Laila Edwards has been training for this moment for most of her life. The tricky part now isn’t whether she’s ready for Olympic ice—it’s learning how to stay herself while the expectations around her get bigger.
In the Edwards family, hockey wasn’t an extracurricular. It was life.
She started skating at three, and as far back as memory allows, it was “hockey, hockey, hockey.” It hasn’t always been glamorous: the early mornings, the repetition, the kind of grind that might look ordinary for the modern athlete, until you realize what it’s building.
By 13, Edwards left home for boarding school. By 14, she committed to the University of Wisconsin. “I was like, okay,” she said, “maybe I am good at this thing.” Edwards is too humble to say, I’m her, but her journey is a private truth stamped with public proof.
At the U18 World Championship, she was named tournament MVP. This was another moment that clarified what was possible if she kept pushing. She recently helped lead Wisconsin to an overtime win for the 2025 NCAA Women’s Hockey Championship. But for Edwards, that isn’t validation. It’s just another point on the map where she can finally claim what everyone else already saw. “I want to take this as far as I can to the next level,” she said. “And I want to be the greatest.”
Now, it’s that same acceleration that has carried her to the milestone everyone wants to talk about: How does it feel to be the first Black woman to compete for the United States in Olympic women’s hockey?
Edwards isn’t running away from the question. She understands why people ask. She knows what it means. But she doesn’t speak like someone trying to carry a movement on her shoulders. She isn’t trying to turn every answer into a statement. Still, she understands what it represents for people watching from the outside — especially in a sport where seeing someone who looks like you can feel rare.
For some kids, hockey is something they’ve mostly seen on TV, and maybe the last time it felt familiar to the rest of us was The Mighty Ducks’ flying V. Seeing Edwards in real life changes that perspective for so many.
“I’ve received so much love and support from the Black community, which has been really cool,” Edwards said. “Even people who know nothing about hockey have just reached out and be like, ‘I don’t know anything, but I’m rooting for you.’”
Edwards has tried to meet that moment with more than gratitude. She’s worked with the USA Hockey Foundation and the Wisconsin Amateur Hockey Association on initiatives that provide free equipment and access to ice. Which tends to be the biggest barrier keeping the sport out of reach for many.
She’s also direct about what keeps hockey distant for so many families. “It’s not easily accessible,” she said. “It’s expensive. There’s not much representation.” So, when kids come up to her, she doesn’t dress it down. “It’s the best feeling,” she added. “It’s heartwarming… the kid will tell you, ‘You know I play because of you.’”
Off the ice, those moments help keep her grounded. And there’s a slight knowing smile when she talks about her tight-knit circle: her parents, her siblings, her best friends, the teammates who feel like family. “They’ve just been obviously reminding me of how proud they are,” she said.
And she’s intentional about keeping parts of her life small on purpose. Game day is “music and a Red Bull,” her playlist on shuffle—Billie Eilish, Adele, Beyoncé, Drake. She journals. She goes to the movies. She reads horror and murder mysteries. She plays Uno with her roommate. Ordinary things, maybe, but they do something important. They remind her throughout the grind of practices, travel and media days that she’s a person, not a machine.
“It’s honestly been a work in progress for me,” Edwards said. “You’ve just got to constantly remind yourself that you’re a human being. You’re not any of this without being a human first.”
Now with the Winter Olympics in full swing, Team USA will ask her to tap into the machine. To be relentless. While the world will keep asking her to be symbolic. Yet Edwards is trying to do something quieter and harder than both: stay human, so when the puck finally drops, the final period is over, and the podium ceremony begins, she can be fully herself.