Skaters glide around the iceless skating rink behind the Market House on Saturday. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — What could have easily cost $10,000 ended up being a fraction of that amount, thanks to Frosty Fest’s organizers choosing to install an alternative to an ice skating rink over the weekend, rather than the real thing.

For USA Synthetic Rinks President and CEO Marc Kohn, building an “iceless skating” rink business has proven to be the best thing he could have done with his retirement years, after leaving behind his career as a television executive for channels like Discovery, TLC and Animal Planet.

“We’re hockey people and we want to promote hockey. Most people have never picked up a hockey stick in their life!” Kohn said, reminiscing about playing hockey on backyard ice rinks in his Boston neighborhood as a child, prior to climate change ending that tradition in recent years.

By running his business, Kohn has been able to share his love for ice skating and hockey with people who would otherwise not have experienced them, whether that be because of climate change or other factors. On Saturday afternoon at Frosty Fest’s synthetic rink behind the Market House, Kohn watched as the synthetic, iceless skating rink remained full of adults and children throughout the day.

“These kids out here, I talked to them and they never played hockey before. They’re loving it — passing pucks to their dad and shooting them into the goals,” Kohn said. “It’s been a constant stream of people since it opened at 10 a.m. Now, it’s almost closing time, and it’s still packed!”

According to Kohn, wherever his rinks go, his hockey equipment goes, along with ice skating trainers for those new to the sport. As someone who has played hockey recreationally throughout his life and continues to do so to this day, Kohn in fact refuses to rent out his rinks to those uninterested in promoting the sport. His association with hockey goes even further, as he meets with the National Hockey League (NHL) every six months to share updates with them, related to synthetic rinks.

“We’ve come up with stuff over the years that has impressed them,” Kohn said. “Eventually, they’re going to do something with synthetic ice, to have NHL mini-rinks come to small towns like this one and promote hockey.”

Kohn said he recognizes that nothing skates quite as smoothly as real ice. However, high density polyethylene, which plastic cutting boards are made of, has proven to be the next best thing to ice. His company makes all of its rinks and barriers out of recycled plastic — a sustainable solution, which requires little upkeep and results in few injuries.

“At a real ice rink, you always have people slipping and getting hurt,” Kohn said. “I’ve been doing this for six years, and have never had anyone get a concussion or serious injury — at the most, a few scratches from a blade.”

Of his innovations in his field, Kohn said he is most proud of his blade improvements and barrier boards.

“We create our own boards, now, that will stop a 90 mile-per-hour hockey puck, but will only weigh 15 pounds. We used to have to move around these 200 pound walls of metal, which was exhausting! We had to use these huge trucks to haul them around. Now, I can stick all of these on my trailer and haul everything away at once,” Kohn said. “We also have a patent pending design for ice skates. A couple of years ago, we figured out that if you took a third of the blade away by notching it, you would experience a third less friction, so you could skate faster and turn better.”

The ice skate blade design, Kohn noted, improves skating on synthetic rinks. It does not, however, work on ice rinks, due to how chipped ice would build up in the notches and cause the blade to stutter in its movement across the rink.

“There were some people out there earlier today with their own ice skates. You can use any skate blade on there — figure skating, hockey, whatever. But what we’ve found, is that when people go out there with their own skates and then become intrigued with ours, they try ours on and they never go back to theirs,” Kohn said. “But it only works on synthetic!”

Kohn not only offered a great product for skaters to enjoy at this year’s Frosty Fest, but he also gave back, by donating the final payment for his services to one of the festival’s nonprofit benefactors, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of the Eastern Panhandle.

“This is our first year using Marc’s company. He’s great! We’re really thrilled to have USA Synthetic Rinks here this year,” said Jefferson County Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Annette Gavin Bates, noting that this year’s rink was double the size of last year’s rink, which was run by a different company. “He’s been very generous with us — he’s giving back some to CASA, too.”

For Kohn, giving back part in this way proved to be a no-brainer.

“It was a good deal that we came up with, but after reading and hearing about CASA and that they need funding to keep it going, I donated the last half of the payment to CASA,” Kohn said. “It makes it fun for me and it helps out the local CASA, so that’s great!”

For more information about USA Synthetic Rinks, which is based out of Silver Spring, Md., visit http://www.usasr.org/.