TORONTO – Christopher Dean and partner Jayne Torvill were the picture of steamy romance and fluid movement when they skated to “Bolero,” the memorable program for which the British ice dance legends will forever be remembered.
So one would think Dean would be a tough judge of clunky hockey players trying to capture the grace of his sport.
Instead Dean, who will join CBC-TV’s “Battle of the Blades” as a judge on Sunday, marvels at what the hockey players can do when they don the costume and the music starts.
“I love the change, it’s that juxtaposition isn’t it? You’ve seen them in their battle outfits for ice hockey and now they trade those in for Lycra and sequins and figure skates,” Dean said from his home in Colorado Springs, Colo. “I think what they’re doing is fantastic, they’re becoming pairs skaters in essence.
“What the guys – and indeed this girl Tessa (Bonhomme) – are doing I think is remarkable.”
Bonhomme, who won Olympic gold with the Canadian women’s hockey team last year, became the first female hockey player on the popular series, which combines Canada’s love affair with its two premier skating sports.
Bonhomme and partner David Pelletier remain in the elimination-format competition along with Tanith Belbin and Boyd Devereaux, Elena Berezhnaya and Curtis Leschyshyn, and Marie-France Dubreuil and Bryan Berard.
The four compete Sunday with the results episode airing Monday. The finales are scheduled for Nov. 13 and 14.
Torvill and Dean’s free dance to the stirring music of Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” set a new standard at the Sarajevo Games. They earned nine perfect 6.0 marks for artistic impression, and three more for technical merit, for the highest possible score.
They retired from amateur competition after their gold-medal performance, but the 53-year-old Dean has never strayed far from the sport.
He and Torvill host a smash-hit TV show in the U.K. called “Dancing on Ice.” The show is six seasons old and pairs celebrities – rapper Vanilla Ice starred in last season’s show – with figure skaters.
Vanilla Ice wound up in hospital with a nasty gash to his head after he was knocked unconscious during a fall in training.
Dean named actor Chris Fountain, who plays Tommy Duckworth on “Coronation Street,” as one of the show’s biggest celeb-turned-skater success stories.
“He was an amazing skater. And from nothing,” Dean said. “He’s a good dancer as well, so when he came together on the ice, he was amazing.”
Dean remains busy behind the television spotlight as a skating choreographer. He choreographed last season’s “Eleanor Rigby” program for Canadian ice dancers Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier, and has worked with a who’s who of Canadian stars including Kurt Browning, Brian Orser, Pelletier and former pairs partner Jamie Sale.
“I’ve always choreographed, I’ve always skated, and I guess I’m just a full-time professional skater,” he said.
He’s never worked with Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, but he’s a big fan of the Canadians who often draw comparisons to the former British stars.
“They look amazing, they’re fantastic skaters, not only athletic but they are aesthetically beautiful as well,” Dean said.
Torvill and Dean’s perfect ice dance score can never be matched as the scoring system was changed following the judging controversy at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. He said he’s not a fan of the new scoring.
“I was sad when the old system went, because it was like a brand name, the 6.0,” Dean. “Then they cancelled that out for some numbers that basically only skaters or people in the know (understand). It’s just a number, whereas when it was the 6.0 system the general public could hang onto that and knew what that meant.”
He and Torvill have never grown tired of the haunting music that helped make them famous. In fact, in their show “Dancing on Ice,” the remaining two pairs teams must choreograph and perform their own program to “Bolero.”
Pretty big skates to fill.
“It’s still a part of our history,” Dean said. “It’s our theme tune, you might say. In a funny kind of way, it gave us our notoriety and it still lives on in the TV show.”
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