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<\/a><\/p>\n\n In hard hats and reflective vests, a VIP group begins its tour of Santagiulia Arena on Sunday. (Photo by Chris Johnston for The Athletic)<\/p>\n
Getting an in-depth look at a venue scheduled to host 32 Olympic hockey games by Feb. 22 meant stepping onto a full-blown construction site.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew since a long time that this was one of the most challenging venues that we had because we knew it started construction in a later phase,\u201d said Andrea Varnier, CEO of the Milan Cortina Organizing Committee. \u201cThe venue, we know, there\u2019s a lot of work still to be done, but there\u2019s a huge team that (Monday) morning will start at full speed again to make sure that the venue is complete before the Games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Varnier told The Athletic that ground wasn\u2019t broken here until spring 2023 in part because of challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The arena is being funded by a private investor, and the world changed between when they secured the winning host bid in 2019 and when it came time to get to work.<\/p>\n
Listing everything that still needs to be finished would be impossible.<\/p>\n
Among the more critical pieces of unfinished business are getting the practice rink in a functioning state and completing the 14 permanent dressing rooms in the temporary structure beside the main rink. As of Friday, just three of those rooms were built. Officials from Hockey Canada were here to scout the location and selected a room that had only just started to get framed in. They owned first dibs as the No. 1-ranked men\u2019s nation and still had to effectively commit to a rough idea of where Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and company will prepare to play some of the biggest games of their lives, rather than a space they could actually stand in a month before their tournament-opening game against Czechia.<\/p>\n
Inside Santagiulia, none of the hospitality spaces were remotely finished. In fact, the entire second deck of the arena was off-limits to visitors during the test event.<\/p>\n
Finding the arena site in a state of chaos seemed far less surprising to those who currently live in Italy than us foreigner visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so much different than back home,\u201d said Danny Eruzione, a native of Winthrop, Mass., now in his fourth season playing here. \u201cEverything is so laid-back. You can see, like, the rink\u2019s not done. That\u2019s the way of life here. They\u2019ve got maybe 200 people sitting around and no one\u2019s really working.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ice master<\/p>\n
The most important man in pulling off this Olympics you\u2019ve probably never heard of is Don Moffatt.<\/p>\n
The 67-year-old grew up skating outdoors in Peterborough, Ont., and has spent more than four decades turning water into ice. Organizers speak about Moffatt in hushed tones. They describe him as the ice meister, or ice master, and have entrusted him with the sheet at his fifth Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so good, and he\u2019s done so many venues,\u201d said Christophe Dubi, the IOC\u2019s Olympic Games executive director. \u201cWhat they tell us, first-class.\u201d<\/p>\n
About the only thing that could keep NHL players from returning to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years is an ice surface deemed unsafe. The league is effectively loaning assets worth hundreds of million dollars for the event.<\/p>\n
So that makes Moffatt, who oversees ice-making for the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena, a fundamental cog in this operation. He intensely monitored games during the test event from the Zamboni entrance and repeatedly paced around the surface during breaks in play to get a closer look at areas of interest.<\/p>\n
\n Don Moffatt paced around the ice to inspect areas of interest. (Photo by Chris Johnston for The Athletic)<\/p>\n The hole that appeared early in Friday\u2019s game was expected, and the bigger surprise for Moffatt might have been that it wasn\u2019t followed by others, according to Varnier.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to bear in mind that the first match was the first time with skaters on the ice,\u201d Varnier said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a normal situation. The ice worked very well, and it\u2019s getting better and better every day. We\u2019re sure that by the time the Games come, the ice will be perfectly (settled).\u201d<\/p>\n Player facility complaints<\/p>\n It\u2019s going to be fascinating to see if organizers make good on their promise to replace the existing scoreboard with one twice its size before the Games begin.<\/p>\n If they don\u2019t, it\u2019s going to pose a unique challenge for the NHL players.<\/p>\n The scoreboard inside Santagiulia was so small this weekend that players couldn\u2019t see how much time remained while they were on the ice. There\u2019s not a building in the NHL where that would be the case. Moments after Asiago forward Ryan Valentini helped his team secure a 2-1 win on Saturday, he bemoaned that aspect of the setup.<\/p>\n \u201cThat Jumbotron is way too high up \u2014 way too high up!\u201d Valentini said. \u201cI\u2019m on the ice trying to look at the time in the last minute, and I couldn\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n