Hockey is for everyone, but only if it remains available for everyone.
Update: Shortly after this article was published, Mitra Setayesh released a statement on Facebook titled as a letter to the parents of players with the Knights and Little Caps. My thoughts on this statement are at the bottom of the article.
A few weeks back, I collaborated with Sammi Silber on an article detailing the recent struggles for players at the Ion International Training Center (Ion ITC.), and the uncertain future of the Loudoun Knights Youth Hockey Program.
When news broke of the struggles facing the team, and Ion ownership's failure to pay coaches or officials, let alone fix facilities, it was sad to hear, although hardly a surprise to me.
Like many people who love this beautiful game, I love playing hockey. There is little more cathartic in life for me than lacing up my skates and hitting the ice. Whether I am skating "out" or playing in goal, I love being on the ice.
In 2021 after a recent move, I found myself searching for a new team, and I happened to get linked up with a veterans hockey team at Ion. I joined up and started playing with a close friend of mine, where we both made close friends on the team and thought the facilities were fairly nice.
The decay began to show quickly, however. It wasn't long before the ice quality became terrible. As a goalie, I'd play with huge puddles in my crease, and the locker room disrepair became very apparent.
The disorganization of the adult league was also a hassle, and games were postponed, only to never be rescheduled. In the end, Ion's apparent inability to manage its adult league and properly maintain its facilities led to its dissolution, forcing players to find teams elsewhere.
While this is mostly just a hassle for adult players, it is much more of a sensitive issue for youth.
Youth hockey is where memories happen. Kids make close friends and ties that are harder to maintain if their team breaks up or is forced to move. Joe Snively and Ryan Leibold are just two products of the Washington Little Caps, so youth hockey is also where dreams and foundations of careers begin.
And now, the Little Caps, along with the Loudoun Knights, are in jeopardy of losing their ability to play. It's not easy to find a new home, either; ice times are hard to come by, and it may not be easy commute-wise for families to head elsewhere, either.
Ion's owners, Mitra Setayesh and Luiz Taifas, while promising families that ownership was dedicated to preserving hockey in Leesburg, announced on Friday that they plan to pursue a new, unclear business venture, turning the facility into an events/convention center.
In a time of need, youth hockey in Leesburg fell through the ice, with the owners turning their back on it as several families remain in limbo.
After conducting interviews with multiple parents and volunteers for the rink and Knights, the dedication of these parent-volunteers (to the Knights and teams all over) cannot be understated.
These are truly the people that make youth hockey a possibility. Even the paid staff, like coaches and officials, are volunteering their time to help grow and mentor our young skaters. None of these programs are possible without any of these people giving up their free time to make it happen.
Yet, even when I played at Ion, the stories of coaches being paid late — or not paid at all — were abundant around the rink, not even a secret. These stories are even more pervasive today, as we learned of numerous instances of people receiving checks that failed to clear, or fighting for payments for their time and services. Mind you, these are payments that are calculated ahead of time and paid for with the fees that each parent pays to put their children into the Loudoun Knights programs.
Then there are the shoddy facilities, poor ice conditions and lack of regular maintenance. Speaking frankly, no parent should be going to the rink to take their child to an early morning practice only to wait outside in the cold for a late opening, and then be compelled to pick up garbage from the night before in an effort to make their home rink something they can feel proud of. Unfortunately, even that happened.
The importance of youth hockey programs for growing the game cannot be understated either. These are programs that have only become more popular with the increased popularity of the game, thanks largely in part to the Washington Capitals.
If the Loudoun Knights are forced to dissolve due to Ion transitioning to some kind of ambiguous "event center," it will likely force a lot of young players out of the game.
Not only are the Knights and Little Caps at risk, but so are assistance programs like the Stay in the Game Foundation, which offers underprivileged youth access to the expensive game of hockey, and the Killer Queens, which helps promote the girl's game in a very meaningful way. Both of these organizations are made up of parents and volunteers who have helped grow the sport in Loudoun County and throughout the entire region, and who have also fallen victim to Ion's mismanagement and "toxic" behavior and conduct, as described by one coach.
Youth programs may be abundant in the area, but they're only as good as the rinks and ice that support them. Ion has not delivered.
At the time of writing, Setayesh, despite issuing a press release welcoming media inquiries, has failed to respond to multiple requests for comment from The Hockey News, a trend which has also been reported by the Loudoun Times' Karen Graham. Parents and volunteers have also made comments surrounding poor and hostile communication from ownership.
It says a lot about this facility that it was founded on the false premise of being opened by a former Olympian; Taifas never competed in any of the Olympic Games.
It says even more about the ownership's motives that plans to abandon the ice rinks were filed in January, on the heels of a tragedy that claimed the lives of numerous members of the figure skating community.
Hockey and skating are in demand in the region, and the area can ill-afford to lose another rink to terrible, greedy business decisions. These players and skaters, along with their families, depend too greatly on it and have worked incredibly hard to make up the huge gaps created by Ion ownership's apparent lack of concern or care for creating a safe, stable environment for these young athletes.
Put simply, these young players and skaters need a rink that actually cares about them, and the volunteers, parents and coaches need the support, too.
I'm not sure what the future holds for the Loudoun Knights, Washington Little Caps and hundreds of young athletes that call Ion home. But the hope is that someone steps up to save the rink from ownership hell-bent on taking it away for personal gain.
Update: Mitra Setayesh posted the following statement to the Loudoun Knights Facebook page.
As you can see in the comments, this is being received about as well as expected, with commenters saying it feels like "gaslighting," and describing it as "infuriating." After reading the statement myself, I would agree. In my opinion, this entire statement places the blame for the rink's failures squarely on the parents and players. Statements such as "...the sheer amount of daily damage caused deliberately, for the most part, made it an uphill battle" and saying that locker room cleanliness between games isn't possible (note: it is...just go to most other rinks) play the blame game.
Then there's the statements about the financial failures of the rink, which Setayesh cast the blame on the patrons as well. Setayesh notes that the team fees go directly to the programs but do not help with the overall upkeep of the rink. She also wrote that the programs put on by the rink help paying for it, but states "...those programs have severely dropped in attendance over the past 2 years, either because they were boycotted by some of you, or because of financial impacts due to the recent economic situation, or you simply found our programs unworthy."
Also, her comment "I see no one – not one single person saying “this is our rink” or “this is our home rink”. Not. One. Person." is categorically false- simply go to the Loudoun Knights Facebook page and you can see countless people claiming this.
I'm not a businessman, but if the money collected for the programs and teams don't cover these costs, it's a problem with the business operations and not the patron. Other rinks in the region have figured out this formula and have been open for decades, and I'm going to make an assumption that this is less an issue with Ion being profitable, and more an issue of it not being profitable enough for owners and investors.