her playing days in the early 2010s.

Kori Cheverie’s career as an ice hockey coach began to take shape very early in her life

Kori Cheverie was a coach in her playing days at Hockey Nova Scotia for the summer of 2012, where she worked with young kids aged 15 to 17.  During 2013-14, she had a role in hockey development and community relations at the Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment in Toronto.

Cheverie started as an assistant coach at the Scarborough Sharks Midget AA girls team in the 2015-16 season before taking the head coach role for the next season.

She took up the assistant coach role at TMU Bold (formerly Ryerson Rams) men’s team in 2016 after quietly moving away from playing the sport. With that, the New Glasgow, Nova Scotia native became the first woman in U Sports history to get hired full-time in a men’s ice hockey program.

Two years after working with the New Zealand women’s ice hockey team, Cheverie got the chance to join the Canadian women’s U18 team as an assistant coach in 2018. She oversaw the national team win the gold medal at the World U18 Championships in Japan in the same year during her short tenure with them.

In 2021, Cheverie was hired as the assistant coach of Canada women’s ice hockey team just before they won the World Championships at home. Apart from being a head coach at the Montreal Victoire, she currently holds this position in Team Canada.

Will Kori Cheverie keep playing a key role in the success of Montreal Victoire and Canada women’s ice hockey team? Tell us in the comments.

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Written by

Arjun Sharma

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason