As soon as you step into the front door of the Ashburn Ice House you are in a different world. A world where ice skates give wings to gracefully glide, spin and jump, or to be part of a hockey team advancing on the opposing goal. Hold on a minute, in the real world this ice is really slippery!

On one of the facility's two huge skating rinks, in preparation to going next week to the 2005 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Portland, Oregon, five skaters are practicing under the sharp eyes of their coaches. The figure skaters include Jeremy Anderson, pair skaters Morgan Matthews and Maxim Zavozin, and Katrina Reyes and Jon Wright. Morgan and Maxim, two time National Junior Champions, World Junior Bronze medalists, and 2004 Grand Prix Final Champions, praise Ashburn Ice House as the "best training facility" they've ever experienced.

As soon as General Manager Rob Lorenzen finishes running the Zamboni machine to resurface the ice on one of the rinks, a bunch of AOL guys in full hockey gear head onto the rink for a pickup game during their lunch hour.

"We have activities for all types of people of all ages, with all ranges of skill," Rob explains as we sit down in his office, "starting with Learn to Skate programs for kids and adults." He's managed the facility since November 1998, and calls it the "Ritz Carlton" of hockey rinks. (He should know since he actually worked for Ritz Carlton.) Rob and his staff of 8 core employees coordinate the busy ice skating schedules and maintain the large facility.

"Once people know the basics of skating they choose figure skating or hockey and we offer a very full schedule of programs and public skating sessions." The rink has public recreational skating, birthday parties, corporate and private events, ice hockey and figure skate rentals, a video game room, a fully-equipped retail store, and Pomodoro's Italian Restaurant. There's even a drop-in workout facility and Dynamic Sports Performance training, a very sophisticated sport-specific training program for serious athletes and dedicated amateurs.

Rob wraps it up - "For a kid who grew up playing hockey, to be able to work in this environment and teach kids to love skating as much as I do is very, very gratifying! I invite people reading this to come down as a family and have some fun on the ice."