the men are unwashed, close filthy, bodies of full of vermin and heaps of garbage lie about. especially needed was policing the latrines. the trench is too shallow, daily covering is not there, and the dirt is entire newly -- entirely neglected. large numbers of the men will not use the sinks or let genes, but every clump of bushes and every fence border. it's impossible to step outside the encampment without having both i and nostril continually offended. that's one of the best quotes about hygiene i found in the archives. it's so dramatic and it makes you think the pungent smells and what's going on around you at that time. >> learn more about how civil war soldiers tried to stay clean and healthy today at 6 p.m. eastern, 3 p.m. pacific here on c-span3's american history tv.

>> next on american history tv, author kevin tyson talks about his book, when it mattered most, which tells the story of the seattle metropolitans who became the first u.s. hockey team to win the stanley cup when they defeated the montreal canadiens in 1917. the story is set against the backdrop of president woodrow wilson mustering support for u.s. entry into world war i while the conflict raged in europe. the u.s. declared war on germany six days after the metropolitans victory. the national world war i museum and memorial in kansas city missouri hosted this discussion and provided the video. >> thank you so much for being here. i appreciate you braving the weather, and kevin, i appreciate you being from seattle. kevin: i brought seattle's weather with me. >> time with the local abc

affiliate. i've worked a lot with the mavericks and the museum memorial here and i appreciate this opportunity. i'm looking forward to chatting with you. i think you will get a lot out of this, whether you are a hockey fan, sports fan, or are interested in history and world war i. we also going to talk about leadership and i think you can get something out of that for your team, so i thing it's going to be a good discussion. why don't we start by having you introduce yourself. tell us about your background and your life before you started this project here. kevin: i was a minor-league baseball player and minor-league baseball coach, which is a typical transitional career to writing. at the sports commission for the last six i'ms and i still coach and really involved in athletics on that side. at the sports commission, i was

approached to help celebrate the centennial of the metropolitan'' championship. as somebody born and raised in seattle, i had absolutely no idea this happened. my joke as i got pulled into a meeting and had no idea why i was there, i heard some buddy say seattle and stanley cup and popped my head up and that's why i was there. >> you commit to this and decide you're going to write this book. what's the process of actually writing a book and how does it begin? kevin: for me, it started with research. other than knowing that they won, i had no idea what the story was. day i committed to going and researching it, i said it's -- i sent quite possibly the worst email ever written to the hockey hall of fame asking 75 questions asking if people cared about the stanley cup 75 years ago, what

did professional hockey look like -- it was comical. his response was, "i don't know, it was 100 years ago." i went to the seattle central library and put the microfilm in and started scrolling. within five minutes, i rob: and it was a story that needed to be told. you say it is the forgotten story of america's first stanley cup champions, and the war to end all wars. and you wanted to be this person to tell it. kevin: i pitched multiple offers. part of my job is to pitch seattle at his -- as a sports destination. i had just written a spectacular book that does a great job -- just read a spectacular book that does a great job describing iorts in america, and when

didn't get a response for many authors i pitched, i think my wife got tired of it, and she said, just write it yourself you likely, i'm dumb enough to think i can do things sometimes, jump in, and here we are. rob: good for you. that is awesome. ,ou are an athlete and coach and that added a lot of depth in your perspective in writing this book. how did that help you when you were writing this, as athlete and coach? ago, iprobably a year was watching a netflix documentary on ted williams. bob kostas is interviewing him and said, what does it feel like to hit day 90 mile-per-hour fastball? smile andms gets this describes it to him, and this light bulb went off in my head and i thought, that is exactly why i could tell this story, i don't have to ask those

questions, i know what it is like to step into the locker room on a day you are playing for a championship. i know what it feels like to get into that pendant stretch -- nant stretch where every minute counts. it was great to get my thoughts in order and breathe them into these guys. rob: you never met them, but felt the deep personal connection to the players. kevin: absolutely. one of my best attributes as a coach is that i can read players, look at them and see what motivates them, see what button to push. one of the first things i did was, i assigned a player i coached to each one of these guys. and the funny thing is, i was correct on all the personality types with the exception of the goalie. i had him down to two, and i picked the wrong one, and within a couple of weeks i realized i picked the wrong one, and used that to begin to understand

these guys. and by the end, i knew everything about them. it is interesting. i have gotten four or five emails from grandkids of the players, and it's nice to hear that they felt like i captured the spirit. probably the most rewarding aspect of this. rob: why don't we start walking through the book. i wish we had all night to go through the whole book, but let's start with chapter one. paint a picture of the team, the time, and go from there. i had no idea what professional athletics were going to look like in the teens. there is no video, radio, nothing to go back and look at. , it was thisd completely different entity. at halfaw them moving notd, gingerly going, really being involved, and

