St. Luke's Nurse by Day; Ice Princess Tonight

The average 25-year-old woman probably wouldn’t take the nickname “Ice Princess” as a compliment. Yet, it’s a label Laura Wetzel, of Coopersburg, wears with pride.

That’s probably because Laura Wetzel isn’t the average 25-year-old woman. A labor and delivery nurse in  in Fountain Hill by day, Wetzel spends her nights and weekends as a figure skating coach at the in Bethlehem.

Add to that a competitive figure skating resume that spans 17 years and includes being a United States Figure Skating triple gold medalist in freeskating, ice dance and moves-in-the-field, “super hero” might be a better moniker for Wetzel.

And, tonight Wetzel will reprise her role as the SnowBlast Ice Princess in  in Emmaus to mark the opening of the Emmaus Arts Commission’s 6^th Annual .

Wetzel’s involvement with the SnowBlast began in 2007 when she agreed to be a part of the skating exhibition at the first SnowBlast. Back then, SnowBlast organizers flooded the  to create an ice rink for the event, she says.

In subsequent years, Wetzel says, the cost of creating the rink on the courts and the increasingly warmer winter weather caused event organizers to seek an alternate venue for the Ice Princess. That led to the construction of a temporary 5-foot-by-5-foot platform at Triangle Park that serves as a small-scale ice skating rink.

That’s where SnowBlast goers can find Wetzel performing from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. tonight.

“The demonstrations are not the same I’d be capable of on an Olympic-size rink,” she explains, “but I can spin kids around and give them a ride. It’s not a full ice show. It’s for the fun of it. There’s a live D.J. It’s a good place to show off the sport of figure skating.

“It’s just a lot of fun. I think the kids get a kick out of it. They look at me and ask me ‘are you a real princess?’”