While the newcomer was being groomed as the successor to one of the greatest goalies in University of Denver history, last season became a no-win situation for Marc Cheverie.
With Peter Mannino finishing out his senior season, freshman Cheverie had to sit and watch not only Mannino but Richard Bachman, who was spurned by the Pioneers and went to rival Colorado College.
While Cheverie was a seldom-used backup, Bachman, of Highlands Ranch, beat out junior Drew O’Connell for the Tigers’ starting job. Bachman turned in a first-team All-America season, setting CC single-season records in goals-against average (1.85) and save percentage (.931). He was the first goalie since Curtis Joseph in 1989 to be named Western Collegiate Hockey Association player of the year and rookie of the year as a freshman.
A coveted draft pick of the Dallas Stars, Bachman went 3-1 against DU and led the Tigers to the WCHA regular-season championship. Cheverie, whose NHL rights are owned by the Florida Panthers, appeared in just five games for DU, starting one — a 4-2 victory over Bemidji State.
“It was all situational. If Bachman was in Denver, he wouldn’t have been playing last year either,” said Cheverie, who chose DU over powerhouses Cornell, North Dakota and Michigan State. “No one was going to beat out Peter Mannino. And maybe if I had gone to CC, maybe I would have been the starter.
“But I’m not thinking about it too much. Bachman is a good goalie and has proven himself in college hockey, and I have a lot to prove. So I don’t know about this whole rivalry between Cheverie and Bachman. I’m just looking forward to proving myself, not to any one specific goaltender, but just to the hockey world in general.”
This season, Cheverie has inherited the nets, and the kid who grew up with Sidney Crosby in Canada is eager to prove that the Pioneers can live with themselves for letting Bachman get away.
Bachman isn’t bitter. He’s just happy to be playing in Colorado.
“As for the rivalry between (Cheverie) and me, I don’t think there is one,” Bachman said. “The rivalry between the programs is big enough.”
Cheverie might not have to be as good as Bachman for the Pioneers to reach their goals. The defending WCHA playoff champions return 11 of 12 top forwards from last year and six of nine defensemen. Their depth is the best since 2004-05, when Mannino led them to a second straight NCAA championship as a freshman.
“From our standpoint, the great unknown, if you will, is our goaltending,” said DU coach George Gwozdecky, whose squad is No. 6 nationally. “But I’m very confident Marc is going to surprise a lot of naysayers. He’s very talented and has developed very nicely from this point a year ago. The only thing he lacks is playing time. I think Marc is going to be terrific for us and put us in position to win every game.”
Gwozdecky didn’t exactly choose Cheverie over Bachman. He went with the advice of former assistant Seth Appert, now the second-year head coach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
The knock on Cheverie — who has the nickname “Chevy” painted on the front of his mask — is he hasn’t proved much since being named Saskatchewan Midget Hockey League MVP in 2004-05. He committed to DU before his second season with the Nanaimo Clippers of the British Columbia Hockey League. After a decent first season of junior-A in Nanaimo, he had a 3.10 GAA and .875 save percentage in his second year, despite playing on a team that won its division.
Derek Lalonde is DU’s goal- tending coach and says choosing Cheverie over Bachman was made for all the right reasons.
“When we recruited Marc, he was a very highly touted midget goaltender, one of the best in North America,” Lalonde said. “It was a great recruiting battle, and we won. And then he went out to Nanaimo and had some struggles, some ups and downs.
“He came here and his confidence wasn’t the best. The best thing that could have happened to him was to play a year under Peter Mannino. I had concerns about Marc’s competitiveness, and that’s a strength of Peter’s, and he worked hard matching it.”
Patrick Roy was competitive. But can you acquire that athletic fire?
“Absolutely,” Lalonde said. “We do a lot of small-ice competitions, and we’d put Peter and Marc on opposite teams for the entire practice, and we’d keep score.
“The first two months, Mannino won every competition, 5-0 or 5-1, but by the end of the year, they were splitting, if Chevy wasn’t winning more. He figured it out. He learned to compete on every play, how to rebound from goals, not feeling sorry for himself. To see where he is now, I’m so excited. We have ourselves a goaltender.”
And a big one at that. Cheverie is listed at 6-feet-2 but said he is closer to 6-3, making him the tallest DU goalie in Gwozdecky’s 15 years.
“He takes up a lot of net,” DU captain J.P. Testwuide said. “He’s good — real good. We see him every day in practice. We’ve got full confidence in him.”
Cheverie, from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, has Canadian and American flag stickers on the back of his helmet. He’s said he’s proud to be Canadian but thankful to have the opportunity to earn a degree under scholarship in the States.
Cheverie is as polite and likable as another more recognized hockey player from Cole Harbour. He grew up with Crosby, the NHL superstar who captained the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup Finals last season.
“We played a couple seasons in minor hockey, and we grew up playing street hockey together,” Crosby said of Cheverie. “Cole Harbour’s not a huge place, so a lot of us played hockey together.
“I haven’t seen him for a year or two. He was always kind of a quieter guy. He was a pretty technically sound goalie from what I remember. He was a big guy, took up a lot of net. I heard he’s doing well.”
Fair or not, how well Cheverie does in Denver will be measure in large part by how he plays against Bachman and the Tigers.
Mike Chambers: 303-954-1357 or mchambers@denverpost.com