immediately i could tell that the feeling for the players, community, the fans, was exactly the same. two rival leaks, the nha, which became the nhl in 1917, so they disband the nh a, go into a hotel room inside a new contract and call it the nhl. the pci j is the west coast league, so the patrick's, if you have seen miracle, their grandson, craig patrick, is the assistant coach. and they are the gods of the hockey world. their names are all over the stanley cup. so the patrick's move west because there dad buys land in nelson, british columbia. ,hey are all from montreal frank is one of the top amateur players, they make a ton of money in the west end there dad

at 30 years old says, we are doing whatever you want with the money now. and they form a professional hockey league. they have outstanding relationships with the best players, they have money, and the climate out west is better than northeast canada. so they poach all these great players and bring them out and that starts a huge player war between the two leagues. withmmers and then it ends the agreement that pch a and nha will play for the stanley cup. previously, it was only the winner of the nha, it was a challenge cup and the winner of the nha got it. finally inyer war is check and everything is good, and then the toronto owner flares up, so the patrick's go and take five of the best players off the toronto 1914 stanley cup team and put them of the seattle team. so immediately, seattle is a contender in their expansion year. rob: and against the backdrop a

seattle 1917, a huge sports town. the community really embraces this peer talk about seattle. kevin: it was interesting, the day we did the book launch, i was doing i talk with one of our prominent journalists, born and raised in seattle. he made the joke of seattle being an outpost and a podunk and we all think of seattle like that 100 years ago, and it wasn't. it was a city that was flourishing and wanted to be taken seriously. it was far away from the rest of the country, but bill boeing, the first boeing flight happens in that first season, nordstrom's taking off, ups is lurching -- is flourishing in seattle, all these great businesses, and the smith tower was the tallest building west of the mississippi, it had just been finished, so you have this from itsng to step out

pioneer past, just being a logging town, and it was a great confluence of events. rob: so getting an understanding of the history end league and how it was formed. now let's go into the seattle metropolitans. tell us about the early coaches and players. formed forteam is the 1915-19 16 season. that was the expansion year. the arena was downtown. university,fth and across from the fairmont hotel, in the middle of downtown. coach,ldoon is the head he is from st. mary's, ontario. tracy,l name is linton he dropped out of college, he is a law student, moves to seattle to pursue a boxing career, and his parents do not approve.

though they ask him to change his name and he chooses pete muldoon. they don't want a professional athlete in the family. and muldoon is a fascinating character. he is an ice dancer, professional boxer, phenomenal hockey player, phenomenal baseball player, lacrosse player, just a great athlete. he is pete carroll 100 years before pete carroll is pete carroll, just a really outgoing personality, warm, engaging guy. the funny thing is, he becomes the first head coach for the chicago blackhawks, doesn't like it in chicago and comes back to seattle, then dies from a heart attack in 1929. he is 41 years old, has a three-year-old and a two-year-old, and on his death, the headline in the seattle times says pete muldoon dies. " is"the post-intelligencer

about the page -- above the fold, center column, massive story. carroll, the energy and electricity he brought was incredible. i'm sure people did that for the metropolitans. how did he build this winning team? and had thise in foundation of having multiple players coming from a team that had already won the cup. when is the goalie, when is the star center, what is the star defensive player, so he has the nucleus for a great team. and the thing that is interesting is, other players on the team are guys that were caught from other teams. so he pulls guys off the scrap heap, coaches them up, gets them going in the same direction. one interesting thing about hockey in the teens is that it

is unbelievably violent. there are instances of guys taking full swings with their sticks and knocking people off their skates, people getting teeth not in on a routine basis and the penalty minutes are off the charts. and when the seattle season starts the first year, the metropolitans are in the middle of the whole thing, and you can tell immediately that he is frustrated that wants them to compete and play hard and play skillful. inre is multiple comments newspapers over, we need to get this aggression under control. and by the end of the season, they are one of the least penalized teams. the first half of the year, they had the worst offense and worst defense, not typically a strong indicator of success, and by the end of the season, they had the second-best offense and second-best defense. were theetropolitans most successful franchise in the

pacific coast hockey association in their nine years, consistently first or second-best offense and defense, so willie rall wound it. a special team. rob: since we are talking about pete muldoon, what takeaways can we get about him, about his leadership? kevin: what he did so well he is, he took the strength of each guy and put them in a position to maximize those strengths. he took guys that were not only cut off other teams, but there were forwards and centers and he had them defensive players. it was good at moving guys around. at moving guys around. at the other thing, you could get a sense of his ability to teach. they were struggling early with their goal stopping, he would bring in his younger players and have them shoot at the goalie and just practice. so the young guys are getting practice on their scoring, and the goalie is getting practice on preventing it.

