Luba Cherry: The Quiet Life Behind Don Cherry's Marriage

How old is Luba Cherry?

This is the question people ask most, and the honest answer is that no one outside her family knows for certain. Luba Cherry has never confirmed her birth date in any interview or public record. Some online sources report she was born in 1955, which would place her around 70 years old in 2026. But that number comes from unofficial listings and has never been verified.

What we do know is that she was already an adult when she met Don Cherry in 1997, the year his first wife Rosemarie passed away. They married two years later in 1999. Since then, she has stayed almost entirely out of the media.

When Don Cherry spoke about their marriage on the CBC special Keep Your Head Up Kid: The Don Cherry Story, he said something that revealed a lot. "Most people don't know I remarried," he told reporter Joe O'Connor. "And it must be tough on Luba. Everybody thinks I am still single and all that, but she puts up with that."

That single quote says more about her than any birth year could.

Who is Don Cherry's wife?

Luba Cherry is the second wife of Don Cherry, the Canadian hockey coach and broadcaster known for Coach's Corner on Hockey Night in Canada. They married in 1999 and have been together for more than 25 years.

She is not a public figure in her own right. She does not give interviews. She rarely appears in photographs. When Don Cherry was fired from Sportsnet in November 2019, she was not in the news. When he launched his podcast The Grapevine with his son Tim, she was behind the scenes.

That is by design, and by all accounts, by her own choice.

How Don Cherry and Luba Cherry met

Don Cherry and Luba Cherry met in 1997. That was the same year his first wife, Rosemarie, passed away after a long battle with liver cancer. They had been married for about 40 years.

Their relationship developed slowly and quietly over the following two years. They married in 1999 in a private ceremony that was not widely publicised. Even years later, Don Cherry himself admitted that many people did not know he had remarried.

In a rare moment of public reflection, he described his second marriage as a stroke of luck. "You know, I don't know how a guy can get so fortunate twice in life," he said.

• 1997Don Cherry's first wife Rosemarie passes away after a battle with liver cancer.
• 1997Don and Luba meet.
• 1999Don and Luba marry in a private ceremony.
• 2009Don talks publicly about the marriage for the first time on the CBC film Keep Your Head Up Kid.
• 2019Don is let go from Sportsnet. Luba stays out of the public reaction.
• 2020 to nowDon hosts The Grapevine podcast with his son Tim. Luba remains private.

Don Cherry's first wife, Rosemarie

To understand Luba, you have to know about Rose. Don Cherry married Rosemarie Madelyn Cherry in 1957. They were together for four decades and raised two children, a daughter named Cindy and a son named Tim.

Rose passed away on 1 June 1997 after a long fight with liver cancer. Don has described that time as one of the hardest of his life. In the CBC film about his life, he said he could not even watch the scenes of the actress playing Rose because she looked so much like her.

Her name lives on across Ontario. The Darling Home for Kids in Milton was formerly called Rose Cherry's Home for Kids. The Hershey Centre in Mississauga sits on Rose Cherry Place.

Luba came into Don's life two years after Rose passed. She did not replace her. She simply became his partner for the next chapter.

Luba Cherry's family and stepchildren

When Luba married Don Cherry in 1999, she became the stepmother to his two children from his first marriage. Cindy and Tim Cherry were already adults by then, but they welcomed her into the family.

Tim Cherry is the more visible of the two. He works as a scout for the Ontario Hockey League and produces The Grapevine podcast with his father. The show is recorded in Tim's kitchen, which Don Cherry has described with affection.

Cindy Cherry has kept a lower profile. Both siblings are rarely photographed with Luba, which is consistent with how the family has handled privacy.

It is not publicly known whether Luba Cherry has biological children of her own. She has never discussed that part of her life.

Luba Cherry's maiden name and early life

This is one of the most common questions people ask, and it has a simple answer: her maiden name has never been disclosed publicly. Neither has her hometown, her career before marriage, or her family background.

Some search results confuse her with other people named Luba, including a Canadian singer born in Montreal in 1958. That is a different person. Luba Cherry is not a public figure and has never been a performer.

If a source claims to know her maiden name, it is almost certainly guessing. No verified record confirms it.

Why Luba Cherry stays private

Don Cherry has been one of the most recognisable men in Canada for over 40 years. His face, his voice and his jackets are instantly known from coast to coast. Luba Cherry has been married to him since 1999 and is almost never seen in public with him.

That is not an accident. It is a deliberate choice that she and Don appear to have made together early in their marriage. When Don spoke about her publicly, he made it clear that she was not interested in the attention that came with his career.

In 2025, when Don Cherry spoke about his falling out with former co-host Ron MacLean, he mentioned that his wife Luba was not a fan. That single sentence was one of the few times her opinion has ever been reported in the press.

Her privacy has been respected by the family. It is also part of what makes her interesting to people who search for her name.

Where is Luba Cherry now?

Luba Cherry lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada with her husband Don Cherry. They have shared a home there for many years. Don Cherry described it himself as his "Mississauga hideout" in a 2024 interview with the Whig-Standard.

She has stayed out of the public eye through every major event in Don's later career, including his 2019 departure from Sportsnet and the launch of his podcast in 2020. There is no indication that she plans to change that.

The Cherry family

Common questions about Luba Cherry