Hockey star Laila Edwards' family cheers at Olympic debut, thanks to Kelce brothers and a GoFundMe

MILAN — As soon as U.S. hockey defender Laila Edwards skates onto the Olympic ice ahead of Thursday's gold medal game against Canada, she will scan the stands for the real MVP: Her 91-year-old grandmother.

Their shared ritual was on display at Team USA's semifinals game on Monday night — only made possible through an outpouring of donations to a GoFundMe drive, with by far the biggest individual contribution coming from NFL brother tandem and hometown allies Travis and Jason Kelce.

''As she comes in, she's looking around,'' her grandmother, Ernestine Gray, told The Associated Press. ''Then I say, ‘I won't do anything to distract her.' Then she did see me and I wave to her and then she waved back.''

Edwards, the first Black female hockey player to represent the U.S. at the Olympics, has fielded a team of her own in Milan. The fundraiser enabled 10 family members and four friends to travel from the U.S. to Italy for her Olympic debut. Still others paid their own way.

After the game, Edwards told the AP that her family's presence in Milan ''means everything to me.''

''They helped me get here and make this team and achieve my dream, so it means a lot,'' she said.

‘How would we afford it'

Edwards' mother, Charone Gray-Edwards, has strict rules about travel. She mandated that everyone meet in the hotel lobby 2½ hours before game time, dressed in their Team USA finest. They called a taxi van to fit the large group — including Edwards' parents, grandmother, aunt, cousin and older brother — and loaded up.

Her parents weren't sure the entire family would be able to make the journey when she called them a month before the Olympics to say she'd been chosen for the team. They could cover the costs for two people, but the full family roster — all of whom have supported her over the years — would have been far too expensive. And they hadn't booked early flights or locked in cheaper hotel rates for fear of jinxing her.

''We had to start talking about how to get money,'' Gray-Edwards said. ''Who would go? How would we afford it?''

The family is accustomed to watching her from afar. When Edwards was 13, she left home to attend the Bishop Kearney Selects Academy in Rochester, New York, before moving on to University of Wisconsin, where she is playing her senior season for the top-ranked Badgers.

The general consensus is that Edwards will be selected in the top three of the Professional Women's Hockey League draft in June, along with Wisconsin teammate Caroline Harvey and Minnesota's Abbey Murphy.

Her father, Robert Edwards, started the GoFundMe drive, entitled: ''Send Laila's Family to the Olympics to Cheer Her On!'' He set an ambitious goal of $50,000 so they wouldn't have to choose between a ticket to one of her games and paying the electric bill back in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

''There's a lot of ups and downs in playing hockey at this high level and so she's going to need somebody there," her father said. ''So I was like, ‘Well, pride be damned: we're going to do a fundraiser.' ''

‘Queen of Cleveland'

The Kelce brothers grew up in the same town as Edwards. They have been fans of hers since 2023, when she became the first Black player to make the U.S. senior women's national team, and shouted her out on their popular podcast, ''New Heights.''

The top donation to the GoFundMe was $10,000, from someone remaining anonymous; Edwards has confirmed that it came from the Kelces. By early Thursday, the Edwards family had raised more than $61,000.

Generosity from the Kelces and locals is another example of how the tight-knit town operates, her parents said, even though their daughter moved away at a young age. Edwards, considered the future face of women's hockey, has also inspired the Black community in Ohio and beyond.

While diversity is reflected in many sports such as soccer, it hasn't made a dent in winter sports and there are very few Black athletes in the Milan Cortina Olympic Games. Men's and women's hockey globally, including in the U.S., remains predominantly white.

''Just to hear all the people of color talking about, ‘I've never watched hockey before and I'm tuning in,''' Gray-Edwards said. ''I would love to know what the ratings are. Because everybody at home, everybody is talking about it. All these people are trying to buy jerseys.''

For Gray-Edwards, some of the most meaningful moments have been seeing little boys come up to her daughter for an autograph.

''That means they're not like, ‘Oh, this is a girl that plays hockey.' They're like, ‘This a good hockey player.' So it doesn't matter if she's Black, a woman — she's a good player,'' Gray-Edwards said.

''You can just see them waving at each other. My mother's like jumping and, oh, she just loves it,'' Gray-Edwards said.

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John Wawrow in Milan contributed to this report.

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