so a well-organized and intelligent guy. rob: let's talk about the players, one by one. did --out frank boyce frank boyston. kevin: he is the guy that made thing happen, the first player from the metropolitans to make the hockey hall of fame, i think the first western player. he is not the best scorer, best offender, he is not the best anything, but he is the guy that makes it all happen. he is the guy that makes the plays when the stress is highest. and in any critical situation, you can see the pok in his hands all the -- you can see the puck in his hands all the time. bernie morris was a fascinating character. i am writing a document right not to ask the hall of fame committee to reevaluate his career. he is, in a lot of opinions, the best hockey player that has not been inducted into the hockey

hall of fame. it is an uphill battle to get some but he inducted 100 years later. atare doing research on him the library at university of washington, i uncovered a court document from 19 oh nine that told us his mom died when he was three and his dad died when he was nine years old he was orphaned, and it was a tragic life. it was every bad thing that could happen to a human being happened to him. i am probably going to steal part of the later discussion, but it is a good story. he gets suspended in the course of the player wars, only player ever suspended, and the next year he finally reports and gets his first chance to play major league hockey. he is injured the whole year, gets cut, comes out the first year in the metropolitans at least the league in goals, sets the all-time points record in the league and the second chair, the third year the war is happening. so that year is a bit of a train wreck. at the day the 1919 playoffs

begin, he doesn't show up for the game. he has been arrested for draft deviation. he is a canadian citizen, he is not sophisticated, doesn't take care of his details very well, and he did not file his paperwork correctly, and lost a year of his life. this really sensational, front-page newspaper trial plays out over the course of the playoffs and stanley cup final. the series ends in a tie, the spanish flu outbreak hits and bernie morris is in prison in fort lewis the entire time, sentenced to two years hard labor in alcatraz. he gets the sentence commuted, gets an honorable discharge, and i don't think he ever really recovered from that. late in life,at, had a falling out with everybody and died alone in a military

hospital in bremerton, washington. it is the only death not reported in the newspapers. he was a guy that was very gifted on the ice and had a tragic life off it. in: and we planned to work the world war i impact on the team, which we did there. tell us about the rest of the players and key takeaways in researching them. you got to know them. kevin: absolutely. holmes are the the goalkeeperis and jack walker played a position called roper, hybrid between defensive and forward now. he had a technique called the hook check, and he is a stopper, could take anyone's best player,. half holmes, i couldn't tell if he was a fiery guy or a passive guy, and he was a quiet guy. interesting character. there are funny anecdotes that

came out to the newspapers about his personality. he is the guy that didn't say much, but when he did it was on point. he could really light up the locker room, get guys going in the right direction. bobby rose is a defenseman, the brains behind a locked of this. the captain and bobby rose is the second captain. bobby rose goes to portland, coaches their minor-league team for 20 years after his career ends, so he stays in the northwest. jim riley is the youngest player and theeam, a forward, neat thing about him is that when the pacific coast hockey association blows up, he place for pete muldoon and the chicago blackhawks. he also is a professional baseball player for the st. louis browns, i believe. so is the only player to play major league baseball and the nhl. and he is a scratch golfer later

in life. rob: why don't we work in the world war i angle. we are at the world war i museum, and some of the players ended up serving for a time. tell me about the war's impact on the team. kevin: it had a dramatic impact on the league, on professional hockey. so canada is already in the war, the victoria team ends up losing their arena. the canadian military commandeers it as a weapons depot. and the nha eastern legs don't have enough players to field four teams, with players leading to the front, so they form a military team committed that 220 italian team -- military team, battalion team. doesn't goon serves,

overseas, used as a public affairs person. he is fairly famous at that point. jim riley goes overseas, only one who does. jack walker and eddie carpenter both serve but don't go overseas, and there are a lot of players that do, two or three guys off of each team that go thefight in 1917 season, 1918 season. add the war had a dramatic effect. fascinatingost anecdotes, there was a letter pete muldoon got from the front from one of his friends, and it was printed in its entirety and all the seattle newspapers in british columbia newspapers and all the oregon newspapers. it was very dramatic, really detailed in what was happening could tellt, and you the war consumed their lives. it was incredible. you write with incredible

