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“Over my 50-plus years in sports writing, I’ve written thousands and thousands of stories,” said Ray Didinger, who has been covering Philadelphia sports for newspapers, radio, television and in books for over half a century.

“But I’ve never written another story like this one,” he said.

In December 1970, Didinger was working overnight at the sports desk for the Philadelphia Bulletin newspaper when an Associated Press story came over the wires about an incident in Prince George, British Columbia. A man had taken a television station hostage at gunpoint and demanded they broadcast a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game.

The man was Roy Spencer, of Fort St. James, a remote logging town halfway between Vancouver and Alaska. His son, Brian “Spinner” Spencer, had just been called up to play with the Maple Leafs. It was Brian’s first game in the NHL and was going to be broadcast nationally by the Canadian Broadcast Company.

It was an important moment for Brian and perhaps more so for Roy, who had been pushing Brian to excel at hockey for his son’s entire life.

But Roy’s elation turned to disappointment when the CBC decided at the last minute to broadcast a different game.

“He just snapped, emotionally, and went to the TV station with a gun,” said Didinger about Roy. “He took a couple employees hostage and was demanding that they change the broadcast.”

What happened that night, and how it reverberated for the rest of Brian’s short and tragic life, is the subject of Didinger’s new play, “Spinner,” which is now having its world premiere at the Delaware Theatre Company in Wilmington.

“I don’t see it as a play about hockey. I see it as a play about family,” Didinger said. “It’s about dreams and the price people pay to realize their dreams. Sometimes that price can be terribly, terribly high.”

Back in 1970 — this is not really a spoiler because the story has been covered many times over the next 50 years — Roy Spencer held station employees at gunpoint and forced them to shut down the broadcast entirely. A police standoff occurred outside the station, which ended as Roy was shot and killed.

His son did not know anything had happened until the Maple Leafs game ended and he called his parents to celebrate his victory.

“I mean, it didn’t sound real,” Didinger said. “It sounded like some sort of fiction.”

The incident in 1970 had no ties to Philadelphia sports, but as a reporter, Didinger knew there was a there, there. He asked his editor if he could chase the story based on the fact that the Maple Leafs were soon coming to Philadelphia to play the Flyers. He made some calls to Canada, eventually connecting with Brian.

“I didn’t think there was much likelihood he would call me back because we didn’t know each other, but he did,” Didinger said. “We talked for a whole hour. He told me all about what happened. He told me all about his father and what he had gone through.”

Didinger wrote the story for the Bulletin but felt it should be more than a newspaper article.

“I always felt that someday I’m going to write that again,” he said. “When I began thinking about it, I thought, ‘Maybe it’s a play. Maybe that one night might work on the stage.’”

“Spinner” is Didinger’s second play. In 2016, he premiered “Tommy and Me,” a well-received personal story about his boyhood relationship with Eagles Hall of Famer Tommy McDonald.

“Spinner” jumps around in time from a single stage set evoking the life of a rural Canadian lumberjack, filled with stacks of chopped wood and furnished with tree stumps. Brian grew up with a twin brother named Byron, both played by Sean Lally. Brian, despite being the weaker player, had a drive that Byron did not.

The play suggests Roy, played by Scott Greer, had a focus on his son’s NHL prospects that was so intense it approached maniacal. Brian may have had a violent streak.

The fateful night is split on parallel tracks. The hostage crisis plays out in Prince George while, in Toronto, a nervous Brian nervously prepares for his first NHL game, dressing his father in accolades during a locker-room interview with a reporter, played by Bruce Graham.

During the hostage standoff, Roy suddenly becomes aware of the gravity of his stunt.

“How did this happen?” he says as the walls close in and police assemble outside the TV station. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

After his father’s death, Brian continued to play hockey for 10 years. In 1975, he played with the Buffalo Sabres against the Philadelphia Flyers for the Stanley Cup championship, which went to the Flyers.

“He was a left winger and a good player,” said Bernie Parent, the Flyers goalie during the championship.

Parent said he had not known of the tragedy at the TV station in 1970 and did not know Spencer personally, but remembers him on the ice as “awesome, tough and a good player.”

“Spinner” jumps to Florida in the 1980s, after Spencer’s hockey career is over and he is working in a garage. His post-hockey life has spun out of control, involving drugs and guns. Like his father, Spencer was killed violently at age 38.

Didinger said the death of Spencer’s father dogged him until the end. He stayed in touch with Spencer during his hockey career and saw life empty out of him.

“I remember him saying, ‘I always thought my father would be with me. Every game I play, every time I step on the ice, I hear my father’s voice,’” Didinger said. “He played over 500 games and he said they all felt the same. The wins and the losses, they all felt empty.”

“Spinner” runs at Delaware Theatre Company Sept. 17 to Oct. 5.