THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 27, 1995 TAG: 9512230178
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 153 lines
ICE SKATING HAS REPLACED surfing, jet skiing and volleyball as the Beach sport of choice these days.
It may even be gaining on whale watching and could elbow its way into a prominent spot on the summer Beach calendar.
That, of course, depends on the whims of public patronage and municipal financing, which weigh heavily on its future.
From as far away as Colorado, hundreds of visitors are coming to while away winter hours on rented blades, coasting on the glassy surface of a 150-by-70-foot patch of frozen water at Starship Ice.
This is a portable rink erected on a vacant lot on Atlantic Avenue at 31st Street under a huge, opaque plastic cocoon that measures 180 feet long, 90 feet wide and 30 feet high. The giant, loaf-shaped building is inflatable and covers a rink that can hold up to 350 people.
Inside, patrons glide and even float like ballet dancers. Some skid, some waggle and some fall.
But any way you slice it, their exertions add a jolt of excitement to an Oceanfront business corridor normally chilly and dormant this time of year.
Randy Boley, visiting from Colorado, was circling the ice on a recent Sunday afternoon with son Rusty, 7, and daughter Brandy, 11. With each circuit of the rink they were gaining confidence in their ability to stay erect.
Earlier, there had been cause for some doubts. ``That ice is hard,'' said Dad of the unforgiving surface. That said, he skated off into a pack of milling amateurs.
Among them were Patti and Greg Ryals of Suffolk and son Regan, 4, who were delicately navigating the rink.
They had learned of the Oceanfront attraction by word of mouth, said Greg Ryals, and had decided to make the 45-minute trip from Suffolk to try it out.
So inspired by the experience was young Regan, that he decided to ask Santa to put a hockey stick and puck under his Christmas tree.
Starship Ice is a portable structure, conceived, organized and built by Allan L. Harvie Jr., a transplanted Canadian who founded and formerly owned the Richmond Renegades ice hockey team.
Harvie was persuaded to bring his traveling rink - it takes eight tractor trailers to haul the rig and related equipment - to the Virginia Beach Oceanfront to be part of the Holiday Lights at the Beach program.
The lights program, which opened Nov. 22 on the Boardwalk and will continue through Jan. 7, was the brainchild of the Virginia Beach Hotel and Motel Association. Innkeepers view the event as a festive device to draw visitors and their wallets to the Oceanfront in early winter.
They hoped that the rink, the lights and nearby restaurants would keep folks around long enough to spend discretionary dollars on pizza, pasta dinners and T-shirts.
Bill Reid, president of Cellar Door Productions, which oversees Boardwalk events year-round, says the light display and rink are doing remarkably well so far.
Harvie and his staff are counting as many as 600 skating customers on weekend evenings and afternoons, while the light show has attracted about 30,000 cars since it opened.
This translates into nearly 120,000 visitors to the Oceanfront, if you average four people per vehicle.
The ice skating operation has been a pleasant surprise to Reid. ``It's a unique business and it gives a whole new dimension to the Oceanfront,'' he said. ``We think it's a natural and hope to have it again next year.''
The rink is open seven days a week, although business is heavier on weekends.
Hours vary from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday. It's best to call ahead (491-8822) because the ice is reserved certain hours for lessons, parties and maintenance.
Admission is $5.50 per person; skate rentals are an additional $2.50. Rates for hockey and skating lessons and group use also are available.
Starship Ice is to stay open until early or mid-March, but Harvie is dickering with the city to continue the operation into the summer.
Working with him to secure a lease extension is City Councilman Linwood O. Branch III, a resort innkeeper who represents the Beach borough.
Branch sees the ice rink as a valuable piece of an Oceanfront entertainment mosaic in the making. Other efforts are being made to expand the resort shoulder seasons, he said.
Among them is a potential deal to locate a large music entertainment complex, like the Carolina Opry operation in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The idea is to place it on the old Dome site on Pacific Avenue, where it would be a magnet for country-western music buffs throughout the state.
Another option is a proposed retail and entertainment complex on Baltic Avenue at 31st Street, a plan that has been in the making for several years.
Harvie has big plans for his portable rink concept, not the least of which is building one big enough to house a regulation hockey game. Other plans include the purchase of another East Coast Hockey League team or a National Hockey League franchise, although not necessarily in Hampton Roads, which already is home to the Admirals franchise.
His Virginia Beach rink is the first of its kind to be erected anywhere, Harvie claims, and it is a prototype for things to come. It is covered by an air-supported skin of plastic and contains mechanical chillers and humidifiers that create the skating surface and maintain a room temperature of about 55 degrees - even when the temperature outside hovers around the 100-degree mark.
The rink was designed for operation in the tropical climate of the Caribbean Sea, said Harvie. He had planned to erect one on the island of St. Thomas but was diverted to Virginia Beach by Reid, of Cellar Door, and a contingent of city officials.
A native of Charlottetown, on Prince Edward Island in Canada, Harvie has been playing hockey or has been involved in the game since he was 3.
He maintains his corporate headquarters in Richmond under the Adanac banner, and commutes to Virginia Beach to keep close tabs on the Oceanfront operation.
``Adanac is Canada spelled backwards,'' Harvie explained proudly. It's his way of maintaining strong and lingering ties to his homeland, a place where iced ponds are not as rare and awe-inspiring as they are below the Mason-Dixon line.
Harvie is in his mid-40s and has two daughters. One is a freshman at the College of William and Mary. The other is a 13-year-old figure skater with her eyes on the Winter Olympics.
Harvie got into the rink business, he said, after discovering the popularity of his Richmond hockey franchise, which he sold in 1993. When not in use by the Renegades, Harvie opened it to the public for skating.
It became so popular that he opened a second permanent rink. Then he seized on the idea of developing a portable ice rink that could be transported to small towns and communities that could not afford full-blown permanent rinks.
Virginia Beach already has one year-round operation - Iceland of Virginia Beach in the Pembroke area.
Harvie also has announced plans to build permanent ice rinks in the Greenbrier area of Chesapeake and in Newport News. ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
ICY IDEAS
The rink belongs to Allan L. Harvie Jr., left, former owner of the
Richmond Renegades ice hockey team.
Staff photos by DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH
Skaters go round and round on the ice under an opaque plastic cocoon
that measures 180 feet long, 90 feet wide and 30 feet high. The
rink, on Atlantic Avenue at 31st Street, holds up to 350 people.
ABOVE: Four-year-old Regan Ryals falls and his dad, Greg, follows
him down. Mom, Patti Ryals, couldn't restrain a laugh. The family
came from Suffolk to try out the new rink.
AT RIGHT: Michelle Harris has a grip on son Sean Durett, 5, who
appears to be a little unsure of his footing.
ON THE COVER:
Teri Cash and her 5-year-old daughter, Lauren, hold onto each other
on the slippery ice at the new Oceanfront rink.
Staff photos
by DAVID B.
HOLLINGSWORTH
by CNB