Chayla was a defenseman who had 57 points (two goals, 55 assists) in 173 games with Wisconsin from 2019-24, and won the NCAA Division I women’s championship in 2023 with her younger sister.
The sisters got into hockey through their father, Robert Edwards, a longtime player and fan. He and his wife, Charone Gray Edwards, took their daughters skating at the Cleveland Heights Community Center almost every day with their older brother, Bobby, who went on to play club hockey at Bowling Green State University, and youngest sibling, Colson, who is a forward for Worcester of the United States Premier Hockey League.
Laila played on boys’ teams with the Cleveland Lumberjacks before moving onto girls hockey with Bishop Kearney Selects in Rochester, New York. Chayla also played boys’ hockey locally before she attended Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh and joined the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite girls’ program.
Bolden is a scout and community and hockey development specialist for the Los Angeles Kings and ESPN hockey analyst who got hooked on the sport by her mother’s boyfriend, Leslie Dean, who she considers a father. He was a police officer and hockey enthusiast who worked part-time as security for the Cleveland Lumberjacks of the old International Hockey League at Gund Arena.
“I used to go to all the IHL games in Cleveland,” Bolden told the Color of Hockey in 2015. “Because he worked for the team, I used to get to go into the locker room, they (Lumberjacks players) would come to my birthday parties, the mascot would show up everywhere, and I was just totally enthralled. Hockey became my life ever since.”
Bolden played on elite boys’ teams in Cleveland until she attended the Northwood School in Lake Placid, New York. She later played with Boston College, where she was a captain and had 82 points (26 goals, 56 assists) in 139 games from 2009-13, became the first Black first-round selection in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League in 2013 and first Black player selected in the National Women’s Hockey League in 2015.
“I definitely looked up to her,” Laila Edwards said. “Someone who looks like me, who’s successful at a high level, I thought that was so cool. I want to keep doing that for girls in Cleveland and girls all over.”
