We lived in Chapel Hill, NC for years and our daughter skated at the Triangle Sportsplex before we moved out of state. Hillsborough, NC about 8 miles north of Chapel Hill and is a wonderful little community that dates back to before Revolutionary War times. (Daniel Boone used to frequent the place before heading off to Kentuk.) I'll bet there are some good values in homes & property around that area and you'd be 5 min. from the rink, which is a nice facility. It has a bit of Andy Griffith of Mayberry feel to it. (Don't know how that will suit you if you're coming from NY.) The area is really starting to grow so shopping and schools should be pretty decent and close.

Good Luck!

Thanks to everyone who suggested towns and rinks. I checked out three different rinks - Ice House/Cary, Triangle Sportsplex, and the Factory. Really liked the Factory.

Loved Apex, Wake Forest, and Hillsborough. I really disliked Chapel Hill, Cary and Durham, mainly because of the traffic lights and the highway grids. (I was getting very tired by the time we reached those cities.)

We're going to try another trip next month closer to the ocean, just to see if we like it better.

All suggestions are still welcome.

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Funny you should mention the area. I was just talking to someone yesterday and she mentioned she was thinking of moving to the Raleigh/Durham area. Who knew it was so popular!

Question for you, do you know if biking or hiking are popular activities? And if so, are there groups and where do you find these groups?

How is it for adult skaters in North Carolina, around the Raleigh/Durham area?

I know this is so sick, but I only want to move where there are good ice rinks.

This job I'm looking at has an office in Wilmington, N.C., but there's only one ice rink and freestyles are in the middle of the workday.

I'm not sure I'm thinking clearly but I like ice skating! And the company also has an office in Morrisville (Norrisville?)

I would probably live in Chapel Hill.

Thanks!

Another option to consider--would the employer in Wilmington be able to offer flexible hours (e.g., come in early and have a long midday break) for certain days of the week when you want to skate?

(Sorry, just had to suggest that, as I'm partial to the Wilmington area--I have family who live in Wrightsville Beach, and I love W'Beach and Wilmington....)

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Definately!

I live in NC and know a great place for skating is around the NC state university area.

There are 4 rinks including 2 nhl size and 1 olympic and PLENTY of ice time.

Around chapel hill there are less facilities but Jane Bugaeva trains there and she was like 9'th at nationals. That rink also has good coaches including an olympian in pairs I'm pretty sure. Jane told me herself that they have very good coaches there and a choreographer who choreographs a Belgian guy that was in either worlds ot olympics I forgot. There is also a coach who does video analysis right on the ice. Its a great facility!

Around the Duke university area there is lots of figure skating also.

Trust me...its a very active area in figure skating and you wont have trouble finding time to practice if you move around the nc state uni. area.

Figure skating and ice hockey has really boomed in NC over the past decade or so. I remember when I started back in '89 we had only a handful of year-round surfaces, with just the one rink in the Triangle area (and I had to commute 50 miles one way to get to that one. )

I'm glad to see it spreading back to my old stomping grounds, the eastern part of the state. Now they have re-opened rinks in two cities there, where it used to get notoriously hot in the summers and maintaining an ice surface just couldn't be done.

You should have no problem finding plenty of ice time around the Triangle as the other posters have said. The rink closest to Chapel Hill is in Hillsborough, only about a 20 minute drive (or less) away (unless there's new stuff that's been built in the area since I left the state last year!).

I just visited the rink in wilmington a week ago. That is a very nice rink but a little more expensive than i was used to it is only 2 years old. The coaches there seem to be really nice too i took from some one named morgan and she was great with me any time i am in the area i am going to try and see her. Actually i think the midday freestyles right now are only for the camp i think when school starts back up they will go to the afternoon ie 4 and 5 pm. They have alot of hockey at that rink and public sessions were a mess when i was there they were impossible to skate on. Just my personal experience from my recent visit.

There are actually 2 pairs coaches who are Olympians: Elena Betchke (O Silver Medalist) and Mirko Mueller-Goolsbey (also World Bronze Medalist). Besides the big names, there are quite a few good coaches. There are now 6 rinks in the area, one of which is a twin sheet facility. Google them to find their websites. They are: Cary Ice House, Garner Ice House, The Factory in Wake Forest, Iceplex, RecZone, and Triangle Sportsplex in Hillsborough.

www.arenamaps.com will give you a list of rinks to check out websites, etc.

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Thanks all! This is good news.

Now I just need this company to interview me and give me the job

by the way if you are interested jsut check out this site which has info on most of the ice rinks in NC

http://www.icehouserinks.com/

just select which one you want down the right side and in each site you can see what instructors are available- freestyle prices, etc.

Wilmington is so cheap!! $10 for an hour freestyle nas $80 for 10. Its like a givaway.

