NEW YORK â One month before the Professional Womenâs Hockey League draft, Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards were plotting.
After a whirlwind 2025-26 season, the duo were in New York as keynote speakers at the espnW summit. For over 30 minutes, they discussed winning Olympic gold medals with Team USA â where Edwards and Harvey were among the top scorers in the tournament â and their third national championship victory with the Wisconsin Badgers.
But after the panel was complete, their conversation turned to the future â and the fact that the two best friends will be separated for the first time in nearly a decade.
âThatâs a lot of our conversations lately,â Harvey said in an interview with The Athletic last month.
At the 2026 PWHL Draft on Wednesday night, Harvey, who won Olympic MVP and the 2026 Patty Kazmaier Award as the top player in college hockey, is expected to go first overall to the Vancouver Goldeneyes. In a perfect world, Edwards, a 6-foot-1 dual threat who can play forward or defense, also lands in the Pacific Northwest, as the Seattle Torrent have the No. 2 pick. Their Team USA teammate Abbey Murphy, who was second in The Athleticâs prospect ranking in March, could also reasonably go second overall.
Both Edwards and Harvey have said theyâd be happy to play anywhere in the PWHL.
Still, in the weeks since their decorated college careers ended, they have tried to game out scenarios where they end up on the same pro team next season. Maybe, they say, there will be a big draft-day trade. It happened in Vancouver before in the NHL. It could happen again.
Realistically, though, the best theyâll be able to do is meet for lunch.
âOnce or twice weâve been serious, like, âYeah, this is it,ââ Edwards said. âBut then we come up with all these scenarios of how weâre still gonna see each other a lot.â
âIf weâre both out west weâd be driving distance,â Harvey said. âWe could meet for lunch on off days.â
To just call Edwards and Harvey best friends feels like a disservice to the nature of their connection. Theyâve grown up together, going from high school to the Wisconsin Badgers and becoming Olympic gold medalists at each otherâs side. Their families are so close that when Harvey won the Patty Kazmaier in March, Edwardsâ 6-year-old nephew Shiloh joined the Harvey family picture. â(Heâs) part of my family,â Caroline said.
Edwards and Harvey won three NCAA championships during their time with the Wisconsin Badgers.
Now, after years of playing together, eating every meal and spending nearly every minute together, Harvey and Edwards will soon go their separate ways.
âI think theyâre really going to miss each other and I really hope that theyâre not too far apart,â said David Harvey, Carolineâs father. âTheyâre best friends and I think theyâll be best friends for life even outside of hockey. Theyâre two different people and they just work because they love each other.â
When the duo first met, Edwards was 10. Harvey was 12, and wearing a standout matte black helmet over a classic bob cut with blunt bangs.
âThatâs just how I remember her,â Edwards said. âShe had these bangs, and the helmet was almost egg-shaped.â
It was an old Easton helmet that Harveyâs father found on a local sale rack when his daughter first got into hockey. David Harvey likened the helmet â which also had a half-cage, half-bubble mask â to the Great Gazooâs helmet from âThe Flintstones.â Not that he ever told his daughter that.
âShe used to say people would make fun of the helmet,â David said. âAnd Iâd be like, âNo, itâs really cool!ââ
Edwards also never said a word. She was admittedly pretty shy back then. And Harvey, who joined her Pittsburgh Penguins Elite girls hockey team for a tournament that summer, was already too good to chirp. Looking back on it now, though, Edwards said, âI should have chirped her.â
Less than a year later, Harvey was attending Bishop Kearney, an elite hockey prep school in Rochester, N.Y. Edwards, in seventh grade, was visiting the school as a prospective student.
As an eighth grader, Harvey â whose friends call her âKKâ â served as Edwardsâ host, showing her around the school and hockey facilities. Edwards followed Harvey to class and went on the ice with the team to get the full âday in the lifeâ experience as a BK student athlete. They clicked right away and within a few hours, they were playing mini sticks in the hallway.
Edwards and Harvey both attended Bishop Kearney, an elite prep school known for developing talent headed to NCAA Division I womenâs hockey programs.
âI donât know how to describe it,â Harvey said. âIt was just so light and easy. ⊠It just made sense that we were such good friends right away.â
That summer, they landed on the same team again for the annual Beantown girls hockey showcase in Boston, and after one of the games, Harvey invited Edwards back to her home in New Hampshire to watch a movie. They canât recall the exact movie; it was definitely a scary one, they say. But, they do know theyâve been best friends ever since.
When Edwards officially enrolled at Bishop Kearney in the fall, they became inseparable. For most students, Bishop Kearney is a private Catholic prep school. But for the 100-plus athletes who reside on campus, itâs also an elite hockey program with daily access to ice and training facilities, including a gym and multiple shooting rooms exclusive to players.
