Location | Bolero Square The Lace Market Nottingham NG1 1LA United Kingdom |
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Coordinates | 52°57′10″N1°8′22″W / 52.95278°N 1.13944°W |
Owner | Nottingham City Council |
Construction | |
Broke ground | 1993 |
Opened | 1 April 2000 |
Construction cost | £43 million |
Website | |
national-ice-centre |
The National Ice Centre (NIC) is located in Nottingham, England. It is situated just east of the city centre, close to the historic Lace Market area. The NIC was the first twin Olympic-sized (60m x 30m) ice pad facility in the UK, "heralding a new era in the development of ice skating". [1] Incorporating the Nottingham Arena (since January 2016 re-branded as the Motorpoint Arena Nottingham), the NIC is a combined live entertainment and leisure venue.
The first ice rink (housed within the Arena) was opened on 1 April 2000 by Olympic Gold Medalist, Jayne Torvill. The second Olympic Rink was opened the following year, on 7 April 2001. [1]
The National Ice Centre was constructed on the site of the former Nottingham Ice Stadium, which opened in 1939 and was showing its age. Plans to replace the stadium were first announced in September 1995. The estimated cost of replacement was £13 million, part of which was to come from National Lottery funds. The plans were unveiled in October 1996, by which time the British Olympic Association were in support of the proposal.
Several buildings were demolished to make way for the new ice centre; this included an Art Deco warehouse and "The Old Cricket Players" pub, which was initially planned to be spared. The former Ice Stadium closed in March 2000, and by May 2000 was described as "nearly demolished", with four skip loads of demolition rubble being removed from the site every day. [2] [3] This had been the former training ground for Olympic ice dancing champions Torvill and Dean (Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean). The square in front of the new building was named 'Bolero Square' to honour their achievements.
During excavation for the new building in July 1998, a rare 1,100-year-old Saxon jug was found, which is on display at the Nottingham Castle Museum. A 19th-century graveyard was also found under the car park, from which the bodies were then exhumed.
The centre was officially opened on 1 April 2000 by Olympic Gold Medalist, Jayne Torvill; with the first public skating sessions taking place the same month. The second phase of the project – the 'family rink' – was scheduled to be completed by May–June 2001, but opened ahead of schedule, on 7 April 2001. [4] [1] The final cost of the project was £43 million, [1] 10% of which came from the lottery – one of the highest grants awarded.
HM The Queen visited the National Ice Centre and Nottingham Arena on 31 July 2002. [5]
Opened in April 2000, the Arena doubles as an Olympic-sized ice rink and a concert venue, in which case the ice is boarded over and the seating and staging are converted to suit the event. The seating capacity of the arena is 7,500 for ice sports and 10,000 for concerts. [6]
The Olympic Rink was the second Olympic-sized ice pad to be opened, in April 2001. Sometimes referred to as the 'family rink', this is where the public ice skating sessions and fun family events are accommodated.
Incorporating these two ice pads, the NIC is used for a range of ice sports activities: ice hockey, figure skating, speed skating and synchronized skating. As well as encouraging absolute beginners to participate in these ice sports, there are many elite ice skaters training at the NIC. [1]
The National Ice Skating Association (NISA) has designated the National Ice Centre as a Centre of Excellence for Short Track Speed Skating and it is the training ground for the GB Short Track Speed Skating Squad. [1] Preparations for the 2018 Winter Olympics took place at the NIC prior to the squad flying out to PyeongChang at the end of January 2018. [7]
The 2017 triple ISU World Champion, Elise Christie, is a member of the GB Short Track Speed Skating Squad. Christie broke the 500 m short track speed skating world record on 13 November 2016 in Salt Lake City, United States. [8] This achievement was recognised by the NIC through the unveiling of a venue banner describing her as the "fastest woman on ice". [9]
The award-winning TV documentary series, Ice Stars, [10] was filmed at the National Ice Centre. Commissioned by CBBC, this series showcased the various disciplines of a group of young ice skaters at the NIC. There have been a total of three series to date; the first series aired in 2015.
The show featured young ice hockey players, speed skaters, teams from the Nottingham Synchronized Skating Academy (NSSA), and members of the NIC Figure Skating & Ice Dance Academy. The NIC has invested time and resources to support the production of Ice Stars in a bid to revive interest in ice skating around the UK.
Ice Stars is classified as a live-action programme in the BBC children's TV programmes list.
The National Ice Centre is an Industry Green accredited venue, [11] committed to significantly reducing energy consumption. The facility takes into consideration the energy usage and the behaviour and activities of all staff, contractors and customers that visit the venue. [12]
The environmental impact is managed in terms of:
On Saturday 22 April 2017, the NIC participated in Earth Day 2017. On this day "the NIC generated all its energy from the sun for one hour via solar panels – the average energy used in one hour on a Saturday at the venue is 500 KWh, this is equivalent to 40 hairdryers being used for 30 minutes every day for a whole year!" An ice skating discount was offered on the day to customers who travelled to the venue via environmentally friendly means such as public transport or on foot. [13]
Jayne Torvill, OBE is a British professional ice dancer and former competitor. With Christopher Dean, she won a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics and a bronze medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics, becoming one of the oldest figure skating Olympic medalists.
