It has taken a while, but Erika Lawler’s tears have finally dried up.
She was one of several members of the U.S. Women’s Olympic hockey team crying on stage when they were awarded a silver medal in 2010 after losing, 2-0, to Canada in the championship game in Vancouver, British Columbia.
“At the time,” she recalled, “U.S. women’s hockey was criticized for that, for crying even though we’d won a silver medal. But, at that time, we’d just lost a game to our biggest rival, and I had always been taught that there was one game you had to win, and that on the Olympic stage.
“I don’t love that we lost that game, and I did want the gold, yes, but I’m extremely proud of what we did and honored to have been able to represent my country on that stage.”
And Central Mass. is proud of Lawler and its 11 other former Winter Olympians who also represented the United States. Today, we profile those athletes — hockey players, a speed skater, snowboarder, freestyle skier, luge slider and bobsledder — in advance of the 2018 Games, which begin Feb. 9 in PyeongChang, South Korea.
And that silver medal? It is proudly displayed on … well, to be honest, it’s not on display.
“Actually, it’s just in a bag full of stuff,” she said. “You ask someone where they keep their medal and the most common answer is in a sock drawer. But we’ve also heard that if you put in, like a safe deposit box, and someone steals that box for the money that might be in it, you lose everything else along with it.”
The Fitchburg native turns 31 next month and when this year’s Winter Olympics commence will be back on the national stage as a studio analyst for NBC.
“This will be my very first time doing TV,” she said, “and when I was asked I figured — why not take a plunge into the deep end? I’ll admit I’m a little nervous but I think I’ll be fine when I’m settled in. I almost know too much information, I think, and I have to talk in sound bites so I’ve been practicing.
“I’m excited for something new, to be able to participate in a different capacity. I always reflect on my experience when I see the Olympics, and there is nothing like playing — being in control and being able to execute — but at the moment, I don’t belong there, although I’ll always miss playing and representing my country.”
The NBC gig will be her fourth job — not in her lifetime, but right now.
Lawler lives in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and is in medical sales for Johnson & Johnson. She also works in a New Jersey girls hockey program as director of player development and plays professionally for the Metropolitan Riveters of the National Women’s Hockey League.
That marked a return to the sport she loves but had stepped away from for a while.
“I took about four years off,” Lawler said, “and I didn’t want to touch hockey in any way, shape or form. I just needed to press the reset button. A couple of players reached out to me in 2015, then again last year, but I wasn’t really feeling it. But this year I took the plunge, mostly for the social aspect.
“What the league is doing is so good for women’s hockey, and I just wanted to be part of a team again and hoped to come back and contribute. So I figured, why not get paid to play hockey?”
How her comeback is going depends on who you ask.
“I’m just hard on myself as it is,” Lawler said. “I think I’m maybe half the player I need to be, but other players say I haven’t missed a beat. I’m older, my body’s older and that’s a reality, but overall I’m happy with decision. I didn’t expect to be the player I was, but this has really impacted my quality of life.”
Lawler also believes that she part of a process that will lead to professional women’s hockey becoming a game where its top players are full-time pros, not part-timers.
“I absolutely believe that will happen,” she said. “It’s in the process of happening right now. It will only continue to grow. Women’s sports is in a huge growth spurt right now and the Olympics will continue that growth.”
It can take two hours just to drive out of Brooklyn, so Lawler does not get back to Fitchburg all that often.
“Not much this year,” she said, “and pretty much just for the holidays. We had a game in Boston last weekend and I got home then, or I make it back whenever my mom thinks it’s time for me to come home.”
Starting with television coverage of this year’s Winter Olympics, her family will be seeing a lot of her, just not in Fitchburg, and so will the world.
READ ABOUT EACH OLYMPIAN WITH CENTRAL MASS. TIES