Will the new Olympic hockey rink be ready on time?

A short clip posted Thursday shows the Olympic bowl looking cleaner, brighter, and closer to game-ready than it did a few months ago. It is mostly empty concrete and boards, but it already feels like a rink with consequences.

That matters because Santagiulia is slated to stage the marquee medal games, and organizers have been racing the calendar on construction. Reuters has detailed the delays and the pressure to prove ice quality and safety quickly.

The first big checkpoint is a scheduled test event Friday through Sunday, a tight squeeze with the Games starting in early February. If you are reading tea leaves from video, this is the week the venue needs to look boring.

As a fan, I love that the clip has no soundtrack, just that quiet hum of a building getting ready. It is a reminder that Olympic hype starts with workers tightening screws, not players taking warmups.

Milano Cortina 2026 will use two sites, Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena and Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena inside Fiera Milano. Olympics.com lists Santagiulia at 14,000 seats, while the local organizer page lists 16,000, so even the basics still get tweaked.

The clip does not answer the real questions, like sightlines, benches, and whether the ice can handle heavy traffic with multiple games a day. Still, seeing the space in motion beats staring at renderings, and that is why it spread so fast.

The bigger debate is the rink size, with Reuters noting the Santagiulia sheet is about three feet shorter than an NHL surface. The IIHF has said the dimensions follow its rules, match Beijing 2022, and align with what the NHL accepts for Global Series buildings.

On shorter ice, teams get to the net faster, and defenders have less room to angle you into the boards on entries. That usually means quicker puck support, a more direct forecheck, and fewer cute delays at the blue line.

The women's tournament opens on February 5, and the men follow on February 11, so the runway is short even in hockey terms. For now, enjoy the footage, then watch Friday's test event reports for the next real sign this rink is ready.
Jeux Olympiques