Join us for an afternoon celebrating hockey history. The afternoon will feature an exclusive screening of The Russian Five followed by a conversation with Keith Gave, the journalist who helped bring the legendary Russian Five to Detroit!
1:00PM – Screening of The Russian Five
3:00PM – In Conversation with Keith Gave
Keith Gave is the author of three books, which cap an eclectic career that included lengthy stints as a soldier, spy, newspaperman, radio host, TV analyst, publicist, college professor, and filmmaker—all before he set out to write books.
Gave spent six years in the United States Army as a Russian linguist working for the National Security Agency during the Cold War, including three years in West Berlin when it was surrounded by a wall. Nothing could have better prepared him for a career as a sports writer covering hockey for the Detroit Free Press. That’s when he experienced the cloak-and-dagger assignment of his career; on a covert mission to Helsinki, Finland, he passed along messages to two young Soviet hockey players who would eventually lead the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup summit for the first time in 42 years.
That experience led to two books: The Russian Five, A Story of Espionage, Defection, Bribery and Courage (March 2018) and Vlad The Impaler, More Epic Tales from Detroit 1997 Stanley Cup Conquest (April 2022). His third book, A Miracle of Their Own, A Team, A Stunning Gold Medal and Newfound Dreams for American Girls (October 2022), was written with co-author Tim Rappleye and tells the remarkable story of one of the greatest upsets in hockey history that took place 25 years ago when Team USA beat powerful Canada in the first-ever Olympic women’s ice hockey tournament in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. And how American girls who loved the sport of hockey now had role models of their own gender – all sporting glistening gold medals.
Gave’s IMDB profile lists credits as writer/producer on the award-winning documentary film, ‘The Russian Five’ and his appearance in ‘Tough Guy, The Bob Probert Story.’
A native of suburban Detroit, Gave’s news career has spanned more than 40 years, including assignments with The Associated Press (Chicago Bureau), the Detroit Free Press, and the Dallas Morning News, where his editors nominated him for a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. More recently, he spent nearly 20 years as a college English and journalism instructor before “retiring” to write books.
He lives in Northern Michigan, where he continues to write and serve as a part-time sports director for a Northern Michigan radio network – when he’s not sneaking off to cast a fly to the trout on his home waters of the AuSable River.
