Displaying items by tag: Thoroughbreds

[Photo by Nate Smith]

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Ice hockey is known to be a sport where the crowd is just as riled up as the players. Whether it’s their team shooting the puck into the goal or a fight breaking out between the two teams on the ice, hockey is a fun sport to watch. Robert Hutchison, Skidmore College hockey coach, has started his third season with the Skidmore Thoroughbreds.

The Thoroughbreds have had their fair share of injuries this season, but nothing too severe. Pre-season began in September and on-ice training with the coaching staff started in October, per NCAA regulations.

The team is experiencing the typical challenges of a new season, such as team and personnel turnover, they remain focused on the goal at hand: “for us, the focus is consistently on maintaining a high compete level, being a great communicator, and being a great teammate regardless of role within the team on any given day,” Hutchison explained.

This seasons’ captains are Luke Alletzhauser, class of 2018, and Adam Moodie, class of 2019.

“Both [captains] bring different strengths to the table but are very well suited to lead this group. With such an inexperienced group, it will take some time for our key players to emerge, but Moodie is coming off a solid sophomore campaign as is fellow junior defenseman Corey Morgan and goaltender Brandon Kasel,” Hutchison said.

Hutchison describes the team as “young, but very talented,” he has the group working consistently to improv on a weekly basis.

“We’ve had our very good days and some moments of adversity in the first five weeks of the season. The New England Hockey Conference is an uber-competitive league with at least three to five of our eight teams consistently in the top 15 of the National Rankings. Consequently, every game is a highly anticipated contest and we’re always working to focus on the next opponent and not look beyond each individual matchup,” he explained.

While the team is matching up well against the top 15 opponents, the inexperience late in games “has been evident. This group has responded well to learning on the fly in the early going, but will only continue to improve with increased games under their belts,” Hutchison said.

“We’re fortunate to have a great group of young men who work hard, share a common goal, and genuinely care about being high quality student-athletes,” Hutchison said proudly.

The Skidmore Thoroughbreds will be playing Fredonia at 2 p.m. and at 5 p.m. against Hamilton vs. Canton on Nov. 25 in Saratoga Springs. All game information can be found at www.skidmoreathletics.com. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Before there was a Marilyn Monroe. Long before there was an “America’s Next Top Model.”

There was Audrey Munson. And her story trumps them all. 

Audrey was the iconic face and form that served as inspiration for Daniel Chester French’s Spencer Trask Memorial statue in Congress Park: “The Spirit of Life,” as well as nearly every major female statue cast in the early 1900s. Her visage stretched from New York City to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to the image on the “Walking Liberty” U.S. half-dollar coin that was first minted in 1916.  

She was also a silent film star, appearing in the first known completely nude movie role as an artist’s model in Inspiration. Only one print of her in film, a movie called Purity, exists today.

But in any age, Audrey Munson’s life would not be regarded as “pure,” and her life and times will be portrayed in a performance of an original musical, American Muse, this weekend.  

Muse will be presented by the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation to benefit the restoration of the Spirit of Life and Spencer Trask Memorial. Performances will be held on Saturday, October 4 at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, October 5 at 2:30 p.m. in the Dee Sarno Theater at Saratoga Arts, 320 Broadway in Saratoga Springs.

Munson’s life unfolded like a soap opera full of drama, scandal and mental illness. Born in Rochester in 1891, Audrey was pushed into modeling at age 15 by her mother. Audrey quickly became the most sought after model for sculptors and painters throughout the American Beaux-Arts building boom (from 1900-1920).

After doing four silent films in California, Munson returned to New York in 1919 and was living with her mother in a boarding house owned by Dr. Walter Wilkins. Wilkins fell in love with Munson and murdered his wife, Julia, so he could be available for marriage.  

Although Munson and her mother had left New York prior to the murder, the police still wished to question them, resulting in a nationwide search. 

They were finally questioned in Toronto, Canada, where they testified that they had moved out because Mrs. Wilkins had requested it. This satisfied the police, but the negative publicity generated by the case effectively ended Munson’s career as a model and actress. Wilkins was tried, found guilty and sentenced to the electric chair. He hanged himself in his prison cell before the sentence could be carried out.

By 1920, Munson, unable to find work anywhere, returned with her mother to the town of Mexico, New York and worked selling kitchen utensils door to door. On May 27, 1922, she swallowed a solution with mercury in an attempt to take her own life.

In 1931, a judge finally ordered the 39-year-old Munson into a facility for treatment. Audrey died in 1996 at 104 years old, having spent her last 65 years in an upstate New York psychiatric hospital.

Tickets for American Muse are $15 for adults; $10 for seniors; and $7 for students. They may be purchased at the door or by calling (518) 339-0636.