At 13 and 14 years old, Edwards and Harvey were away from home, living in the BK dorms, going to class together and playing on the same under-16 team.
âWhat the world is seeing of them today, from the TikTok videos, to on the ice, thatâs been KK and Laila since seventh and eighth grade,â said Cari Coen, who has been the director of girls hockey at Bishop Kearney since 2018. âThey share this unique bond of moving from home chasing these big goals at a very young age.â
For three years at Bishop Kearney, Harvey and Edwards were building their friendship while developing as young elite hockey players. Sometimes that meant walking to nearby Starbucks or Chipotle. Or pulling pranks on their teammates.
âThose two are very light-hearted and so funny,â said Coen. âTheyâre always looking for a laugh or being goofy.â
On the ice, though, Edwards and Harvey were special talents and already dominating their age group. Theyâd train every day together in the gym, on the ice and in the schoolâs stick handling and shooting room. All those early reps laid the groundwork for Harveyâs now lethal curl-and-drag from the blue line, and Edwardsâ shot that made her one of the best goal scorers in the NCAA.
According to Coen, Edwards and Harveyâs work ethic helped shape the culture of a young program that has since become one of the key feeders into college hockey and now the PWHL.
Since it launched in 2016, the Bishop Kearney girls hockey program has sent 100 players to NCAA Division I programs, including Slovakian teen phenom Nela LopuĆĄanovĂĄ. Four alumni currently play in the PWHL, headlined by 2025 second-overall pick and Olympic gold medalist Haley Winn. Ten BK alums have declared for the 2026 draft, including Harvey, Edwards and Kirsten Simms, who is also projected to be a first-round pick.
âThey had these big dreams and they just took the opportunity and ran with it,â said Coen. âThey set the standard at BK. I donât even think they know that, but it all started with those two.â
Over her four-year career at Bishop Kearney, Harvey scored 370 points in 254 games and developed into one of the very best offensive defenders in North America. She played on the American under-18 team in back-to-back seasons, winning a gold medal in 2020 as a top-three player on the team. By the time she was 18 years old, Harvey graduated to the senior womenâs national team that won a silver medal at the 2021 Womenâs World Championships.
Edwardsâ own ascension was swift and undeniable. First, there was a growth spurt, where she went from 5-6 to around 5-10 between eighth and ninth grade. Her first tournament with USA Hockey, the 2022 U18 womenâs worlds, came shortly after. And Edwards was a star, winning MVP and leading the tournament in goals.
In a bit of good luck, Harvey â who should have been a freshman at Wisconsin â took that season off to compete in the 2022 Beijing Olympics as a teenager, which meant the two best friends were able to start their college careers together.
At Wisconsin, they each established themselves as two of the biggest stars in college hockey â winning a national championship as freshmen â and as key building blocks for Team USA.
Edwards made her debut in November 2023, becoming the first Black woman to play for the U.S. senior womenâs national team at the Canada-USA Rivalry Series. By then, Edwards had grown to 6-1 and came armed with an elite offensive toolkit.
None of that meant Edwards was a lock to make the upcoming womenâs worlds roster, though. And on the final day before the team was to be named, her father Robert didnât know what to expect.
Harvey, however, was confident and assured her friendâs parents: âLaila is going to make this team.â
âShe was so enthusiastic and just behind Laila,â said Robert. âThat has always stood out to me.â
As Harvey predicted, Edwards was named to the U.S. national team for 2024 womenâs worlds in Utica, N.Y., and they went from best friends and college teammates to representing Team USA together on the international stage.
For the last two years, theyâve lived together at an apartment in Madison, conveniently close to LaBahn Arena, which is home to the Badgers womenâs hockey team. They took a minimalist approach to designing the space with just three items on the walls: an Edwards jersey, a Harvey jersey and an Ice Spice poster.
âThey had terrible style,â said David Harvey. âIt was lacking some stuff, but it kind of fit their personality, like, âWe sleep here, we live here and thatâs good enough for us.ââ
âTheyâre quite the duo,â said Edwardsâ father David of the bond between Caroline and Laila.
The apartment served as a great home base. Almost every day, theyâd go to practice and training with the top-ranked Badgers, split up for class, and meet back up at home, where theyâd cook, watch movies and make the TikTok videos that have made them even more popular with womenâs hockey fans. Edwards and Harvey have over 200,000 combined followers on the app, where they mostly post dancing videos or film an âoutfit of the day.â
Edwards said itâs Harvey who comes up with the best ideas. Harvey, who took a page out of the Marie-Philip Poulin book of humble, disagrees.
