JOHNSTOWN, Pa. _ In the same arena where the 1977 film "Slap Shot" once satirized the violence of hockey, Donald Trump gave a typically bare-fisted speech, taking on his rival, the media and President Barack Obama.
"The world hates our president. The world hates us," said the Republican presidential nominee before a crowd of at least 4,000 at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena.
The country had been led by "stupid people," he said. "Your government betrayed you, and I'm going to make it right."
Much of his 45-minute speech covered familiar territory, decrying U.S. trade policy and its approach to the Middle East under his Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "We have spent now $6 trillion in the Middle East, and we are in far worse shape than we were 15 years ago," he said.
Trump made a handful of references to Johnstown, name-dropping once-mighty local employers such as the Cambria Iron Works and Bethlehem Steel.
"Our political system failed the workers of Johnstown and gave your jobs to foreign producers," he said. "We got the poverty: They got the factories, the jobs and the wealth."
Days after a debate appearance in which he declined to say whether he would recognize the Nov. 8 election results as valid, Trump dialed down his direct criticism of the election process. He did, however, refer frequently if vaguely to "a rigged system," pledging, "With your help, we're going to beat the system and we're going to unrig the system."
The crowd was boisterous throughout, chanting, "Lock her up!" several times, including when Trump called Clinton "a corrupt globalist," and booing when he called out the "dishonest people in the media." He criticized the press repeatedly, though without referring to the news story that has vexed him most in recent days: women who claim he groped or otherwise accosted them.
The audience even cheered Trump's proposed constitutional amendment to impose term limits on congressional representatives _ a potentially ironic response, given that Johnstown has benefited from defense-industry jobs secured with the help of the late John Murtha, a Democrat who served 19 terms in Congress.
"For the rest of your life, you're going to remember this day," Trump pledged as his speech wrapped up. "The change you've been waiting for will finally arrive."
On Friday, much of the wait took place under gray clouds and scattered rain. By lunchtime, several hundred people were lined across a bridge over the Stonycreek River leading to a cancer center named after Murtha.
While polls show a Trump victory becoming increasingly unlikely, supporters like Peggy Lohr, of Johnstown, said they'd be skeptical of any election Trump didn't win.
"There's proof that things have been rigged in cities like Philadelphia," said Lohr _ a claim that has been decried by both Republican and Democratic officials there.
What would it take for Lohr to accept election results if Hillary Clinton were the winner? "I'm not sure that you would be able to convince me," she said, citing the fact that "Trump's rallies bring in 10,000 people. Hillary gets maybe 100."
Sharon Nagle, of nearby Vinco, said she feared Clinton would continue an effort begun by Obama to overthrow Middle Eastern rulers so "the Muslim Brotherhood can take power. ... Obama is helping them get the caliphate, and America is in the plans. That's what Black Lives Matter is about."
Earlier in the morning, Democrats and union officials held a press conference decrying the use of Chinese steel in some of Trump's buildings, a common Democratic talking point. Mickey Sgro, a union officer representing public-sector workers, tried to dispel fears that Clinton would seek to overturn the Second Amendment.
"I'm a gun owner, and I had my guns during the Clinton administration (and) the Barack Obama administration," he said. "They told you (Democrats) were going to take away your guns then, they are lying to you now."
But Trump's visit to Johnstown, like his rally in Ambridge last week, reflects his appeal to working-class voters in struggling communities. One-third of Johnstown's roughly 20,000 residents live at or below the poverty level. While its downtown is still graced by handsome buildings, they are just blocks away from industrial sheds that once employed thousands.
One of them was Trump supporter Ken Suder of nearby Windber, who spent nearly two decades on a hot rolling mill for Bethlehem Steel here. Asked whether he blames that on trade deals, Trump's most frequent target, for the loss of that job in 1992, Suder shrugged.
"There were a lot of things happening to the steel industry," Suder said. "It was trade, but they didn't modernize. I worked on a rolling mill built in the early 1900s."
How would Suder and his wife, Donna, feel if Clinton won the election? Suder said that even though she'd oppose such an outcome, "I guess I'd have to say it's legit. What else are we going to do?"
"I do a lot of canning," said Ken Suder with a smile. "We're ready."