attention to detail in the book. chance toen't had a read the book, highly recommended, but you feel like you know them personally. how do you do that? what do you want people to get out of the book when they read it, with that style? kevin: my primary goal was, i wanted the reader to experience professional hockey or sports or life in the teens. i wanted you to understand what it felt like to watch the game, and the passion that was involved, and the athleticism involved on the ice, and the drama that played out off the ice. a lot of the book, the very first day of research, i am scrolling through march 1917 "seattle post-intelligencer" microfiche

and there is a headline this this bake that-- says, abdicates, and it is shocking to think about what conversations around the dinner table were like at what conversations in the locker room were like, and eyes and went back over the course of the season, it got better. as we were talking about previously. january 31 is the day that the stretch begins. all the teams play that day, and they wake up the next morning and it is the first mention of someone ending a championship, and it is also the day the zimmerman telegram is sent. that is another moment where, as i was doing research, i couldn't believe these things had been dropped on top of each other. i figured outnce the writing component, the storytelling of it, it was a very easy story to tell. the details was -- were just there. it was easy to drop them in. rob: what did the championship

do for seattle at that time? kevin: a lot. m, if you have ever been to seattle, the street between the two cdm's -- the two stadiums is called royal brohm way. royal brohm with a longtime sports editor of "the seattle sports intelligencer" newspaper. he served until the 70's and died in -- died of heart attack at the kingdome in seattle. he covered the sonics, seahawks, mariners and metropolitans. the stanley cup final begins, the lead line in his article is, seattle is ready to shake the dust off of small-town sports. and it was the city that really wanted to be something, really wanted to look like new york or chicago or san francisco.

and 100 years later, it hasn't changed at all. it is still true. but it was the first instance of seattle to stick its chest out and feel success at something. so it was a great impact. rob: you mentioned earlier that family members of the players contacted you, and that was the most rewarding part. what was that like? daughter, 89-year-old about to turn 90, of frank stilln is still alive and lives in the seattle area. i had to do a little research to understand there was truly a story. i got connected to her and interviewed her, and the pride in her eyes when i was talking to her about her dad, and the excitement to hear someone was going to tell the story. part of the reason these guys fell off the face of the earth is that they are so humble. they completed, played and when

they were done, they were done. they weren't going around telling everyone that they had one. she said he never talked about it. she said the only time she ever heard stories about it was when his teammates would come over on sundays, or some of the players that he coached. in all the families, that was a theme that ran through the grandkids, they didn't really know any of the story. so it was very rewarding them, and for me to hear from them after they read the story. i talked to pete muldoon's grandkids. two, dad died when he was so they barely knew anything other than what her grandmother ricky's her, and roy grandkids, the boyston's, a lot of them. cerpt. have an ex "championship teams typically have a great layer to make the

teams when it matters most, players that lessen pressure on the teammates, soon a flat spot becomes a winning streak. great players don't do anything, don't force the action, just trust the players to play. the game remains slow to them, and to simpl -- anticipate plays, rather than committing to a bad course of action." applied.bout how that kevin: that is just coaching. lot.ust see it a i experienced it as a player. will listen to rock casts of games and the platitudes that get dropped from the commentators make me laugh most of the time. you made a moment bigger than you needed to make it, and you reach a point where you say, we may win, we may

lose, but i'm going to commit to a course of action and be ok with the outcome. it was fun for me to weave those things in, and 100% i was conscious of, this was their story, not mine, so not wanting to impose my footprint on it. but pete muldoon, i would read quotes and interviews from him, and it would make me laugh, that 100 years before, he was thinking the same thoughts i think before every game. and frank boyston the same way, the way he would communicate with the media, very similar to how i play the game. he was certainly more talented than i was. and it was fun for me to be able to explain what they were doing and why, hopefully in an authentic way. "a: and in the same chapter, winning championship is often finding a way to win with the best you have on that day

against their best." good teams find a way to win, even if it is not pretty. can you talk about how that applied to the metropolitans? kevin: when you are not on a championship team and you see a championship team, and you look and think they get every brick and that everything goes their and thatery break every thing goes their way and that they don't face adversity. and when you are on a championship team, it feels like a disaster everyday. that when theeams pac-10 championship in college, and we were the first northern teams to ever win the championship. we were playing against usc, ucla, asu, the powerhouse of college baseball, and going through that year, especially the second year, we felt like losers every day. every day, we would show up in something dumb would happen or

