By Bryan Keogh
A Pittsburgh police officer who shares a love of ice skating with his girlfriend found the perfect place for a unique proposal: their local ice-hockey arena.
Gino Macioce and Heidi Heatherdale have enjoyed skating together since they met six years ago at the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford.
After Heatherdale pressured him to do something special for their engagement, Macioce spent a month enlisting the help of Iceburgh, the mascot for NHL’s Penguins and, wearing skates, bent down on one knee at BladeRunners Ice Complex, according to KDKA.
Iceburgh, wearing his penguin costume, held the ring in his beak as Macioce proposed.
‘Heidi, you’ve been the light, the world of my life for so long,’ he told Heatherdale. ‘I want to know if you will continue to be so and marry me and be my wife.’
Heatherdale deemed the effort sufficiently special and accepted.
‘He does go above and beyond to make me happy, he really does,’ she said. ‘But this is, like, way above and beyond what he’s ever done. He even offered to make me breakfast this morning and I was like, “Is this happening?”’
The sapphires in the ring also bore special significance for the couple because of Macioce’s job as a police officer, making him her ‘man in blue’.
‘It was perfect, I couldn’t think of anything better, really, to be honest,’ Heatherdale said.
Macioce graduated from Pittsburgh’s police training academy a year ago.