Video, Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Convenes First Meeting to Advance Evaluation of 2042 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the full membership of the Lake Placid-New York City Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games Exploratory Committee, with nearly 90 members. The committee held its first full meeting in New York City today, marking the next phase of an evaluation of the feasibility of hosting a future Games in New York State.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Ashley, I want to thank you for assuming the additional responsibilities of delivering the Olympics for New York State in just a few short years. Not too much weight on your shoulder, but I'll be watching. Also the leadership of the Olympic Exploratory Committee here today and members of my cabinet who have been the wind beneath my wings when we come up with all kinds of crazy ideas - I actually turn to them and say, now let's make this happen. I want to thank Hope Knight, the President and CEO of ESD, Hope Knight - thank you. Karen Persichilli Keogh, the Secretary to the Governor who is really just doing an extraordinary job - I thank her - this is a passion project for Karen as well. Blake Washington, my budget director because I'm sure there's a few bucks involved in this - be nice to Blake. James Katz, the Deputy Secretary for Economic Development as well. And to all of you, this was kind of a fun task when I said, "I want to find the dreamers and the doers. Find me the best and the brightest. Find with the people who have passion, but also know how to deliver results." And that's why you're sitting in this room.

You've been hand-selected by my team and many smart people who said, "Who can get this exploratory committee off the ground?" And after one year of study, and I have a feeling we'll come up with the answer I'm looking for in one year - that we are ready to do this - I just want to put that out there. You can do all this study you want, but I'm expecting the answer to be a resounding yes - we can pull this off. But we'll go through the work because I am ready to bring the Olympic flame right back here to New York. In fact, as I was walking in, I said, "Name another city in the world that has hosted three Winter Olympic games, and the answer was it will be Lake Placid?" Only one, only one. So I was thinking I don't know if you want to call this a three-peat or something, we got to get this going. I know "Knicks in five," we're excited about the big game starting tomorrow night as we take down the Sixers.

I think about sports - sports really runs through our veins, it certainly does mine. As someone who's been on an emotional roller coaster my entire life, which is what you call a Buffalo Bills fan. You think how they won yesterday, It was a good game. I said "Go, Bills. Go Bills." Well, I digress from my remarks, as I always do. Apologies to the speechwriters, but I was watching Spectrum News this morning lamenting the loss of the Giants and Jets. I am sorry for the fans in the room, I do feel bad about that. I'm a mom of a big state, I've got to love everybody. But the announcer on Spectrum says, "I don't know why everybody doesn't just root for the only team that plays in New York." He said that, I did not okay, so I had to put that out there. I would not say that - especially with two weeks to go, I'm not saying things like that. But if we can do this, it's the people in this room. It's all of you who have understood and the expertise we have from the Olympic and Paralympic Olympic Committee - we have some representatives here as well. Today is our first full meeting, great attendance. Thank you for showing up. And I knew as I said, "I need to gather the people who could make this become a reality."

Olympic dreams are just, again, so inspiring for all of us. As a child who watched every Olympic game. And I was just thinking I was - okay, I'll admit it - I had a debate a couple of days ago, about a week ago. As I'm preparing for my final moments to the debate, getting ready to go out the door, I watched the Miracle on Ice segment again and was reminded that great moments turned into great opportunities and this is our time. And as I'm walking out the door, "Yeah, this is our time." I'm all fired up - put me out there coach. So then I go in and do my debate. So I also listen to the Rocky training segment as well - that's always helpful. So sports are part of who I am, you don't grow up in a household with mostly all brothers who are super athletes and I was the nerd - I wasn't athletic at all, but I certainly watched a lot of competition. You have to be fairly competitive to be in the business I'm in. And so this is a very, very special moment for me is what I'm trying to convey, that this is a big deal for our State at this moment in time when I can be the Governor - the highest honor of my life, to be able to put New York State forward as the most logical place for the very next opening in the Olympics, because '38 spoken for, '42 is the very next one.

And I know when we finish our work over this next year that we'll put forth a proposal that people say, of course it just makes sense. And there are leaders behind this as well. I want to thank Bobby Carroll in particular. Bobby has been an Assemblymember who knows the North Country, who understands this incredible synergy we can create. And I've tried so hard as the first upstate Governor in probably 100 years and first one from Buffalo since Grover Cleveland and that was a long time ago. But I've always wanted to find a unifying theme for our whole State. What brings us together and I do believe it is sports. So it's not just saying "Oh, we're hosting the Olympics in Lake Placid again and we're encouraging people to come up and experience inviting all the tourists from New York City, etc." No, this could be a statewide phenomenon and that is the brilliance of this particular bid - that is the brilliance of it. And we saw it work so successfully just this past winter and people were okay traveling some considerable distance from one city to another.

