Nicky Slater facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Nicky Slater
Personal information
Full name	Nicholas Mark Slater
Alternative names	Nicky Slater
Country represented	Great Britain
Born	(1958-04-06) 6 April 1958 (age 66) Liverpool, England
Residence	Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Height	1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Former partner	Karen Barber Kathryn Winter
Former coach	Joan Slater Jimmy Young
Skating club	Richmond Ice Dance & Figure Skating Club
Medal record Figure skating Ice dancing Representing  Great Britain European Championships Bronze 1983 Dortmund Ice dancing World Junior Championships Gold 1976 Megève Ice dancing

Nicholas Mark Slater (born 6 April 1958) is a former ice dancer and TV and theatrical performer.

Personal life

Slater's parents, Joan Dewhirst Slater and John Slater, competed together in ice dancing, winning silver at the 1952 and 1953 World Championships. They were also World Professional champions. They retired to coach at Liverpool Rink then Manchester Ice Palace and finally Altrincham Ice Rink.

Slater attended Parr Lane County Primary School and North Cestrian Grammar School in Altrincham. He is married to Christiane and has a son, Benjamin Edward 'Tiger', born in February 2008.

Career

Competitive career

With partner Kathryn Winter, he won the 1976 World Junior Championships. When that partnership ended, he teamed up with Karen Barber. They won the bronze medal at the 1983 European Championships. They represented Great Britain at the 1980 Winter Olympics, placing 12th, and at the 1984 Winter Olympics, where they placed 6th. They were British ice dance champions in 1985.

Post-competitive career

Slater has produced ice events, his first being Sport Aid at the NEC in 1986 in aid of the Band Aid Trust. He conceived and produced skate-along a national skating fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis Trust launched on Blue Peter and ran ice gala tours in the UK to benefit cystic fibrosis research and as independent productions.

He was Marketing and Communications Director of The Shaftesbury Society for five years, during which time he gained a Masters in Marketing from Bristol Business School at The University of the West of England. After this, he endeavoured to develop ice rinks in the UK for five years.

He has produced ice spectaculars in the US as CEO and Creative Producer with his company Adventure On Ice working in partnership with Robin Cousins and Disson Furst and Partners. Together the partnership produced:

• Improv-Ice for USA Networks (3) *The Starskates Series (8) for NBC *Skaters Tribute to shows for ESPN (2)

In 2005, he produced and starred in The Finding a Wife Tour a UK theatre show. In 2008, he created and starred in Ice Times and toured UK theatres skating with Louise Owen and Charlotte Aitken.

Slater has also contributed to Sense-National Deafblind and Rubella Association's City Ice Skate events.

Since 2006, he has focused on developing himself as a singer-songwriter and music producer.

Television

Since his retirement from competitive skating, Slater has worked as an 'in vision' expert and commentator on ice skating for both ITV and Channel 4, and as a commentator on Star, HDTV and on British Eurosport where he has also anchored a number of shows. He has been the "surprise" on an episode of Surprise Surprise.

Slater appeared as a judge on the BBC One spin-off show Strictly Ice Dancing in 2004. This was a one-off episode which aired on Boxing Day. In 2006, he joined the ITV celebrity skating show Dancing on Ice as a judge, a role in which he continued for five years. In October 2010, it was announced that Slater would not return as a judge for the sixth series in 2011. During his time on Dancing on Ice, Slater also worked on Dancing on Ice: The Tour.

During the final series of Dancing on Ice in early 2014, judge Robin Cousins was absent for weeks six and seven of the show due to him commentating at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Slater stepped in as judge on the show, whilst Karen Barber was acting as head judge. He had previously judged the World Professional Figure Skating Championship for ABC and Strictly Ice Dancing for the BBC.

Singer-songwriter, writer, entertainer

From his earliest days, Slater was involved in music through his parents' ice dancing background. From his earliest recollections, he was helping his father edit music on their Ferrograph 'Reel to Reel' tape machine for ice dance performances. Drawing on that upbringing (and over ten years of development and study across areas of songwriting, singing, instruments and music production), he composes and performs his own music.

Competitive highlights

With Barber

With Winter