{"id":267591,"date":"2026-01-31T19:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T19:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/267591\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T19:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T19:44:08","slug":"2026-winter-olympics-ice-hockey-venue-still-being-built-five-days-before-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/267591\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Winter Olympics: Ice hockey venue still being built five days before Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santagiulia is due to host many of the biggest ice hockey fixtures at the Games, including the men’s and women’s gold medal matches.<\/p>\n

The first match is due to be held there on Thursday, 5 February, when hosts Italy face France in their first game of the women’s competition.<\/p>\n

However, the stadium, less than a week before that game, is far from ready to host matches.<\/p>\n

The stadium has been the centre of concerns throughout the build-up to the Games, including resulting in a boycott warning<\/a> from the National Hockey League (NHL).<\/p>\n

The rink in Milan, approved by the International Ice Hockey Federation, is shorter than the minimum requirement in the NHL, leading to suggestions there could be an increase in high-speed collisions. The quality of the ice has also been questioned.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, if the players feel that the ice is unsafe, we’re not going to play,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in November. “It’s as simple as that.”<\/p>\n

The NHL said it was “pleased” with the test event at the arena in January<\/a>, although that did not pass without incident. During the event there was a short delay while a small hole in the ice had to be repaired.<\/p>\n

Santagiulia is one of two ice hockey venues for the Games, with the Milano Rho Arena staging some group-stage matches.<\/p>\n

The Rho Arena, a temporary venue constructed in the Fiera Milano exhibition centre, has a capacity of 5,800 – 6,000 fewer than Santagiulia.<\/p>\n

BBC Sport visited all four venues in the Milan Cluster which will host events during the Games, which officially run between 6 and 22 February.<\/p>\n

As well as the ice hockey venues, speed skating will take place at a temporary venue in Fiera Milano to the west of the city, while short track and figure skating are at Unipol Forum on the southern outskirts.<\/p>\n

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santagiulia is due to host many of the biggest ice hockey fixtures at the Games, including the men’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-267591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}