we would make a mistake, and late may you look up and oh, we are in first place. is notampionship thing about playing perfectly all the time, it is about competing it driving through adversity, trial and error and playing hard. and if you are talented enough, you will succeed, if you are not, you need to get better. in this team battled a lot of adversity. one of my favorite games is, bernie morris gets critically injured late in the season. and at this point, i am connected to these guys at this team, and i read this in the newspaper and i'm, i can't believe it, no! and he comes back three days later and scores three goals. and jack walker on multiple occasions, it is so injured he can barely walk. when he goes out and compete. walkerre games when jack gets knocked out cold, and is

back in the game a minute and a half later, they are wiping the blood off the ice. rob: different time. kevin: absolutely. 20 times, this team could have folded. to me that was the best part of the story, it is "hoosiers" dropped on ice during world war i. rob: we talked about winning teams, but what about the culture of the team? you talked about how some of these guys got cut, and pete muldoon was able to make them great. tell me about the culture of the team. day,: at the end of the great coaches hold players to a higher standard. you look at players and see what you are capable of, and aren't going to let them settle for not being there greatest version. he certainly did that. . -- he wouldn't let them play a less disciplined style.

he wouldn't let them play a less team oriented style. the eastern league, the most talented players are going to ,ave the most successful teams it is an individual sport. in the western league is very team oriented. after polypshe and set so much success in the finals. they put -- that is why the metropolitans had so much success in the finals. pete muldoon was a phenomenal, phenomenal coach. rob: you talked about pete carroll. what about for the team itself, the mets, is there a modern-day team you would liken them to? kevin: great question. i have thought about this, and i feel like i had an answer at one point. i would say they are like the mid-1990's bulls. you have the most talented

player in michael jordan, and the 10th player is better than any other team's second-best player. you can stop the offense on the metropolitans, because there were three guys better than the team's best forward -- then the other team's best forward. that just shows the grittiness the metropolitans had. could winolitans every style of game, could win from every angle, a defensive-oriented team that scored a lock. rob: after the championship, walk us through the team and the evolution of the league. immediately after the championship, the u.s. declares war on germany six days later. that put a huge damper on any celebration.

the next season is scattered, players have to go to different teams, players have to go fight. the number one player comes back on the 1919 season in place. themetropolitans stay until 1923-1924 season, and in only a seattlesque story, they get kicked out of their arena with a year left on their lease and are disbanded. muldoon goes to chicago to coach the blackhawks. ston and half homes and jack walker go to detroit, detroit becomes the red wings and they play on that team. the portland team goes to chicago and they become the blackhawks, and two of the players go to play on the expansion boston bruins team. so almost all the players go want to play on famous, well-known nhl teams. of theireach

retirements from the sport, what do they do later in life? kevin: almost all come back to seattle. leagueoaches the minor team in seattle after pete muldoon dies. he is also a turkey farm with bertie morris. they have adjoining turkey farms and they have a massive falling out about chicken feed or turkey feet in the 1940's, and that is when bernie is ostracized from the community. is working is the -- at the reindeer brewery, and -- working at the reineer brewery, and if you're from seattle, that is pretty cool. and they are all referees and coaches, three of them going to the hall of name. remain unbelievably close friends until their deaths. dies -- half holme

early 50's, the others die in the 1960's. and when royal brome is beginning to get sick, he writes a reminder it's -- when royal is beginning to get remembrance.es a rob: you're getting into the history books. kevin: there are a lot of people in seattle who have a hand from this. a guy from korea who moved to america when he was five years him aomeone handed book about the seattle metropolitans winning the that iscup, and he says

how he learned to read english. and he bought the metropolitans trademark 10 years ago and is trying to revitalize it. he is the guy who approached me and asked me to help you. a lot people in the community have really stepped up and helped bring these guys back to life. it is funny, we got criticized for using the word forgotten on afterr a couple of months the book came out. and they are like, they are not forgotten, we all knew this. and nobody knew it before the 100 year anniversary, and now everyone does. and i am hoping it will become a national story. these are guys that achieved something incredible, and the fact it is the first american team to win the stanley cup is very neat, and the way they when there championship is fascinating. and in 1919, the co-championship is spectacular as well. 15 years later, when there is tv

and radio, these guys are still famous. it is just that small sliver of the where, they were in pacific northwest, and playing a sport you could only write about. they were lost. was the co-championship almost an impact, more on the times. i'm not sure we touched on that. i did a little with bernie morris. it is 1919, the teams are back and intact. game four at that time is considered the greatest hockey game ever played, double-overtime game, zero-zero time, players start collapsing on the ice at the end, nobody knows what's going on, they just think they are exhausted. then they come back and have to replay by those rules, the goingolitans are up 4-1