âYour algorithm is just better,â Edwards argued with her friend. âMine is all Billie Eilish and Michael Jackson edits.â
âShe has great ideas,â Harvey contends. âThe dances are our go-to videos. We just like to have fun together.â
In their senior year, Harvey and Edwards took a bit of a side quest by fostering two animals, first a cat and then a rabbit. That meant daily calls home to Harveyâs mom, Martha, with questions like: What do rabbits eat? And what are these pellets on the ground?
The answer, of course, was lettuce and âthat would be poop.â (The cat and rabbit were both eventually adopted to their forever homes.)
âWhen theyâre together, theyâre quite the duo,â said David. âTheyâre just pure hearts.â
Through it all, Edwards and Harvey only continued to level up on the ice. Last season, Edwards led the NCAA in goals (35 in 41 games), was named a top-three finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award and made an unprecedented swap from forward to defense on Team USA.
âItâs been so cool for me, watching Lailaâs journey and what sheâs done and the trailblazer sheâs become and continues to be,â Harvey said. âItâs incredible to see how many people sheâs touched along the way.â
This year, they both made the U.S. team that won gold at the Milan Olympics. Nobody had more points in the tournament than Harvey (9), who won Olympic MVP and set a record for scoring by an American defender at just 23 years old. Edwards, in her Olympic debut, scored eight points and had the primary assist on captain Hilary Knightâs clutch game-tying goal to force overtime against Canada in the championship game.
When they returned to Madison, Harvey and Edwards led the Badgers to a second consecutive NCAA championship. Harvey finished second in the nation with 1.94 points per game and had the second-most productive season by a defender ever with 64 points â behind only Hockey Hall of Fame defender Angela Ruggiero, who scored 83 points in 34 games in 2002-03.
When Harvey was officially awarded the 2026 Patty Kazmaier Award, she thanked her family, teammates and coaches, and made special mention of her âbest friend Laila.â
âTo my best friend Laila, thank you for everything,â she said in the speech. âItâs been quite the ride with you. Iâll miss your constant friendship and the daily connection we share both on and off ice.â
Harvey and Edwards have spent the last couple months since their college careers ended preparing for the next phase of their lives â and spending as much time together as possible.
With the exposure that comes from winning an Olympic gold medal with a record 5.3 million people watching in the U.S., thereâs been a flurry of major opportunities for Edwards and Harvey. They appeared at the espnW summit, which was packed with stars like the WNBAâs Breanna Stewart. They filmed an episode of âCelebrity Family Feudâ and went to the Coachella music festival in California, where Edwardsâ favorite artist (Billie Eilish) made an appearance.
âWeâve been doing some really cool things outside of hockey with the downtime weâre finally getting,â Edwards said.
As seniors, however, they had to work out in their condo gym so the next yearâs team of Badgers can start their own preparations.
Theyâd bring a speaker into the gym and blast music, including what Harvey called a âbig booty mixâ on YouTube, which earned rave reviews from other tenants in the building.
âTheyâre actually good,â Harvey swore. âOne guy took his headphones out once and was like, âThis is fire.ââ
After graduating last month, though, both Harvey and Edwards returned home â to New Hampshire and Cleveland, respectively â for the summer. They will meet again at the PWHL Draft in Detroit and then return to their apartment in July to officially move out. Soon, the jerseys on the walls and the pictures on the fridge will need to come down.
But first, on Wednesday night, theyâll find out exactly where they will land.
âAll the experiences weâve had on both the national team, Olympic team and then University of Wisconsin, to be able to do it alongside Laila has just been so special,â Harvey said. âThis chapter might be closing, but weâre excited to write whateverâs next.â
Thank you to everyone who participated in the inaugural PWHLblr awards during this time of suffering, uncertainty, and sorrow (expansion). We had 500 votes which was amazing! Please enjoy the intentional graphic-design-is-my-passion graphics and the corny text I wrote for each award. They might be shit but at least it's not AI!!!!!!!
Accessibility note: This post is image-heavy but all descriptions of the graphic text are written underneath, alt text contains description of the photographs themselves.
Most Deserving City That Didnât Get An Expansion Team - Winner: Denver, Colorado - 25.6%
Denver, Colorado wins first place as the most deserving city that didn't get an expansion team this year. Sending our condolences to all of the PWHL fans in Colorado.
Runner ups: 2. Halifax, Nova Scotia - 19.5%, 3. Edmonton, Alberta - 15.3%
The Dearly Departed Award - Winner: The Royale Tiger Towel Paper Towel Power Play Power Through Tough Messes (existing to not existing) - 73.9%
The Royale Tiger Towel Paper Towel Power Play will never be forgotten.
