MILAN — There is no backup plan if the main ice hockey arena for the Milan-Cortina Winter Games is not ready on time.
Construction on the arena that is set to welcome NHL players back to the Olympics for the first time in more than a decade is behind schedule and going right down to the wire.
A test event at the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena — the new 16,000-seat venue that is being built on the outskirts of Milan — had to be moved, and new ones won’t be until Jan. 9-11.
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“There is no Plan B,” Andrea Francisi, the chief Games operations officer for Milan-Cortina, told The Associated Press on Saturday. “So necessarily we have to be able to organize the competition in an impeccable manner at Santagiulia.”
The first Olympic game at the main hockey arena is the women’s preliminary round competition on Feb. 5, one day before the opening ceremony.
Usually, new Olympic venues are tested at least the year before hosting medal events. With a large hockey arena, it’s not just about the ice and making sure the playing surface is ready and safe. It’s also about testing concession stands, bathrooms and everything else inside a new arena.
Francisi admitted there is “no precise date” for the venue to be handed over to local organizers, but he is confident “for the moment” that it will be ready for the Olympics.
“There are daily updates in the sense that our team is there working every day,” Francisi said. “The companies which are involved with the building of the facility have sped up their work significantly.
“We’re monitoring all that daily together with them, there’s great collaboration between us, we’re creating a coordinated plan between their work and our preparations and for the moment we’re healthily optimistic, but 100% we’ll do it.”
The men’s Olympic hockey tournament is scheduled to run Feb. 11-22. The women’s tournament runs Feb. 5-19.
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