into the third, and they never lose late. this is the only game they lose late. lateanadiens score three goals to tied in overtime, another overtime, the canadiens end up winning because two metropolitans players are injured in a third collapses on the ice spirit the best scorer is ine metropolitans prison and not playing, and the canadiens win the metropolitans outscored them by 10 goals, and the series. and they wake up the next morning and players have to be hospitalized, the canadiens can't play because they can't form a team and put a player on the ice, and the metropolitans won't accept it. and the health department comes in at just the series down. rob: nowadays, you have star athletes that do well. but for a long time athletes

didn't make much money, they had jobs in the off-season. can you talk about that? they: they are well-paid, make more than the average person, but certainly not life-changing money. frank worked in the pike place market, his future wife, her family owned the butcher shop there. he worked in the butcher shop. pete muldoon the head coach owned all the concession stands at the zoo in seattle, and that would've the bigger parks, and he employed a lot of the players. a lot of them are farmers, they would go back to their farms. a lot of them had sporting goods stores and things like that. one of the canadiens players was the highest-paid athlete of that made morety cobb money than he did in a season, baseball weight 140 four games than at hockey play 24.

nt made $1500 for the year -- and he made $1500 for the year. most proud of,ou of all the work and effort that went into telling this story? kevin: good question, i don't think of ever thought about that part of it. i didn't do it for any of those reasons. i feltend of the day, like i would be upset if people forgot about a championship that i was a part of, and as much as anything, just feeling the need to advocate for these guys that accomplished something special. i don't think i necessarily feel a sense of pride, maybe i will figure out to write the book, and in the process, i realized it was something i was just as passionate about as baseball, i

love to write and it is a threat throughout everything i have ever done without realizing it. this story isod getting out and people are and thatthe story, these incredible men and this time are getting some justice. and with the 100th anniversary of the armistice signed, a lot of stories have come out about the war. not to go off on a tangent, but my great-grandfather was a soldier in world war i and was in his late 80's when i knew him , was very slow walking, slow always seemedt like such a different time to me. my grandfather fought in world war ii and was so vibrant, and from whatever weird bias i had, i just saw this as a completely different time that i couldn't relate to.

that is what i am most proud of, being able to, in my own little, weird way, breathe humanity back into this time period, and hopefully get people who wouldn't otherwise be interested in the topic understand what a massive impact the war had on society. event we needble to learn about and understand. i certainly learned a lot about it and loved it. three set this probably times today, i had a completely different idea in my head about what sports did. rob: you did a great job articulating that, because we think in black-and-white and sometimes think our grandparents, we know them in our -- them in their later years, but you bring these guys to life in their prime, when they are winning the championship. kevin: another great way is to see the tank come out of the

trench and turned to color, that is what like this process was like to me, choppy black-and-white footage that i couldn't relate to and then it became vivid color where i could see people walking on the streets and see them in the and its and on the ice, was a very vivid picture in my head, and it was well worth it. certainly. ,ob: talking about the trenches the fundraiser that was held where churches were simulating, can you talk about that? kevin: interesting anecdote. the librarian at the university of washington library that found the bernie morris document sent december, 1917 after the mets had one championship. they turned the ice arena into a for thes a fundraiser war effort, and they created the trenches so people could come in

then to experience it. i think the goal was to raise $100,000 at the day it opened, they already achieved half of it immediately. and it was interesting that they used the arena to do that. and they pushed the season back. audience, we have our do you maybe want to give them a message why they should read the book, or have fends -- or have friends or family read it? kevin: even if you are not take hockey fan, i think you will enjoy the sports side of it. and if you are a hockey fan, it story tor phenomenal fit with all the other great hockey stories out there. time,a very fascinating great sporting event, and just a great confluence of events that came together. i hope you enjoy it, and i hope you can connect to the

characters at the players as much as i did. rob: anything else before we to questions from the audience? kevin: you did a great job -- you did a great job, kevin, fascinating book. to questions. raise your hand, and i will come to you. we will start here, and i will make my way to that side. how isstanley cup name, it the nhl got to take the name with them? is it because the nha dissolved because of the war? kevin: that's a great question. the stanley cup predates all that. the stanley cup was a challenge cup made for amateur teams in the first year was 1893. the first 10-12 years, it is all amateur teams and they have to challenge each other for it in a two-game series, aggregate goals basically.

