Penguins hire Hockey Canada’s Kori Cheverie as guest coach

Kori Cheverie, an assistant coach for the Canada national women’s team, will step behind the Pittsburgh bench as a guest coach in 2022-23.

Cheverie will work with the Penguins staff as part of the NHL Coaches’ Association Guest Coach Program, the team announced Friday.

She will join the coaching staff during development camp, training camp and at points during the regular season. Development camp begins today with on-ice sessions at 1 p.m. ET.

Last summer, Cheverie participated in the Arizona Coyotes’ diverse coaches internship program, which has led to full-time NHL jobs in the past. Nathaniel Brooks, who joined in 2021, is now the Coyotes’ skill development coach.

Cheverie, who played in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League from 2010 to 2016, served as an associate head coach in the Professional Women’s Hockey Players’ Association for the Team Harvey’s last season.

Under her leadership, Team Harvey’s came from behind in the championship final to secure a PWHPA championship in March.

Cheverie has also worked as an assistant coach for Hockey Canada since 2020. She was on the staff roster when the Canadian National Women’s Team gold medal-winning game at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, although she could not be present in person to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.

Photo by Meng Yongmin/Xinhua via Getty Images

Additionally, Cheverie has worked as assistant coach for three consecutive IIHF World Championships, where the Canadian women’s team won gold medals in 2021 and 2022.

Also in 2022, she was the first woman to coach a national Canadian men’s team as an assistant coach at the World U-18 juniors.

That wasn’t the first time Cheverie has made history in men’s hockey. She also became the first woman behind the bench of a Canadian varsity men’s hockey team when she worked as an assistant coach at Ryerson University, since renamed Toronto Metropolitan University, from 2016 to 2021.

Now that the PWHPA is set to dissolve in order to form a new women’s hockey league in January, this program could serve as a stepping stone in Cheverie’s career. The Coyotes, who Cheverie worked with last summer, and the Washington Capitals, who hired Minnesota Duluth assistant coach Laura Schuler as a guest coach last season, both referred to these coaching programs as opportunities for professional advancement.