By the time someone told Cavin Leth what happened, it was already too late.



“It sucked,” he said, “because I didn’t realize it until later on, once she was gone.”



Last Friday night, inside the arena once known as Maple Leaf Gardens, the Ryerson University men’s hockey team held off a late surge from Laurentian University to earn a 2-1 win. What made it notable — what made it an entry into Canadian university hockey history — was not the score, but the coach.



Kori Cheverie, the only full-time assistant on the Ryerson staff, was filling in for head coach Johnny Duco, who was serving a one-game suspension. When the Rams won the game, she became the first woman to coach a men’s hockey team to a regular-season win in U Sports history.



Leth, a third-year forward at Ryerson, tracked her down the next day.



He recounted their...