around 1910, the nha gets its other teams can still challenge them for it, and then 1914 is the first year the pcha and nha play for it. and it doesn't completely go into nhl hands until 1927, the first year the nhl owns it. think that is interesting is that if you look at nhl records, they only go to 1917. they picked a date and went with it. and the reality is, there is nothing different, team names didn't change, players, coaches didn't change, they didn't like one owner and there was -- and it was their only way, he is threatening lawsuits and doing all these things. at the owners are intelligent, some are lawyers, so they figure out they can dissolve the league and write a new charter that is verbatim what the nha charter is, that is their way to get him out of the league.

i want to say thanks, for coming. i have been a statistician for the kansas city mavericks for 10 years now. this is the best date night ever for me. [laughter] i have been climbing through the branches of my husband's family history, and his great-grandfather played in the nhl for just one game, but fored primarily in the nmhl the st. paul saints, and some others. my question is, what resources can i go to to learn more? i found newspaper articles through ancestry, but i wonder what you would recommend, just going to the local library? kevin: start at the local library. they are very, very good at researching and putting people in the rhetoric -- pointing people in the right direction. i used ancestry a lot. i used the newspaper a lot. the library of congress is a

great database, you can pull a lot of the old newspapers out. newspapers.com, you have to pay for the service, but they have a lot of good newspapers. if you can get to the cities where that took lace, there is a lot more microfilm and things like that. i would highly recommend it, it would be a fun journey for you. i apologize, i realize i had my back to you guys the entire time. you got to hear the voice and not look at the mug. but i would encourage you, it would be a fun journey. there is a lot more information out there. >> is there any sentiment toward naming the new nhl team the metropolitans? and if there isn't, why not? kevin: yes, there is. we have open told the nhl is frowning on using that name, just dealing with any sort of trademark stuff with the new york mets.

and there is a metropolitan division in the nhl, and they don't want to deal with that. my standard line is, i don't really care about a name. if the nba ever comes back to seattle and it is not the sonics, there will be massive riots, but this was 100 years ago. the university of washington original campus is downtown, and that is the largest part of the endowment the university has. in the arena sat on university land, so the land management company, the metropolitan building tract, and the land is called the metropolitan tract, so that is where the name came from. the metropolitan building company built the arena and had a massive discount, so that is the first naming rights deal done. once i learned that, i didn't really care about the team name. i do think they should raise the banners, there was another that there was an article in a

seattle newspaper, leave the banners in the storage shed. at my response was, this franchise isn't trying to capture someone else' is past glories. championships are cities. on more than that, there are still grandkids living in the area that are going to walk in. they should see those banners there and be able to tell their friends their grandparents and great when these things -- great-grandparents when these things. it has been a huge point of pride in seattle again, mostly just because of the way the team played. >> i grew up in the 1950's in new york, and my dad was an unbelievable hockey fan. he was from quebec and used to take me to watch the rangers all the time. it seems at that time, there was only six teams, is that true? what happened from your time up until the mid-50's that they ended up with only six teams at

that time? kevin: the truth is, i'm a baseball person. i can actually answer baseball questions. are the metropolitans playing, there are eight teams, for in the west end for in the in the west and four in the yeast. when the league goes under, there are six teams, detroit, chicago, boston, the two montreal teams in toronto. i think ottawa goes away for a while, there is some flux for four or five years and then there is the original six, boston, detroit, chicago, new york, montreal and toronto. and it stays there for a long expands.n it it is interesting that two of the original six are north west teams, and the rangers are the last expansion team.

lester patrick, his family is all still in north west. one of the first events with stanley cup in seattle tomorrow the 100-year anniversary, i was there with the curator of the hall of fame, that is how i knew him well enough to send the worst email ever written. we are all standing in can hear these people talking and he starts listening and he says, these people are more than just the casual person. and it was his grandkids. >> this will be our last question. do you have any parallels between the boys in the boat at the seattle hockey team? ? you are talking about kevin: there are a lot of parallels in the story. he is one of the guys i pitched right the story. and i laughed, i would much rather read his book than mine. he is a phenomenal writer. we had a great exchange when i finished, and he congratulated me on getting it done, add that

the stories were great and it needed to be told. and i laughed. if someone had asked me to write i amry, if is not when super passionate about, i can jump in and do it. so i completely understand. it is a wonderfully written book , wonderfully written story, and is amusing to me that two similar stories came out of the same small town. one of the things i said to him was, i almost like, if this thing does anything, it is going to look like i was jumping on your coattails. the reality is, i just wrote the story that was there in his response was, you absolutely wrote the story that was there, and don't worry about it. youou had an read -- if haven't read "boys in the boat" you should read it. >> we will have one more question. >> you mentioned the u.s. went into world war i six days after cup.v