I know a coach who is moving there because she got a good offer.

I just looked at a bunch of the freestyle schedules...crazy! What, do they think people don't work during the day? I looked at three and the freestyles were between 8 a.m. and ending at 5:45 p.m. That's a disappointment for us workaday adult skaters!

Hi looplover,
I live in what used to be Morrisville, until Cary annexed us. So, if you get the job in Morrisville, you won't want to live out in Chapel Hill. That would be a 45-minute commute in traffic. You'd probably want to live in Morrisville or Cary; plus real estate is a lot less compared to Chapel Hill.

The closest rink to Morrisville is the Cary Ice House (www.icehouserinks.com). However, I don't like to skating there, because it's an older rink with the worst public sessions ever-- kids galore and birthday parties. It is also hard to play your own music during freestyles, because often there's no one upstairs to play your music (you can't just put in a tape or CD at rinkside). Other rinks that are about 25-35 minutes from Morrisville are the Reczone, where Kristi Yamaguchi skates, Raleigh Iceplex, Garner Ice House, Factory Ice House in Wake Forest, and Triangle Sportsplex. None of them have freestyle sessions that are good for working adults, besides early morning freestyles. The Reczone has good public sessions on weekends that are only $5 and often have fewer than 10 people. Their website is www.reczone.net . The Factory Ice House is the newest and biggest rink, but it is also the farthest away from Morrisville. Triangle Sportsplex is further west, and they have public sessions on Tues. and Thurs. evenings. They are crowded during the winter, but okay during the other seasons.

The schedule you are looking at right now is the summer camp schedule for the kids out of school after that is over in a couple of weeks i believe it is in the afternoon. I was just down there recently that daytime stuff was the summer camp.

CHEAP! I dont particularly find that cheap when i was down there i felt like it was costing me a fortune more than normal to skate at my home rink our normal price is 8 dollars and if you buy it is bigger incriments then you can get it as cheap as 5.50 and we also have empty public sessions during the week that are only 5 dollars for 3 hours of skating so i didnt know what to do when i had to pay 10 dollars per 45 minutes. What do you pay that you think that is cheap.

at my rink $8 is the price for 30min. Which means you esentially pay $16 for an hour long freestyle session. By buying in bigger increments you can get it doen to $7- which still comes out to $14 for a regular hour long freestyle session. I spend a lot of money on ice time.

I can top that!!!

My weekend rink: http://www.berkeleyiceland.com/freestyle.cfm

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Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

I moved from Long Island, NY to Raleigh a year and a half ago. Mind you, we have about 10 rinks on Long Island. When my husband said we had to leave LI in order to retire, he wanted to move to upstate NY, or, get this, Wisconsin (no insult intended cheeseheads, I had just had enough snow to last a lifetime.) When I blatantly refused to go anywhere colder than where I was already, and mentioned that I wouldn't be going anywhere there wasn't an ice rink, he told me to find a place with a cheaper cost of living that had what I wanted. Raleigh it was. I skate at the Factory in Wake Forest. How is it for adult skater? Just fine. Sometimes I'm the only one on the ice for the public session. You can buy bulk admissions and it winds up costing $4.50 for each session which lasts about anywhere from 2-4 hours depending on what else is going on. They let you play you own music. The ice cuts are usually very good. The coaching is excellent. I don't do the freestyle session because we have a lot of very talented young people, but the public sessions are usually pretty open and we can basically do what we want. I've also skated in Garner and and the Iceplex. All great. Good luck in getting the job.

Last year I thought I might move to NC but didn't, and now it looks like I might again. Does anyone know what is rink that's most adult friendly but with coaches that will push me and kick my butt as needed? In the Triangle area? I might move to Chapel Hill, or West Durham. I have such AOSS, I'm totally planning this move around proximity to good rinks more than proximity to the job (though am trying to incorporate both). Thanks!

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I'd suggest doing a search for that topic in this forum. Didn't we have some of that kind of info in the earlier thread?

FWIW, all of the rinks have coaches that take adults seriously. And most of the coaches give lessons at more than one rink. Exceptions: most of the Triangle Sportsplex and RecZone coaches tend to only coach at their respective rinks. So unless you're planning on taking more than 1 lesson per week with a specific coach, I'd recommend you plan your life around where you're going to spend more time practicing, rather than taking lessons. You can always drive to a different rink for a lesson once a week.

There are a couple of specific coaches I'd advise against, though. PM me when you get closer to moving, and I'll offer my suggestions.

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Thanks! I should have gone back to find the old thread!

In person interview is Thursday - if I move up I'll finally switch from ISI to USFSA (AN 2008 bound...hopefully)

__________________
Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
New boots __
(lowering the bar for 2010 as I haven't skated in a year)

Good luck!

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