Why it's 'friends-off' on game day for Montreal coach Kori Cheverie

Every trip to the rink brings a reunion of sorts for Kori Cheverie. 

With friends, mentors, colleagues, and Canadian national team players scattered across all six markets of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, Montreal’s head coach — who has served as an assistant with Team Canada for the last four years — always knows her competition well. And she’s got a hard-and-fast gameday rule she follows as a result. 

“Friends-off until after the game,” she says with a smile as she leans against a wall inside Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. “I'm very competitive, and I want to win every single game, and it doesn't matter who's on the other side. It's, 'Okay, what's the game plan? How do we beat them?' And, you know, as much as I care about the people on the other side, until the game's over ..."

A shrug. This particular game, the historic Battle on Bay Street, will see her square off against Team Canada head coach — and fellow Nova Scotian — Troy Ryan, but like she said, it’s friends-off.

Nearly two months into the inaugural PWHL season, it’s not just the faces greeting her that are familiar now. Cheverie has quickly familiarized herself with the rigorous routine of being a professional head coach. While the 36-year-old former player is no stranger to the hard work that goes into a career behind the bench — first as an assistant coach with Toronto Metropolitan University and then on Ryan’s Team Canada staff — this brand-new league has brought a brand-new opportunity for the first-time head coach at the senior women’s level. 

“I think one of the biggest differences is just, it feels like a short-term competition all the time, because you have to turn things around very quickly,” Cheverie says. “And so, my all my experience of doing world championships, that's helped because you've got to find something meaningful and turn it around quickly.”

Cheverie, who’s coached Montreal into a first-place tie with Minnesota atop the league standings, spoke with Sportsnet about the season so far, how she’s adapting to the pro lifestyle, and the importance of listening to players. 

SPORTSNET: Now that we’re about two months into the inaugural season, what has your experience been like so far as a head coach in this brand-new league? 

KORI CHEVERIE: It's definitely been an adjustment to get used to that pro schedule. It's realizing that we are far into the season, but we're still so young as a group together that there's something new that you could introduce to them every single day. But you really have to prioritize what you're working on with them and making sure that that's the most important piece at that time. ... We have one, max two, practices in a row, and you have to get all of your concepts in in that amount of time for the players to be ready for the game. 

SN: You've been in hockey your whole life, and so have your colleagues and players, yet this is a new experience for everybody — new team, new league, new schedule. What are you learning about this group?

KC: Our group, we have such great leaders in our locker room. They're always putting the team first, making sure that they're coming to us with what they want to do and how they want to involve the team or how they want us to kind of team-build. I'm fortunate, as a coach, that I have such great leaders in our locker room, who can help with that messaging and help me with making sure that we're on the right track. 

SN: How are you personally adapting to the new role and the schedule that comes with it?

KC: I mean, it's a very taxing lifestyle. You almost have to treat it like you're one of the athletes. I really prioritize my sleep. That's really important. I wake up very early but I also go to bed early because I know that if I want to show up as my best for them, I have to be clear-minded. 

And just making sure that even when you're on the road, you’re tired, you've gotta exercise, you've gotta try to at least eat a little bit healthy and try to get your sleep. I think that's been the biggest adjustment in order to keep up with the energy levels required. 

SN: Is that something you’ve learned over the years as an assistant coach, too?

KC: The mentors that I've had in my coaching career have been really good in taking the time to address the areas that need help or need assistance. What you notice about becoming a head coach in this league is that often everything that you want to prioritize kind of comes last because you're busy helping everybody — which is not a bad thing, it just makes you a more efficient worker. It makes you really, kind of, value the time that you dohave, because there's not a lot of it. 

SN: Obviously, you have a lot of experience coaching Marie-Philip Poulin from your shared time on Team Canada. Now you’re her coach all the time. Can you share what it’s like, coaching the GOAT on a daily basis?

KC: I mean, she's so great. She just wants to get better every single day, which is really remarkable.

She's just a first-class athlete to be around every day. Her and I have obviously had a long working relationship that has had its ups and downs at times, but we really care about each other, trust each other. It's really a partnership. 

SN: It sounds like yours is a real collaborative approach to coaching. 

KC: Yeah. I mean, I think it's no longer like show-and-tell with coaching. It's like, ‘We're working together.’ All my players, they have the greenlight to, if they see something on Instagram or Twitter, they'll just send it to me and it'll either spark an idea or give them an idea to work with. I'm pretty open in that way, that if they want to come with ideas for what they think would suit their game, that's really important. They've got the open door to do so. 

SN: Do you think that kind of approach is something we're seeing more of within hockey, overall?

KC: I mean, I think you see it too, in the NHL — you would see it with veterans on the team. 

I'm constantly challenging our group on being students of the game — understanding 'Why do we do that?' 'Why do we do this?' 'When you see this, what does it mean?' And it's the same with our coaching staff too, right? I have a lot of coaches who have come from the men's side ... It's a little more of the show-and-tell.

On our side, I'm a very detailed coach, and I think that's something that my coaches are probably learning from me — this is what you have to do to prepare yourself for all the questions the player's gonna ask. If you work through all of the layers of it, now when they ask you, you have the answer, you can understand it better as a coach, you can teach it better. We do sessions with our team where I'll send a presentation virtually and they all get their phones out for our meeting ... And they have to talk about what the picture is and come up and explain it to the group.

The best way to learn is when you teach somebody else. And so, when the players have that opportunity to teach their teammates what to do, it's the most impactful. As a coach, you're a teacher. You have to be able to teach. ... We have to be able to prove why we're doing something. 

SN: As we’re talking today, it’s a game day for you. What does a normal game-day tend to look like for you? 

KC: We usually have two meetings. So, we'll have a special teams meeting in the morning — usually it's [penalty kill], just because it's more of a team concept. And then we do our game-day skate, and then I'll go and try to rest and relax a little bit because at the end of the game, you're tired. And then we have one more meeting when we get to the rink and then they're kind of on their own, and then the game starts. What's nice is game day is almost like, [exhales] — ‘We've done it all, all the prep is done.’ It's all about the prep, so game day is like, 'Okay, they've got to take what we've packaged together for them and implement it.'

Cheverie and PWHL Montreal host Ottawa Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET / 11:30 a.m. PT on Sportsnet+.