CHAPPAQUA — As The Star Spangled Banner played thousands of miles and multiple time zones away Thursday, the stragglers — those who didn’t want to miss a second of local and national history — stood as if they were at the event.
As if they were listening to the music in person from a front row seat and following one of the Olympics’ most thrilling games.
As it was, more than 100 people — from young children and teens to senior citizens and everyone in between — had perhaps the next best thing to a seat at the Olympic ice hockey rink: A seat at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center with neighbors to cheer on one of their own.
In dramatic fashion, the U.S. women’s ice hockey team, trailing 1-0 late in the third period, pulled its goalie — the person everyone at the Performing Arts Center had come to watch — then scored to take their gold medal game with Canada to overtime. Hilary Knight tipped in a Laila Edwards shot to knot the score
With Aerin Frankel back in net, her team, playing 3-on-3, scored in OT, sending old and young alike at the center into a solid gold frenzy. Megan Keller knocked in a backhand for the win.
The 26-year-old Frankel, who honed her goaltending skills in youth travel out of Westchester Skating Academy in Elmsford, but left Horace Greeley High School to attend hockey-rich Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Minnesota, was outstanding, as she had been during the entire Olympic tournament.
Cheers arose with each of her 30 saves — some outstanding.
Best seat in the house
Before the game began, Bob Sullivan had an itch to be somewhere other than the center.
Starting in 1980 at Lake Placid, he’d reported at four straight Winter Olympics, the first three for Sports Illustrated and the last reporting and overseeing Time Magazine’s Salt Lake coverage.
He’d predicted a 5-0 U.S win. But he was anything but disappointed with the game.
“I really wish I were there,” he said before taking a few last looks at the giant screen where jubilation reigned among the American players.
“Holy cow,” Riggs Maher, 13, yelled of the win.
He was sitting with his brother, Leif, 10. The two are street hockey players but a cousin in Florida is a girl who plays goal on an otherwise all-boys team.
Riggs said late in the game he kept thinking, “Please win. Please win.”
“I was literally praying in my head,” he said.
He described himself as “still terrified” after the U.S. knotted the score 1-1.
Leif, who said his interest in the game grew when the Americans began playing better in the second half of the second period and “started to lock in and move the puck around,” had been much more confident.
.”When they tied it up, I knew they were going to win,” he said.
‘Aerin is going to cook’
Other kids also celebrated, including the three Hayden siblings, Charlie, 8, and twin 10-year-olds Pippa and Tilly, who carried poster boards they’d decorated with Pippa’s and Tilly’s displaying their drawings of Frankel in net and Charlie’s a photo of Frankel and the message, “Aerin is going to cook.”
Cathie Mannion, who has lived in Chappaqua for more than 40 years, was the only person among her friends to go to the performing arts center to watch the game. She wasn’t disappointed. “I thought it was going to be a relaxing afternoon. It turned out to be a nail-biter afternoon,” she said, noting while her friends didn’t attend, all were aware Frankel was playing and were cheering her on.
Cheering just as loudly as anyone at the performing arts center was Linda Burns Herman, who graduated from college right before Title IX came along to pave the way for things like Olympic women’s ice hockey being possible.
So, Burns Herman didn’t get to be an athlete, but she has been a fan of the American team ever since her cousin’s daughter, Cammi Granato, starred for the U.S. in the inaugural women’s ice hockey Olympic tournament in 1998 and then played again in 2002.
The audience also included Sullivan’s wife, Lucille Rossi and their friend, Karen Bazik. The only one of them who thought the game would be close was Rossi, who predicted a 5-4 U.S. win.
But, of course, Frankel wasn’t going to allow four goals. She finished the Olympics with 97 saves on 99 shots — out of this world numbers — as the U.S. secured its third Olympic women’s ice hockey gold medal.
Aerin Frankel inspires the next generation
Two of Frankel’s fans, Caroline and Madelyn Robinson, ages 11 and 9, share Frankel’s hockey roots.
Madelyn plays for the Vipers out of Westchester Skating Academy and Caroline, who now plays for a team in Greenwich, Connecticut., used to be a Viper.
Frankel played four years in goal for the Vipers.
“I’ve been following her a long time,” Caroline said.
Both girls said they also want to play for the U.S.
The fact Frankel, a two-time NCAA women’s Division I goalie of the year, who now plays professionally in Boston, is wearing a USA jersey comes as no surprise to those who knew her when she was a young child.
Michele Gregson, chair of the Friends of the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center, has known Frankel since she was in elementary school as Frankel was a classmate of her son, William. Benna Strober first met her even earlier. Frankel attended pre-school with her daughter, Ally Dinhofer.
Both women remembered Frankel’s early talent in hockey — even before she became a goalie.
“She was an amazing skater — very competitive in sports,” Gregson said. “She played with all the boys. She was an unbelievable athlete.”
Strober recalled her playing at WSA and said of her advancing to the level she has, “Already you could tell. … This didn’t surprise us.”
Chappaqua is a hamlet in the Town of New Castle.
“We’re all incredibly proud,” said New Castle Supervisor Victoria Tipp.
She then mentioned inviting Frankel to a community party in her honor.
As fans finally left the performing arts center, most clutching the small American flags they’d been given when entering, several were asked if they’d attend such a party.
Each said yes.
Nancy Haggerty covers sports for The Journal News/lohud .
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Chappaqua cheers as Aerin Frankel, U.S. women’s hockey team wins gold
Reporting by Nancy Haggerty, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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