Runner ups: 2. Abby Roque (NY to MTL) - 6.6%, 3. Sarah Nurse (TOR to VAN) - 5.4%
The Jared Award For Excellence In Refereeing - Winner: Jared - 61.3%
Congratulations to Jared for winning the award for worst referee in the league. The fact that we even know his name is a testament to how bad he is at his job.
Runner up: Central Situation Room - 34.2%
The "WTF" Coaching and Management Award - Winner: Steve OâRourke and the Seattle Torrent - 45.9%
Despite having an absolutely stacked roster of some of the best players in the league, the Seattle Torrent spent the 2025-26 season being run into the ground by horrible coaching. We can only hope it will go up from here.
Runner up: Troy Ryan and the Toronto Sceptres - 42%
Goalie Who Most Deserves A Gun - Winner: Gwyneth Philips - 68.8%
You could say that Gwyneth Philips carried the Ottawa Charge to both of their Walter Cup Finals. From 41-shot shutouts to spinning around the ice like a beyblade, Philips definitely had to deal with a lot of bullshit this season.
God's Most Suffering Player - Winner: still Gwyneth Philips - 45.1%
As one tumblr user put it, the Ottawa Charge had quite a few games where it was "no offense, no defense, just Gwyneth Philips and a dream." From losing her glove in a puck battle to the heartbreaking back-to-back Walter Cup losses, Gwyn has absolutely been through it.
Ad Break of the Year - Winner: Gay Time Check - 41.7%
We're just getting started. đ
Runner up: DVD Corner Bounce - 38.2%
The "Which Could Mean Nothing" Partnership Award - Winner: Kenzie Lalonde and Cheryl Pounder - 45.9%
I mean, like. It could mean nothing. đ
Runner ups: 2. Laura Stacey, Marie-Philip Poulin, and Abby Roque - 33.5%, 3. The Entire Seattle Torrent - 12.5%
The KristĂœna KaltounkovĂĄ Most Overly-Penalized Player Award - Winner: KristĂœna KaltounkovĂĄ - 36.6%
Congratulations to KristĂœna KaltounkovĂĄ for winning the award named for her! With a record rookie total of 45 penalty minutes this season, Kalty is well on her way to being the bane of refs and rule books everywhere.
Saulnier. Come on. There are easier ways to get someone's attention.
Runner ups: 2. Jocelyne Larocque and Renata Fast WWE Super Slam - 31%, 3. Micah Zandee-Hart and Laura Stacey Skate Lace Entanglement - 22.4%
The Prudential Center Clown Fan Clown Hockey Moment of the Year - Winner: Abby Roque scoring with her face - 30.6%
This award was named in honor of @newyorksirens for dressing up as a clown at the Prudential Center and created due to the perpetual aura that the Ottawa Charge carry with them everywhere. Congratulations to honorary Charge member Abby Roque for scoring a Walter Cup Finals goal with her face.
Runner ups: 2. TD Place Arena Ice Hole - 21.5%, 3. Danielle Serdachny sliding into an empty net, scoring a goal - 18.1%
Lesbians' Choice Award - Winner: Carly âCJâ Jackson - 23.2%
The Seattle Torrent's resident mullet-haver Carly "CJ" Jackson is the winner of the Lesbians' Choice Award. Whether it's advocating for trans people's inclusion in sports, eating hot dogs, cutting all their sleeves off of their shirts, or making sick saves, CJ has certainly managed to catch the hearts of lesbian and other queer PWHL fans.
Fight of the Year - Winner: Abby Roque vs. Britta Curl Playoff Scrum - 36.3%
Sam Cogan of the Frost accidentally set off this fight during the first playoff game between Minnesota and Montreal. Curl and Roque got matching penalties, but Roque got to take home a "souvenir" in the form of her now-iconic black eye.
Runner ups: 2. Montreal Victoire vs. New York Sirens line brawl (feat. Kayle Osborne) - 28.3%, 3. Boston Fleet vs. Toronto Sceptres line brawl (feat. Frankel & Tapani hug) - 20.7%
Quote of the Year - Winner: "Today is today!" - Lina Ljungblom - 36.1%
Thank you, Lina, for the phrase that all of us will probably still be hearing as a PWHL meme in 2035.
Runner ups: 2. "I think I peed a little." - Marie-Philip Poulin - 23.1%, 3. "How can you not be romantic about hockey?" - Eric Gallanty - 21.9%
Blorbo of the Year - Winner: Abby Roque - 16.5%
Votes for this category were split in over 25 different ways, but Abby Roque emerged victorious. From her black eye to the wife line jokes to her charming demeanor, it's easy to see why Roque wins Blorbo of the Year.