What we need is another 'miracle'
Albany theater group to hold staged reading of `Last American Newspaper'
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It was one of those posts on social media you stumble upon, a chance meeting with the past that was so desperately needed.
It was from Jim Craig and if you are of a certain age, I don't have to explain why his name still brings a smile to my face.
The moment was 45 years ago.
It was the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid and it was the greatest moment in sports history.
The Feb. 22 anniversary passed by without my notice, but the post this week flooded me with memories of another time when our country was also in some turmoil and needed a lift.
"Great moments are born from great opportunity—and that’s what you have here tonight, boys," is how the coach starts his speech.
It's from the the movie Miracle and it's doubtful that Coach Herb Brooks said all those words before they were Hollywood-ized but I definitely believe he called them "boys."
The U.S. hockey team were boys playing the men of the Soviet Union.
The Cold War still raged and Soviet hockey players were not allowed in the NHL so their world championship was the Olympics every four years.
They rarely disappointed.
It was the semifinals - the medal round of the Olympic tournament - and the United States was scheduled to play the Soviet Union. in an afternoon game at the new Lake Placid Olympic Center. I was 50 miles away in the Plattsburgh Press-Republican newsroom, a 23-year-old sportswriter who had been on the job just six weeks.
"If we played them 10 times they might win nine," is what Brooks allegedly said. "But not this game—not tonight. Tonight we skate with them. Tonight we stay with them and we shut them down—because we can. Tonight we are the greatest hockey team in the world."
These long-haired college kids who believed, oh did they believe.
"That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game," Brooks says in the movie. "You were born to be hockey players—every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time is done. It’s over. I’m sick and tired of hearing about what a great team the Soviets have. Screw ’em. This is your time. Now go out there and take it.”
Over in the Plattsburgh newsroom, the news came to us via an old-fashioned Associated Press ticker tape.
The AP ticker had a bell that sounded when there was a news alert - a forerunner to "Breaking News" on cable - and I remember hearing the bell sound twice shortly after the game started that afternoon.
The game was not being telecast live.,
There was no ESPN, no cable, no CNN.
Just the AP ticker in the Press-Republican newsroom and I had never heard two bells before.
The U.S. had scored.
Each time the bell rang, heads turned in the newsroom.
When it rang three times, I announced the U.S. had taken a 4-3 lead.
Newsrooms can be stoic places where seasoned journalists rarely showed their emotions. We all gathered near the city desk waiting for more news, staring at a machine with no pictures.
Then, came the four bells.
The U.S. had won.
It would be hours before we heard Al Michaels' famous "Do you believe in miracles?" query as the seconds ticked down and bedlam erupted in the arena and on the ice.
It was in that arena during that Olympics we first heard the "USA, USA, USA" chants. Back then it was a patriotic cry in the midst of the Iranian hostage crisis.
Today, with the country struggling again, we hear it at political rallies with a different meaning.
These days more people have seen the movie Miracle than probably even remember the event.
Some have forgotten the United States still had to beat Finland to win the Gold Medal.
But they did that, too.
After that victory, captain Mike Eruzione took to the medal stand to accept the gold meal for the team, then waved each and every teammate on to the stand to join him in a joyous celebration - not of a team - but of a country.
"Herb Brooks built more than a team—he built a brotherhood," Jim Craig said in his post this week. "His vision wasn’t just about winning games, but about uniting players under a shared purpose. It was never about "I, me, myself"—it was about us. That spirit made all the difference."
Such wisdom, such leadership.
We could use a dose of that now.
A few weeks after the Olympics, I took my parents to Lake Placid to stand in the empty arena where goalie Jim Craig had stood alone for a few seconds after winning the gold medal.
Craig was shown on television looking for something in the stands.
My dad was the first to tell me the story about how Craig's mother sharpened his skates growing up in youth hockey and how she had died three years earlier.
Jim Craig was looking in the stands for his father.
“I composed myself and began to scan the crowd in search of my father, knowing that he was thinking of my mother, too," Craig later explained.
My own Dad pointed out to the ice where it happened. I could see he was getting misty-eyed.
I'd never seen that before.
"Out of respect for both of my parents, I wanted to find him in the crowd to share that moment with him, so he knew we all had accomplished winning the gold medal together," Craig recounted. "All the sacrifices that had led to that moment compounded in overwhelming emotion, and I knew I could never have realized my Olympic dream without the love and support of my parents and my family.”
