Cheverie gets Canada, and the eight-game streak is her problem now

Hockey Canada made the obvious hire, and the obvious hire is the right one. Kori Cheverie knows this program from the inside, and she just won the only trophy that mattered last season. The question isn't whether she can coach. It's whether Canada can stop losing to the Americans, and she gets one tournament to show she has an answer.

Cheverie, 39, takes over from Troy Ryan, who left after six years and the Milan Olympics. She was his assistant from 2021 through Milan. In May she took the Montreal Victoire to their first Walter Cup, after back-to-back regular-season titles and a Coach of the Year award in 2024-25.

Her deal runs through the 2026-27 season. The first exam is the Women's Worlds in Denmark, Nov. 6 to 16.

The streak is the job

Canada has lost eight straight to the United States. That run covers the 2025 Worlds, the 2025 Rivalry Series and the 2-1 overtime loss in the Olympic final in February. The Americans have won three of the last four global titles.

That isn't a slump. It's a trend line, and it's why this handover matters more than most.

Continuity was still the right call. Canada doesn't need a new philosophy. It needs to win the one-goal games against the U.S., and Cheverie has sat behind that bench for five years of them. She knows which ones got away and why.

"I didn't know then that my path would be through coaching," Cheverie said in a statement, looking back on growing up in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.

The staff tells you the plan

Caroline Ouellette stays on as an assistant. She's also Cheverie's assistant in Montreal, so the national team gets a bench that has already won together.

Kris Sparre joins as a first-time national-team assistant. He was the PWHL's Coach of the Year in 2025-26 with Boston and now runs the Hamilton expansion team.

That's a PWHL staff, top to bottom. It's the clearest sign yet that the pro league is now the national team's proving ground, not a side project. Good. The best coaches in the women's game should be coaching the best players, and now they are.

The Poulin problem

The harder part is the roster. Marie-Philip Poulin, 35, won't play at the Worlds after ACL and meniscus surgery in July, and she hasn't committed to the national team beyond that.

So the first Cheverie team is also the first real look at who carries Canada next. That's a problem, and it's also a gift. A coach on a one-year deal gets to pick the next leaders, and nobody can call it a snub.

View from Canada, Gord Tremblay: A one-year deal is Hockey Canada keeping its options open. Beat the Americans in Denmark and the options close themselves.

The W read: Right coach, short runway. My call is Canada reaches the final in Denmark. I'm less sure it ends the streak there, but in a one-goal game I'd take Cheverie's bench over anyone's.