MILAN — On June 24, 2019, the International Olympic Committee voted to award Italy the right to host the 2026 Winter Games.
Nearly 2,500 days later, the Italians are still frantically racing to complete the arena that will host the most anticipated Olympic ice hockey competition in over a decade.
Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena remained an active construction site on Wednesday, just 24 hours before the venue is scheduled to open its doors to the public for a women’s hockey game between France and Italy. At the same time as the French men’s team practiced on the ice, construction crews and arena workers scrambled to finish 11th-hour projects on the concourse or to remove dust and debris created by recently finished ones.
Men in orange construction vests were busy building a merchandise stand in one section of the concourse. Arena staffers in dark blue Milano Cortina 2026 jackets scrubbed layers of dust off stanchions that will soon be used to direct the flow of crowds. Elsewhere, workers scraped and spackled walls, stocked concession stands and set up portable tables and signage. The beeping of forklifts and the smell of fresh paint constantly assaulted the senses.
Even areas of the arena that are ready for the public had the feeling that they were completed only days ago. Manufacturing labels adorned every sink in one bathroom. Messages scribbled on post-it notes or painters tape hung from doors. Large wires poked out of walls, shoes left footprints in construction dust and paint splatter was visible on walls and floors.
Thankfully, the seating bowl as a whole and the playing surface in particular appear to be in far better shape. That’s why Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi felt comfortable reassuring reporters earlier this week that he’s “absolutely certain” the venue will be ready in time.
“One thing we’ve been clear about for a number of days is you’ll have a number of areas where you’ll be very impressed,” Dubi said. “When you walk into the venue, the seating bowl is dramatic. It’s black. Ice is ice.
“Now, do we have every single space in that venue finished? No. And is it absolutely needed for the games? No. So no one’s experience will be tainted by anything that needs to be painted or carpeted after the games. Let’s be very clear. Anything that is public facing … is absolute top.”
The only people apparently unconcerned about the unfinished state of Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena are the hockey stars who will be competing there. Reporters have peppered NHL players with questions about whether they’re concerned the arena won’t be ready. The vast majority have said they’re just happy to have the chance to partake in a Winter Olympics after the NHL opted not to interrupt its schedule to allow players to participate in Beijing (2022) or PyeongChang (2018).
Last week, American winger Brady Tkachuk insisted that he “could really care less about” the arena controversy. The mindset of U.S. players, according to Tkachuk, is not to waste time worrying about anything outside their control.
“All that stuff always works itself out,” Tkachuk said. “Whether ice is good ice or not good ice, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the opportunity to be playing in the Olympics and going out there and competing to win the gold medal.”
To Olympic organizers, the evolution of Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena is more minor miracle than cause for concern. It was less than two months ago that NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly threatened to pull out of the Olympics amid construction delays and concerns whether the ice surface would be playable.
"If the players believe that the ice isn't safe, then we're not going to play,” Daly told reporters. “It's as simple as that."
Construction of the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena was supposed to begin in 2022, but a lawsuit filed by an order of Roman-Catholic nuns delayed the project by roughly a year. The nuns unsuccessfully argued that construction would encroach on their property and violate noise ordinances.
The problems continued even after shovels hit dirt. The ice surface at the arena is a little more than three feet shorter than those in NHL buildings, leaving players less space to maneuver. The agreement between the NHL, NHL Players’ Association, IOC and International Ice Hockey Federation called for the ice surface to be built to NHL standards.
The crews constructing the arena also moved painfully slowly despite promises from the IOC that it would be ready in plenty of time. Whereas organizers of previous Winter Olympics held test matches at their hockey arenas at least a year ahead of time, those didn’t happen in Milan until less than a month ago. The test matches revealed a venue still under construction and nowhere near Olympic-ready.
The upper two levels of the venue were covered in sheets of plastic and off limits to spectators. Plans for concession stands on the arena concourse had been scrapped. Many locker rooms were nowhere close to being finished. Neither was the adjacent practice rink.
If there was a silver lining, it was that the ice quality exceeded expectations despite multiple large gaps in the exterior walls of the venue that made it difficult to regulate conditions inside. Florian Wieser, a second-division Italian league player who participated in the test event, was one of many “surprised how good [the ice] was” despite a small hole in the playing surface during one game that required a watering can to fix.
“Was the ice perfect?” Wieser wrote on social media. “No, it was on the softer side and the small hole was of course a bad look. But we expected much worse and the ice didn’t affect the game negatively.
“The ice quality will improve drastically when people are skating on it and when the ventilation starts to work.”
The rest of the building remains a work in progress just one day before hockey will be played and just two days before the Opening Ceremony. There will be construction dust and paint splatter, but there will also be hockey.
“Hats off because it started really late,” Dubi said. “What they’ve pulled off in just a few months is really, really outstanding.”