This Might Be The Newest Member of the Bobsled Team!

Enjoying the late season snow, this missy enjoys long walks in the woods and hanging out at the Bobrun.

Photo by Betsy Scaife

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Finally!

After many days, months, years. After late nights and early mornings and more phone calls in a day than I thought was humanely possible. After over 200 hours of broadcasts in the last 6 weeks. After begging for money and the always last minute hiccups.

Last night, I finally got to watch our film aired on local PBS.

Funny thing about watching one's film on the small screen without thinking about the hundred different ways that the story might be improved - music, tempo, shot selection, content, narrative flow...you actually get to enjoy it.

And to reflect ever so briefly on the journey that brought you to that moment.

-Scott

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This is How Rumors Get Started

So I'm in Lake Placid today. As in New York, not Florida or anywhere else. And there's some buzz on the street. Actually a lot. Is it the traditional post Olympic high turbo-boosted by the 30th anniversary of 1980? Nope. Is it the wealth of local athletes who attended or the medals they brought home? Nope again.

The buzz on the street and in the offices of the powers-that-be is the news that Placid is making a run for the 2018 or 2022 Games (depending on who you ask).

Logos are designed, T-shirts are on the way and architectural designs are...designed.

And yes, they're already squawking about the tax bill!

Oh yeah...it's a joke!

-Scott


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Beyond the podium

By MIKE LYNCH, Adirondack Daily Enterprise

The 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games and the aura it created in this region inspired a whole generation of U.S. Olympic athletes from the Adirondacks, including gold-medalist Billy Demong of Vermontville and biathlete Tim Burke. But it also helped inspire Ethiopia's first Winter Olympian - cross-country skier Robel Teklemariam.
Teklemariam recently completed his second Winter Olympics as the sole representative from the African country not known for its snow.

Born in Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia, Teklemariam moved with his family to New York City in the mid-1980s when he was 9. At the time, his mother worked for the United Nations. Unhappy with public schools in the city, Teklemariam started attending boarding school at North Country School in Lake Placid in 1986. He had attended and enjoyed Camp Treetops at NCS the two previous summers.

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Locals working behind the scenes at Vancouver Olympics

From Chris Knight - Adirondack Daily Enterprise
Photo Credit of Gordy Sheer and Mark Grimmette: AP

While North Country athletes competing at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver have been grabbing the headlines, and rightfully so, another group of local residents have quietly been making a contribution to the games.

More than a dozen people from the Tri-Lakes area have been working at the Olympics, helping to run bobsled, luge and skeleton races, setting up interviews and photo shoots for athletes, organizing sponsor events and taking on a host of other behind-the-scenes roles.

They've been at the center of some of the high and low points of these games - from the historic medal streak of the U.S. alpine skiing team to the tragic death of a luge athlete just as the games were getting started.

"It's been a fantastic games," said Doug Haney of Saranac Lake, alpine press officer for the U.S. Ski Team. "I don't think anyone going into these Olympics thought we would have captured eight medals in alpine skiing."

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Will There Be Another Miracle on Ice?

It happened 30 years ago, when the underdog U.S. hockey team defeated the Soviets 4-3 at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, then went on to win the gold medal.

You were born to be a player; you were meant to be here. - Coach Herb Brooks to his seventh-seeded hockey team, of mostly college players, before the Soviet matchup

And maybe they'll do it again - having just unexpectedly defeated the Canadian team at the Vancouver Olympics, 5-3.

You can, of course, watch that 1980 hockey victory again in our film, Small Town, Big Dreams: Lake Placid's Olympic Story, available through PBS and on Amazon. (It's sold out now on Amazon, but a new shipment will arrive soon.)

Maybe hockey history is about to be made again.

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Do You Believe in Miracles? This Torchbearer Does

Andrea Harris was one of 52 torchbearers selected to carry the Olympic Flame from Yorktown, Virginia to Lake Placid, New York, for the 1980 Olympics. "This particular torch relay journey was a first in the history of the Modern Games and continues to be the only torch relay team that ran as a team from the start of the relay (Yorktown) to the arrival in Lake Placid," she says.



In her post, she tells about her group of torchbearers, and how they have kept in touch.

...the greatest thrill was standing inside the Olympic Stadium as we watched our fellow torchbearer, Charles M. Kerr, light the flame that began the XIII Olympic Winter Games. As we stood beside the Olympic caldron and doves were released, the ceremony was breathtaking.

And yes, we had the opportunity to see all the events, including Eric Heiden’s monumental capture of 5 gold medals and 4 Olympic speed skating records. And who can ever forget the 1980 “Miracle” American Hockey Team? I was there. I saw the game. I met the team and congratulated them as they received their medals.

Our torch relay team became the “darlings” of Lake Placid. We were chosen to exemplify “the Greek ideal of the whole person’ and the spirit of the Olympics. The Village of Lake Placid and Olympic tourists connected with our contagious enthusiasm during a time when the world was shaken with concerns not unlike those of today.

Do you believe in miracles? she asks. I do.

Lake Placid is celebrating the 30th anniversary of those 1980 Olympic Games, with a weekend of activities that includes showing our movie, Small Town, Big Dreams: Lake Placid's Olympic Story in a double-header with Miracle - with the STBG filmmakers Marc Nathanson and Scott F. Carroll in attendance and 1980 hockey player Buzz Sneider.

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