VENUE DESCRIPTION

Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. The village has a population of 2,600 and is near the center of the Town of North Elba, 52 miles southwest of Plattsburgh. Lake Placid, along with nearby Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, comprise what is known as the Tri-Lakes region.

Lake Placid is best known as the two-time site of the Winter Olympics, in 1932 and 1980. In the United States, the village is especially remembered as the site of the 1980 USA-USSR hockey game the Miracle on Ice, when a group of American college students and amateurs upset the heavily favored Soviet national ice hockey team 4-3 and two days later won the gold medal. The victory is often ranked as the greatest in American sports history. It is also the site of the Olympic Oval, where Eric Heiden won his five Olympic gold medals.

Lake Placid also hosted the 1932 Winter Olympics. Along with St. Moritz, Switzerland, and Innsbruck, Austria, it is one of the three places to have twice hosted the Winter Olympic Games. Lake Placid was the first location in North America to host two Olympic games. Los Angeles became the other when it hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time in 1984.

Lake Placid is well known among winter sports enthusiasts for its skiing, both Alpine and Nordic. Whiteface Mountain, in nearby Wilmington about 21km from Lake Placid, offers skiing, hiking, gondola rides, and mountain biking, and is the only one of the High Peaks that can be reached via an auto road. The area has one of only four bobsled rides in the western hemisphere, and is one of the few places in the contiguous United States which offers dogsled and sleigh rides.

Many people use Lake Placid as a base from which to climb the 46 High Peaks in the Adirondack Mountains; those who complete these climbs may join the Adirondack 46ers.