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Put aside thin ice. For now, the surface isn't ready.

With NHL athletes preparing to return to the Olympic Games for the initial occasion in over a ten years, building work on the primary hockey arena for the Milano Cortina Games is cutting it close.

Local organizers announced on Wednesday that the main trial competition for the 16,000-seat Santagiulia arena originally planned for December has been relocated to a smaller arena – and that no additional trial has been scheduled yet.

This situation creates the possibility that there may not be a game held in the main arena until the puck is dropped for the women's initial games at the Olympics on 5 February – 24 hours before the opening ceremony.

“The timeline will be very close to the start of the Olympics, the timeline is very tight. However, we were aware,” Milan-Cortina local organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier stated recently.

The event that was supposed to test the Santagiulia ice was part of the U20 world championship from 8-14 December. That event has been transferred to the Rho Fair hockey location, which is being established inside a giant convention center on Milan’s outskirts and will stage secondary matches during the Olympics.

Usually, freshly built Olympic facilities are trialled at least the year before to hosting medal events. And with a sizable hockey arena, it’s not only about the ice and making sure that the playing surface is prepared and secure. It’s additionally about testing concession stands, bathrooms and everything else inside a brand-new modern arena.

The Santagiulia venue, which is being built by a private company, is slated to become the nation's largest indoor arena. For after the Olympics, it’s being considered as a possible upcoming venue of the ATP Tour Finals tennis event.

Despite the postponements and concerns, high-priced tickets are already being sold for matches at the Santagiulia venue. Seats for the men’s gold medal game on 22 February – the final day of the Olympics – are going for as much as €1,400 (over $1,600). This exceeds the price of any other athletic competition at the Milan-Cortina Games. Only tickets for the inaugural and final events are priced higher.

The comeback of NHL players at the Olympics was announced in February of last year, with the world’s top hockey league permitting its athletes to participate in the Winter Games for the first time since 2014 in Sochi.

Men's Olympic hockey tournament is set to take place from 11-22 February. The women’s tournament occurs from 5-19 February.