Hagerstown Ice & Sports Complex (Maryland)

Good times at Hagerstown Ice & Sports Complex

The ice rink at the Hagerstown Ice & Sports Complex is venue that is operated by a non-profit organization, rather than a private company. It offers public ice- skating sessions, lessons, birthday parties and rink rental. Additionally, hockey groups use the rink regularly. Recently, we had a birthday party at the rink, and here is our review.

The Hagerstown Ice & Sports Complex has a website, which is hagerstownice.org. This website is very helpful and offers a great deal of information. After reading the website, as we had interest in booking a birthday party, we emailed their organization, as the website instructs one to do when needing to make a reservation. The rink responded within 3 days and helped me with our booking. This was a very easy process. I was required to make a $50 deposit at the time of the booking to complete the reservation.

The rink offers 3 package options for birthday parties that cost a total of $175, $275 or $350. The party time offered is for two hours. Each package includes the private party room, cups/plates/napkins of your color choice, a certain number of entries for skaters in your group (10,15 or 20 skaters), pizzas (2,4 or 6 pizzas), 2 bowls of popcorn, and pitchers of soda (2,4 or 6). A customer is able to add on skaters, more pizzas or more soda for various, reasonable fees.

We held our party over the Christmas break when students were already off school. We were able to choose from public skate times for the party during the day or at night. We choose a time during the day, in order to avoid a more crowded rink during the evening skate.

As birthday parties are only offered during a regular, public skate time at Hagerstown Ice, it was absolutely wonderful having our own private party room. One of the things we liked the best about this party room, was its fabulous location. We have had parties at different rinks in the past, and the party room at those places was problematic. Here, the room is front and center, giving children easy access to go on and off the rink when wanted, and also giving a great view for parents/adults who are keeping an eye on the kids as they enjoy their time.

The party room is large and three large tables were provided for our event, as well as chairs. One of the things we liked most of all about our party room was the fact that we were welcome to bring any of our own decorations, food or drink that we wanted, in addition to what was already provided in the package deal by the rink. We brought our own tablecloths and table items to decorate things according to the theme we wanted. Additionally, we had several large trash bags with balloons. We were able to scatter these balloons around to give the room a party feel. I was able to also bring a large cooler, filled with ice and water bottles, other snacks and a birthday cake for the kids. This was really nice as we were able to make the party the way we wanted by adding the extras that we wanted to have. This is far better than other birthday party venues we've dealt with in the past that do not allow any outside food or drink in their party rooms.

The ice in the rink was freshly prepared for the skating session and in good condition. The rink also had some skate aids available for people who needed them, however they did not have enough of these. The condition of the skates that were provided for the skaters were okay. It seemed the blades definitely needed sharpened on the venue provided skates. Due to these dull skates, some had tough going on the ice, who were otherwise normally able to skate without a problem.

The skating was fun and combined with the party room being available to our group for a rest or refreshment, the event was a great success. The kids had a great time! Additionally, the two-hour time frame seemed to be perfect, allowing for a non-rushed pizza and presents portion to the party, along with plenty of ice skating.

I definitely would recommend Hagerstown Ice & Sports Complex for a birthday party. The price was reasonable, the venue was nice, and the staff was helpful.

Pros:

• great party room location

• reasonable price

• great, active thing for students to do over the Christmas break

• pizza was from a real pizza place

• able to bring your own additional waters/decorations/extra snacks

• staff was very helpful

• venue wasn't as crowded as some other ice rinks we had used previously

Cons:

• the blades on the ice skates really need sharpened

• the staff was very helpful, but they were short staffed as some workers had not shown up that day

• more skate aids need to be available for skaters who are just learning