So with Amtrak and I'm going to be working on them to go faster. Anybody from Amtrak in the room? Okay, speed it up. Wouldn't it be great to have high speed rail in place by then? Step up, in fact I'll call the president right now and tell him that's what I'm looking for - he runs Amtrak I don't. But there's no place better than New York to put together this bid because we offer what few places - premier sporting venues and then the beauty of Lake Placid. I just want all of our representatives from the North Country to stand up right now and we've received, our elected officials, our representatives - come on stand up. Elected officials from the North Country, everybody who lives in the North Country, loves the North Country - and thank you. I believe this is going to be a generational opportunity. The planning now, the talk, the buzz, the excitement and people saying, "Well we're probably going to need some more hotels and restaurants and housing." I'm going to be focused on this to just inject new energy into the North Country.

It's a spectacularly beautiful part of our State, and it has been hit hard. The war with Canada right now, that is hurting the North Country more than any part of our State because the synergies and the relationships between the Canadians and New Yorkers are just so close. So it's been a real hit to the local economy, the Canadians have not been coming over to go into the little shops. I mean do you blame them? But this has had a real hard impact on the economy of upstate. So I wanted to also just kind of supercharge interest in this beautiful part of our State. And for all of you, I'm sure you've all been up there, but if you haven't this is one of your assignments to go up there and spend a lot of money as a tourist as you explore all the venues. So that's a directive from your Governor. But we've already made some significant investments up there. We didn't just - the last Olympics in 1980 just let all the facilities decline. No, no, we've made massive investments. In just $750 million recently to make it truly Olympian quality, and that's why we have so many of the teams come and practice.

When I was there in August, we had young women, Olympic potentials, even little girls playing hockey. One little ten year old I said, "Keep playing hard. You'll be skating in my '42 Olympics right here." So that's what's going on, the people are still coming. Whether it's the sledding events, we've made major investments to make sure that athletes from around the world are familiar with our facilities, because that's where they're doing their training and their practices. So once again, New York State is proving itself after this historic summer. I hope you're all involved in this summer, this was one for the record. The FIFA World Cup, that was extraordinary and showed our capacity of what we could do when all the eyes of the world are looking at New York State. It came off safely - that's number one despite all the concerns and threats that were out there, we came out safely. We got people moving back and forth. It was less expensive to go on our system to go over to New Jersey than it was on their way but I'm not going to get into a fight over that. We believe in affordability in New York State. Also the Knicks title run - extraordinary. I'm going to be leaving here shortly to do a Knicks event as well as the US open - all within such a short time. So it showed we have the capacity. And so the Milano Cortina Olympics proved that this dual location can work, and pairing these beautiful venues together is going to be extraordinary. I do want to make an announcement here as well, as I'm trying to get back on track with my speech since I just kind of made up my own. I will say this, I also was touched by the commitment of some people I saw up there who want to make sure that we memorialize the Miracle on Ice, and how do you do that? Because this is embedded in all New Yorkers, this is our story.

And we know that we were all so swept up in the moment at the time. I remember when I was - most of you weren't even born when the 1980 Olympics - I'm looking around this very young room. But I was working at the Varsity Pizzeria at Syracuse University when I was announcing the play-by-play of the Miracle on Ice when we played the Soviets. And it was such an exciting time. It wasn't on television, people weren't watching it. I was able to narrate it, and I was like a big celebrity then because I knew the score, and I was the one telling everybody. And it was just - we were all so swept up in that moment. It's hard to believe it's been 46 years since then, and we have people that are just so dedicated to making sure we can do this. And also, as I said, memorialize this. So there's a group of people working on a life-size, 20-person bronze monument to the Miracle on Ice team. And so I want to make sure that that is successful, that people go up there, will ask the story, understand the story of what real Olympic competition is about. It's about teamwork, it's about believing in each other, it's about trusting a coach, it's about inspiration and words that carry on all these years even to today, I am still quoting it and still remembering those moments.

So I wanted to make sure that we could have a statue memorializing these individuals and Jeff Potter. Jeff, are you here today? Jeff, stand up please. Jeff is on our committee, leading the effort, and I want to help him finish the job. So here today, I'm announcing $2.5 million to complete the monument to memorialize the 1980 Miracle on Ice team and make history. Jeff, I can't wait to see it. So, 16 years to the next Olympics, I'm ready. I'm so excited as I think about again my last quote would be Herb Brooks, the coach of the team in 1980. I just have to ask, has everybody seen Miracle on Ice? Anybody not, don't raise your hand. Go home and watch it tonight because that's what this is all about - that's what New York is all about. It is sometimes being the underdog, sometimes getting knocked down. People underestimating you, something I know a little bit about, but also persevering and through real grit and determination and being able to come out on top. And that is the New York story. That is the quintessential New York story, is the Olympic story and is our story. And as Herb Brook said, "Success is won by those who believe in winning, who believe in winning and then prepare for that moment."

I believe we will win that bid. I believe that New York will be selected as the venue for the 1942 - I'm sorry - 2042 - just see if I was awake yet. The 2042 Olympics and that's how preparation - It's starting right here. So a lot at stake for our economy, for tourism, for our identity and our pride. But I am looking at the room of my dreamers, my Olympic team, and I thank all of you for being part of this journey. It's going to be extraordinary.

Thank you very much, everybody.