EDITORIAL: Shenango Valley 'knocked it out of the park' with roller skating championships

Jul. 13—THE skaters have been gone for more than a week, but the sign, reading "The City of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, Welcomes American Roller Sports" remained earlier this week at the roundabout next to Shenango Valley Mall.

But the welcome that American Roller Sports encountered in Hermitage last month when it held its national championships at Olympic Fun Center amounted to a lot more than a sign, at least where Jim McMahon, executive director of Roller Skating Association International, is concerned.

"In my 47-plus years being involved in roller skating and taking conventions and sporting events around the country, your little town just rocked it," McMahon said July 8 in The Herald's award-winning New Generation podcast. "You knocked it out of the park."

During the two weeks Roller Skating Association International spent in Hermitage last month, the organization crowned dozens of national champions. But Hermitage and the Shenango Valley were winners too, in tangible and intangible ways.

Figures previously reported by The Herald indicated that competitors and families booked more than 750 overnight stays at local hotels. Management at Park Inn by Radisson and Holiday Inn Express in Shenango Township reported 100% occupancy during the event.

"They were using hotels, they were using campgrounds," said Peggy Mazyck, executive director of VisitMercerCountyPA, the county's tourist promotion agency.

VisitMercerCountyPA was another winner in the roller sports championships. Much of the agency's revenue comes from a hotel occupancy tax earmarked for tourism promotion. And those additional hotel bookings mean VisitMercerCountyPA's bank accounts will get a bit heavier.

And the tourism agency will have earned it. Mazyck said the organization helped arrange use of parking and a shuttle service from off-site lots at Shenango Valley Mall, and a closer lot at First National Bank on weekends when its offices were closed.

Amenities like that helped the event run more smoothly.

Mazyck said VisitMercerCountyPA did more than Roller Sports championship organizers might have expected to promote the event, and that didn't escape McMahon's notice.

"I couldn't go to any of the restaurants or anyplace without somebody saying, 'Oh, you're the roller skating people, we heard all about you.,'" McMahon said during the New Generation podcast.

Mazyck said that holding the event in a relatively small town cranked up local enthusiasm for the national roller sports championships.

"You were just in a big pond, but you come to a smaller area and it's a big deal," she said.

She makes an excellent point.

The Shenango Valley — and make no mistake, this was a team effort requiring the work of an entire region, from the venue in Hermitage to the hotels in Shenango Township and campgrounds along Shenango River Lake to restaurants in Sharon — was almost in an ideal sweet spot for the event.

Situated along the junction of Interstate 376 and Interstate 80, the Shenango Valley links well to the outside world.

While McMahon said competitors and their families had to scramble to secure lodging, and the nearest major airport is about 50 miles away, this area connects directly to Pittsburgh International Airport via I-376, with travel time of about an hour from Olympic Fun Center, give or take a red light delay.

Mercer County is big enough — thanks to the interstate highways that criss-cross the region — to pull off an event that may not be the Olympic Games or Super Bowl, but is still a national championship.

But this area is also small enough that we truly appreciated a national athletic sanctioning body choosing to hold its showcase event here.

Organizers noticed that appreciation.

"The hospitality in your community was probably the best I ever observed," McMahon said on the New Generation podcast.

That hospitality was so overwhelming that McMahon said he would consider holding the event here next year, although that decision would be up to the association's board, and Olympic Fun Center owners Joe and Dawn Smith.

Whether or not the event returns here next year, it's clear that the 2023 American Roller Sports championships left Hermitage, the Shenango Valley and Mercer County all winners.

Links to The Herald's coverage of the National Roller Sports Championships and the July 8 episode of the New Generation podcast can be found at the online version of this editorial.