During the U.S. Olympic women’s field hockey game against Spain on July 29, U.S. captain Ashley Hoffman whipped a last-second pass down the field for a goal by Phia Gladieux.

The crowd went wild, including Erickson Richard, a Jaffrey resident and the newest assistant coach for Franklin Pierce University field hockey.

“It was amazing to see it. It was crazy to just be there in that moment,” Richard said.

Richard, along with a group of other coaches in the sport, was part of a European tour with ZAG Sports Tours, which included visiting multiple field hockey clubs and receiving master coaching sessions. The tour was capped off with a day spent at the 2024 Paris Olympics watching the women’s field hockey, including the U.S. game against Spain, which ultimately ended in a 1-1 tie.

While watching the Olympics was the highlight of the trip, its main purpose was networking with other coaches and learning from European professionals in the sport, explained Richard. They were also joined by former field hockey three-time Olympian and University of North Carolina player Rachel Dawson.

Richard said it was the trip of a lifetime. She has been playing the game since the seventh grade, and wants to keep it in her life for the foreseeable future. A former captain and all-star player at Saint Michael’s College, Richard said that after playing in both high school and college, she has a deep love for the game.

“I met the best people – my coach was super inspirational for me,” Richard said.

For the past year, Richard – who originally is from Jaffrey and lives there again after growing up mostly in Connecticut — said she was living in Boston and figuring out her next steps when she heard about a graduate student position for an assistant coach at Franklin Pierce. She said she knew she wanted to stay in sports, and was interested in pursuing an MBA in sports management. The opportunity decided the matter for her, and she’ll be a new addition for the upcoming field hockey season.

But before she applied for the position, Richard had signed up for the field hockey tour – a big financial commitment, she said, but a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that was too big to let pass by.

“The more I thought about it, the more I said, ‘I’m young. I want to go. I want to experience this,’” Richard said.

And the actual experience was quite overwhelming, she said. The day of the Olympics visit, she said she got teary-eyed on the bus.

“I was in such shock that we were there. I felt like, ‘Pinch me now, how am I at the Olympics, in Paris, with coaches I’ve known forever, and this awesome group I’ve made friends with?’” Richard said.

The group watched the Japan match against China, where China dominated 5-0, and then the U.S. match with Spain. Richard said some of the group stayed between matches to watch the U.S. team do their warmups.

“These are girls that I’ve watched throughout college, throughout high school, and they’re right in front of me, and about to play for the United States of America,” Richard said. “It was amazing. I got to experience how the U.S. national team was coached.”

Also during the match, Richard was able to meet one of the Franklin Pierce players, Zoe Noorlag of the Netherlands, who drove with her mother to Paris to watch the game.

It was such an amazing experience, Richard said, that that night, which was a free night, she joined a group that rented a car and purchased extra tickets to watch some of the men’s field hockey matches, including the match between reigning gold medalists Belgium against Australia.

Prior to arriving in Paris, the group had a mix of touring famous sites and visiting with master coaches at their field hockey clubs. The trip started in Gouda, Holland, where the group got to see the production of the town’s famous namesake cheese, followed by time at Hockey Club Schiedam, including a pro coaching clinic with Remco Hartgers. 

The second day, they visited another club, the HDM Hockey Club, in Holland. As part of a give-back effort, they also went to the city of Delft, where they participated in a canal cleanup that Richard said the group made into a competition of who could pick the most trash out of the water.

On the third day, there was another master coaching session at the Pinoke Hockey Club in Holland, with coach Arthur Bussink.

Richard said that field hockey is a much more popular sport in Europe than it is in the United States, particularly in the Netherlands, and getting that perspective was one of the reasons she decided to go on the trip.

“It was amazing, just to see how they do things there,” Richard said. “We’re just trying to grow the game in the states, and we think about it on a baseline. They think about it way more in-depth. It was just mind-blowing. I don’t have words to describe how motivating it was to be around these coaches that love the game so much, and to be around players and people that love it so much. It’s a big learning experience, which was everything I wanted out of that trip.”

After coaching sessions, the tour visited Amsterdam for some sightseeing, and then visited the Anne Frank House, which Richard said was one of the most-emotional moments of the trip.

“It was kind of a breathtaking experience. It’s something you learn about growing up in middle school, high school. Actually being in her room – there are posters still up on the wall that she left there. It was the most-amazing experience,” Richard said.

On the fourth day, the group traveled to Rouen, France, the visit the Notre Dame de Rouen Cathedral, and the square where Joan of Arc was put to death.

After watching the Olympic games, there was one more day of sightseeing in Paris, where they visited the Notre Dame de Paris, and the Louvre for a glimpse at the “Mona Lisa.”

“It was a lot in a week, but it was a lot of fun, and something I will never forget in my entire life,” Richard said.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.