Christopher Colin Dean, OBE is a British ice dancer who won a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics with his skating partner Jayne Torvill. They also won a bronze medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics.
Torvill and Dean are English ice dancers and former British, European, Olympic, and World champions. At the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics the pair won gold and became the highest-scoring figure skaters of all time for a single programme, receiving twelve perfect 6.0s and six 5.9s which included artistic impression scores of 6.0 from every judge, after skating to Maurice Ravel's Boléro. One of the most-watched television events ever in the United Kingdom, their 1984 Olympics performance was watched by a British television audience of more than 24 million people. The couple went on to record an even higher score at the 1984 World Championships, thirteen 6.0s and five 5.9s.
Centre intercommunal de glace de Malley was an indoor arena located in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was primarily used for ice hockey, and was the home arena of the HC Lausanne from 1984 to 2017. It was demolished in April 2017 to be replaced by the Vaudoise Aréna which opened in September 2019. A temporary ice rink, Malley 2.0, was opened during the interim and is one of the venues for the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics.
Nottingham city centre is the cultural, commercial, financial and historical heart of Nottingham, England. Nottingham's city centre represents the central area of the Greater Nottingham conurbation.
The Nottingham Ice Stadium was an ice rink in Nottingham, England from 1939 to 2000. It had a seating capacity of 2800 for Ice hockey games.
The Richmond Olympic Oval is an indoor multi-sports arena in the Canadian city of Richmond, British Columbia. The oval was built for the 2010 Winter Olympics and was originally configured with a speed skating rink. The venue has since been reconfigured and now serves as a community multi-sport park and includes two ice hockey rinks, two running tracks, a climbing wall, a rowing tank and a flexible area which can be used for, among other sports, basketball, volleyball, indoor soccer and table tennis.
Torvill and Dean's Dancing on Ice: The Live Tour is a nationwide tour in the United Kingdom. It began in 2007 following the success of the two series of smash-hit television series Dancing on Ice,
Planet Ice Arena Milton Keynes is a 2,800-capacity multi-purpose ice rink/hockey rink located in Milton Keynes, England, as part of the Leisure Plaza complex.
Penny Coomes is a former English competitive ice dancer who represented Great Britain. With partner Nicholas Buckland, she is the 2014 European Figure Skating Championships bronze medalist and has won six other international medals. They are also five-time British national champions, and have competed three times at the Winter Olympics, in 2010, 2014 and 2018.
Nicholas "Nick" Buckland is a former English competitive ice dancer who represented Great Britain. With partner Penny Coomes, he is the 2014 European bronze medalist and has won six other international medals. They are also five-time British national champions, and they have also competed three-times at the Winter Olympics in 2010, 2014 and 2018.
Nottingham is home to several high-profile sports clubs. These include two notable Football League clubs in the shape of Nottingham Forest which, along with Liverpool, is one of only two clubs in England to have won consecutive European Cups and Notts County which is the oldest professional football club in the world. Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is a top level county cricket club, whilst both the National Ice Centre and the National Watersports Centre are also located in the city.
The Ford Performance Centre, formerly Mastercard Centre For Hockey Excellence, is a hockey facility located in the Etobicoke district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has four ice pads and is the official practice facility of the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL hockey team, and their AHL affiliate the Toronto Marlies. The building also houses offices for Hockey Canada and the Hockey Hall of Fame and was home to the Toronto Furies of the Canadian Women's Hockey League. The land is owned by the Toronto District School Board as 400 Kipling Avenue.
The Icehouse is an Australian ice sports and entertainment centre, located in the Docklands precinct of Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia. It is open to the public 7 days a week and offers an extensive range of educational ice-skating classes for customers, as well as pathways to ice sports.
Elise Christie is a British former short track speed skater. She was coached by Nicky Gooch and she specialised in the 1000m event. She is ten times a European gold medallist, including two overall European titles in 2015 and 2016. In the 2017 World Championships in Rotterdam she won world titles in the 1000m and 1500m events, as well as the overall gold, the first British woman and first European woman to do so.
Betty Daphne Callaway-Fittall, MBE was an English figure skating coach who specialised in ice dancing. She was best known as the coach of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, the 1984 Olympic champions, and also trained 1980 world champions Krisztina Regőczy and András Sallay, and 1972 European champions Angelika and Erich Buck.
Motorpoint Arena is a multi-use indoor arena, part of the National Ice Centre in the Lace Market district of Nottingham, England. The National Ice Centre and Nottingham Arena were opened by Olympic gold medalist Jayne Torvill on 1 April 2000. The arena is the biggest live entertainment venue in the East Midlands.
Richmond Ice Rink was an ice skating rink at Clevedon Road, Twickenham, formerly in Middlesex and now in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. When it opened, in 1928, it had the longest ice surface in any indoor rink in the world and it soon became the premier rink in London. The rink closed in 1992 and the building was demolished.
Great Britain competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with 58 competitors in 11 sports. They won five medals in total, one gold and four bronze, ranking 19th in the medal table.
Kathryn Thomson is a British short track speed skater who competed in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, People's Republic of China.