between the canadian aspect of a u.s. team winning the cup, and the u.s. team winning the cup, was their animosity? how did canada view it? ended the u.s. care about hockey at the time? and -- and did the u.s. care about hockey at the time? obviously, canada did, how did it go over between the two nations? kevin: did the u.s. care about the stanley cup? yes, very, very much. it was very important. canada, no animosity. plays for theeam stanley cup in 1916 and loses, they are the first american team to play for the cup. there was a huge debate between

stanley cup trustees at whether they were going to let an american team when it, and it said basically, this is the world championship for hockey. world's championship means wherever they come from, and there was a little thread that said no, the charter for the cup says canadian amateur championship. no,to answer your question, there was no animosity. the canadians were not pleased, the montreal canadiens were not pleased they lost the cup, obviously. there are fun anecdotes i won't ruin for you that show you how much the canadiens were upset, and didn't think there was anyway way american team was going to beat them. picked up nationally, picked itork times" up, the st. louis, boston, kansas city newspapers, and it

was picked up nationally with the metropolitans. >> where did the title come from? kevin: great question. it is not the title i chose. it is actually the third title we had. i think that is fairly normal in the process. and it ends the second to the last sentence in the book, and i was advocating for the word that ends the last sentence, and i kept advocating and kept advocating at the publisher said, you can't use that word. the word was immortality, and it was like, they are not immortal and i was like, but we are writing about them 100 years later. i had one last ditch effort for immortality, mostly because it is one of my favorite pearl jam songs, and he said, we are not doing it. but "when it mattered most" is a phenomenal title. i stopped in my tracks and said, that is it. i turned my wife and she said, that's it.

it has the dual meeting of the hockey in the war, and that was the aspect we were looking for, and i had given up on being able to figure out how to communicate it. i laughed because he read an excerpt and it was in there also. the players i coach laugh because they say that i say it all the time, and i don't realize i do. it is subconscious, but to me, it was a perfect title. you have the war element of the sports element. s, if youant question have additional ones, bob and kevin will be in our lobby, and we have kevin' is book for purchase over there and they will be available in the memorial store as well. on behalf of the national world war i museum and memorial, this program was probably presented with the kansas city mavericks,

who tomorrow will be approached -- will be hosting their military appreciation weekend. kevin will be there. and support your local hockey team. thank you, all. another round of applause, for rob and kevin rob: -- rob and kevin. rob: thank you for being here. kevin: thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ is american history tv on c-span3, where each weekend we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nation' is passed. -- nation's past. ago, june 25th, 19

50, north korean forces crossed invadedh parallel and south korea, escalating tensions and triggering combat. tonight we feature american films that tell the story of the korean war. here is a preview. ♪ [the explosions] korea's plan for unifying korea was made known june 25, 1950, and it was my as sixy invasion, derision of north korea's people's army slammed into the republic of north korea. the rolling thrust seized the capital city of seoul. hota had suddenly become a cold war crisis. ♪

in our capital, reaction was dramatic and swift. president truman immediately offered military assistance to repel north korean aggression. ♪ another voice, that of the united nations, quickly condemned north korean aggression. in a series of meetings, it called on u.n. members to assist the republic of korea. designatedstates was executive nation to coordinate a military command. responded toions the u.n. request for military assistance. days -- in the 90 days following the invasion, it was as the u.n. build time to

match the scale of the expanding time to match the scale of the expanding war. ♪ as u.n. military units ported to the republic of korea, enemy ground targets were pounded by our air force. ground, heroic actions gave general macarthur and his u.n. command the time needed to prepare its own initiative. [explosions] initiative turned out to be the bold invasion of inchon, 100 50 miles behind north korean lines.

surprise and daring paid off. [heavy artillery fire] when elements of the first cavalry division raced 100 miles to link with advancing seventh infantry division forces come of the north korean plan for unifying korea became a nightmare. [heavy artillery fire] theatch archival films of korean war tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern, 7:00 p.m. pacific here on american history tv. >> you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-span

history for information on our schedule, and to keep up with the latest history news. >> the korean war began 70 years ago, june 25, 1950, and lasted just over three years. nest on history bookshelf, next on history -- ant on history bookshelf, author talks about the impact of the korean war on defense policies. this event was hosted in december, 2019. >> good afternoon. today is another in the books at wilson series in which we are delighted to launch