
Thirteen year old W arrives Ion Tuesday at 5:30am for his hockey lesson. He’s tired, but with headphones in playing music that gets him ready to skate and learn he carries his hockey bag that weighs as much in pounds as the 30 degree temperature outside to the automatic doors. But yet again, the facility owners haven’t shown up in time to open the building for his lesson.
He traipses back to the car and chats with his coach through each of their car windows as he waits to do his favorite thing in the world. He’s anxious he’ll be late for school, but as the owners open the rink 15 minutes later than promised he knows he can get ready in just eight minutes (he’s timed himself before) and should still get the full hour.
He’d love to get ready in his team locker room. The hockey director and other volunteers spent hours and thousands of dollars to make the space the best locker room in the DMV. But they’ve had to keep it locked because the owners keep taking the pucks paid for by the foundation the parents started and don’t return them. The strictly volunteer supported foundation (Loudoun Hockey Fund, a program of the Stay in the Game Foundation) donated over $10,000 in financial aid to players in need a year after the rink owners still hadn’t paid local charity LAWS the money they collected from the 2023 volunteer lead golf tournament (the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office was informed of the fraud with no resolution).
Instead, W gets ready in a locker room ill suited for his full team. His team has to get ready in separate rooms because of poor facility design. He recalls hearing the same speech twice, once muffled through the thin drywall. But today it’s just him and three friends. There’s plenty of space to quickly dress but the leaking toilets, broken bathroom stall door, and lack of toilet paper and paper towels are still the same from his home game two weeks ago. But those are minor inconveniences to him, he just craves the ice time.
Meanwhile, W’s mom, C, starts her day early as well. She brings her laptop to the rink and sits in the stands emailing the other families who have volunteered to “pink the rink” in between doing what she loves most, watching W skate. She and dozens of other volunteers with the Washington Little Caps and Loudoun Knights families that play at Ion raised more money to fight breast cancer in 2023 and 2024 than any other rink in the country. She knows it was a busy weekend, but as she lifts her eyes from the laptop she is surprised the stands around the rink remain filled with trash. This is her son’s second home having spent hundreds of hours at the facility since it opened in 2019, so she treats it as such. Closing her laptop, she finds a trash bag and cleans the stands herself. It’s not the first time. Despite the neglect from the owners, she doesn’t want anyone else to see the rink like this.
C smiles at W’s effort and the incredible coaching he’s receiving. She had never been a hockey fan, but is now a Capitals season ticket holder and can call an offside penalty as quick as the incredible referees that make sure the kids can play each week - referees that nearly had to be paid by the foundation because the rink owners have failed to pay on time, yet again despite collecting over $700,000 from families before the season for the operations of the organization.. She also has learned to see the visible sand and concrete under the ice as it’s become so thin and potentially dangerous. She watches the puck take its usual trick bounce off the boards where the zam collided years ago as well. The same neglected zam that has delayed games when it fails to properly cut the ice, hence the sand and concrete.
Despite the myriad frustration, Ion remains a happy place for W and C. Both, along with hundreds of other children and families, have put so much time into building themselves and the Knights and Little Caps programs into something the entire community can appreciate. The public skates, the figure skating training, the middle and high school hockey games, the birthday parties and camps are all part of the fabric of Loudoun County now.
But all the mismanagement has taken its toll and the Little Caps are trying to find a new home. The owners have lined their pockets and neglected the facility. The rent and other bills can’t be covered and hundreds of families will be forced to seek limited ice time elsewhere or quit skating altogether. The owners will attempt to spin this as a positive with a scheme concocted with the Leesburg mayor to transition the facility to a performing arts center or something else. But they’ll mismanage that too like they have done when they canceled concert after concert while refusing to refund Loudoun County residents for their tickets. Another data center is the seemingly inevitable outcome. The surrounding restaurants may fail as well creating room for a third data center in what had been a growing commercial district. The land owners will make more millions and the residents of Loudoun county will lose jobs, family entertainment, and what many consider their second homes.
It’s 7:00AM and W has a huge smile as he leaves the ice and hustles to remove his gear and get dressed for school starting in 30 minutes. He’s seen the signs at the facilities and heard the rumors no matter how much his parents try to shield him from them. It makes him anxious, but he can’t imagine adults would ever lose this joy for hockey, let alone steal his. But it’s over. Ion may close as an ice facility and this 13 year old’s first love - the one that began when he was just 8 years old when he first stepped on the ice at Ion, will be stolen by the owners who ruined the business and the investors and politicians who did nothing, knowing they had a data center backup plan all along.
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