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Put aside poor conditions. Currently, there’s no ice.

As NHL players gearing up to return to the Olympic Games for the initial occasion in more than a ten years, building work on the main hockey arena for the Milano Cortina Games is going down to the wire.

Officials announced on Wednesday that the main trial competition for the 16,000-capacity Santagiulia arena that was scheduled for December has been moved to a smaller venue – and that no new test event has been arranged yet.

This situation raises the prospect that there might not be a game held in the primary venue until the puck is dropped for the women's initial games at the Olympics on 5 February – 24 hours before the inaugural event.

“The timeline will be extremely tight to the beginning of the Olympics, the schedule is highly compressed. But we knew that,” Milano Cortina local organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier stated in a recent update.

The event that was intended to evaluate the Santagiulia playing surface was a segment of the U20 world championship from 8-14 December. This tournament has been transferred to the Rho Fair hockey venue, which is being set up inside a massive convention center on the outskirts of Milan and will stage lesser games during the games.

Typically, freshly built Olympic facilities are tested at least the prior year to holding medal events. And with a large hockey venue, it’s not just about the ice and making sure that the rink is ready and safe. It’s additionally about checking food outlets, restrooms and everything else inside a newly constructed modern stadium.

The Santagiulia venue, which is being built by a private company, is scheduled to become the nation's biggest indoor arena. For after the Olympics, it’s being eyed as a potential future host of the ATP Finals tennis tournament.

In spite of 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 closing day of the Olympics – are going for as much as €1,400 (over $1,600). That’s more than for any other athletic competition at the Milan-Cortina Games. Solely passes for the opening and closing ceremonies are priced higher.

The return of NHL players at the Olympics was revealed in February of last year, with the premier hockey league allowing its athletes to participate in the Winter Games for the first time since 2014 in Sochi.

Men's Olympic hockey competition is scheduled to take place from 11-22 February. The women’s event runs from 5-19 February.