It gets me misty-eyed now.
A game.
A moment Sports Illustrated later rated the greatest sports moment of the 20th Century.
"We should be dreaming," coach Brooks later said. "We grew up as kids having dreams, but now we're too sophisticated as adults, as a nation. We stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams."
And a reminder of what dedicated group of individuals can do to change the world.
Remember that.
Second reading
The Capital Repertory Theater in Albany announced Monday that it would hold a main stage reading of my play The Last American Newspaper on Wednesday, April 2.
This will be the first reading of the play that was adapted from my memoir The Last American Newspaper and will proceed the three nights (July 25-27) of readings at the Adirondack Theater Festival.
The play has been more than a year in the making, and with ATF's Producing Artistic Director Miriam Weisfeld guiding me along the way, the play has begun to take shape. Now, we have to see what an audience thinks.
Recently, Marcus Kyd was added as director. ATF's fans will remember Marcus from directing Dial M for Murder last summer at ATF.
The play follows the two decades after I became editor of The Post-Star in 1999 and follows several of the news stories the newspaper covered during that time. Readers will recognize the Fort Edward tanker spill, the murder at the Bay Road Cumberland Farms and Mark Mahoney's Pulitzer Prize.
Mahoney and my long-time colleague, Will Doolittle, are characters in the play along with composites of several reporters.
If you've never been to a reading before, professional actors will act out the play with scripts in hands - or on an easel - without costumes or a set.
It's all part of the development to see if the play works in its current form and how we can make it better. After the play, audience member can stay and give feedback of what they liked, didn't understand and didn't like.
I've written a few times about the development of the play, so if you're curious you get a chance for a sneak preview on April 2 at 7 p.m.
Indivisible ADK/Saratoga
It was just a few weeks ago that more than 100 people turned out at Crandall Public Library because they were concerned about the future of their country. On Sunday, more than 300 turned out in Saratoga.
They will be needed more than ever with the recent moves of the new administration.
It now is producing a weekly newsletter to keep its members informed about what is happening in our country and what it can do next. To contact the newsletter team, email it at : newsltr.indivisibleadksaratoga@gmail.com.
Still unbeaten
This Glens Falls boys basketball team has been a special group these past two seasons.
On Tuesday night, Glens Falls defeated Beekmantown 100-51 in regional play to run its record to 24-0 and run its two-year winning streak to 51 straight games.
If it wins this weekend, it will head to Binghamton and be in the state basketball tournament for the second straight year. It's a shame it's not coming back to Glens Falls this year.
More on Oscar
While reporting on Stephen Phelps being part of the Oscar-winning team of Anora (he was set director), I said Phelps from Glens Falls. A reader informed me that he is actually from South Glens Falls and his brother Christopher also worked on the film as set director and another friend from South Glens Falls, Ryan Fitzgerald, was art director.
Pretty amazing.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
Though I never saw the movie “Miracle,” your narration of your own newsroom scene… and the passion and patriotism within that one game…and the awards ceremony…gave me goosebumps, then tears. The phrase “there is no Me in team” came to mind, and how one coach (who does not make himself the center of attention) can make such a profound impact on so many lives. And the entire country.
This story also brought flashbacks of newsroom scenes from “All the Presidents’ Men” when Woodward and Bernstein’s deep dive investigative work eventually nailed Nixon and his band of bandits… and brought justice in the midst of all that corrosive corruption…which was created by a man who saw himself as King.
Sadly, 50 years later, even with all the clear evidence of corruption within the first and now second tenure of a tsar-like President, justice has been M.I.A. within our Justice Dept. as well as the Supreme Court. As you, and Catherine, and countless others contributing to the Front Page have written…it’s up to us to do what we can, when we can, for as long as we can to try to neutralize tyranny. The marches and rally cries in the early ‘70’s of “POWER to the PEOPLE!”eventually made a difference in ending the VN War…I have to believe we can end our own current civil war…eventually.
I too believe in Miracles.
Looking forward to the reading at the Wood in July, it was an add on when we bought our annual subscription to the ATF. Best entertainment in town! Supporting local arts provide us with much needed joy and a sense of community. We should try to be participating citizens, whether it's attending a peaceful march, a phone call to our representatives, sending a postcard, or dollars sent to worthy causes. Of course, those of us who read The Front Page already know this. Our job is to promote good ideas to those who don't.