Shpilband was born in
Moscow on July 14, 1964, to a Jewish family. In 1990, he and several other Soviet skaters were part of a U.S. tour headlined by
Jayne Torvill and
Christopher Dean when one of them,
Gorsha Sur, decided to
defect; Shpilband,
Veronica Pershina and
Elena Krykanova decided to join him. Shpilband got a coaching position in Detroit not long after. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 2000. With his former wife Veronica Pershina, he has a son, Maxim, and a daughter, Ekaterina, a competitive figure skater for the United States. In 2006, he became engaged to skating coach Adrienne Lenda. ==Competitive and coaching career==