What's Going On With The Hockey Arena At The Olympics?

In the lead-up to the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics, that seems to be the question on every hockey fan’s mind. Construction delays, conflicting reports, and the NHL dominating the conversation have all been part of the complicated and contentious story of Milan’s Santagiulia Ice Arena, the main venue set to host ice hockey at the Winter Games. While most Olympic women's hockey games will take place at a different venue, the problems with the Santagiulia arena could still have a significant effect on the women's tournament.

The Santagiulia Ice Arena is one of the few new venues being built for the Milano Cortina Olympics, since the organizers committed to using primarily existing structures in the interest of sustainability. Unfortunately, the project has been plagued by issues from the start. Construction on the new building was supposed to begin in 2022, but an order of Catholic nuns filed an appeal complaining about property infringement and noise, halting progress. The appeal process took over a year, with construction intended to resume in June 2023. By some reports, they didn’t break ground on the arena until November or December 2023, just over two years before the start of the Olympics. The delays didn’t end there, with repeated starts and stops throughout the building process. Plus, the arena project is over budget by a reported 70-90 million Euros. This can likely be chalked up to the fact that a private developer, the German company CTS Eventim Group, is in charge of the construction and operation of the arena, rather than the project being directly administered by the Olympics organizers. A similar issue occurred with the new Cortina Sliding Center, but that troubled construction was ultimately taken over by the organizing committee. 

Scrutiny of the Santagiulia arena’s status has ramped up over the last few months, particularly as NHL leaders questioned the facility’s safety and even threatened not to send players if it wasn’t ready in time. The size of the ice surface at Santagiulia has also been a major talking point. Even though the NHL demanded a rink to their specifications, the IIHF confirmed that the playing surface will be 196.85 feet by 85.3 feet (60 meters by 26 meters), which makes it both shorter than 200-foot (60.96 meters) long NHL rinks and narrower than international standard rinks, which are 98.4 feet (30 meters) wide. The PWHL, where many Olympians have been playing, uses NHL-sized ice surfaces. 

On Monday, Jan. 5, IIHF president Luc Tardif answered questions from the press about the Santagiulia arena and hockey at the Olympics. Tardif was confident that the venue will be ready for hockey, with locker rooms and ice surfaces ready for players, even if the arena may still be unfinished by the time the men’s hockey tournament begins on Feb. 11. He made no mention of the women’s tournament, which begins a week earlier on Feb. 5. Tardif and other hockey leaders will be present in Milan for a test event at the Santagiulia arena scheduled for Jan. 9, the first time the building will have occupancy for an event. An IIHF junior tournament was originally scheduled for December 2025, but was moved because the arena was still under construction.  

What does this mean for the women’s tournament?

In good news, the women’s hockey tournament is less affected by the delays at the Santagiulia arena. The majority of women’s hockey games, including most preliminary round matches and the quarterfinals, will be at Milano Rho Ice Arena, an existing structure for conventions and trade shows converted into an ice rink with temporary stands. Milano Rho Arena is ready to go, so games at that venue should be able to continue as scheduled. 

However, there are several games scheduled for the Santagiulia arena, including preliminary round games, the semi-finals, and both medal games. Five preliminary round games are set to take place at Santagiulia between Feb. 5 and the start of the men’s tournament on Feb. 11, including two games featuring the home team of Italy and two games with Team USA, most notably USA vs. Canada on Feb. 10. 

So what happens if the arena isn’t ready in time for those games? No one seems to know. Neither the Olympic organizing committee nor the IIHF has reported a backup plan, though if international hockey leaders are dismayed by what they see at the trial event later this week, that might change. For now, the IIHF remains confident that everything will be set up for play, if not for fans.

Either way, the world’s best women’s hockey players will be the first people to play high-level hockey at the Santagiulia arena, and that’s a problem. Despite a small trial event, the facility will still be largely untested. Even if the ice surface turns out to be okay, what about the infrastructure? The women’s hockey games will be the first time the arena’s seating, bathrooms, concessions, and security and crowd control experience a high volume of fans.

Yet the IIHF and major media outlets have largely ignored the fact that the women’s tournament will be the first to hit the ice at Santagiulia Ice Arena. It’s unfair and inappropriate for the pinnacle of international women’s hockey competition to be used as a trial run for the men’s tournament. The Milano-Cortina organizers and the IOC should ensure that the women are granted the same level of safety and amenities as their male counterparts. Unfortunately, until the athletes arrive in Italy and the puck drops on Feb. 5 for the first game of the women’s tournament at Santagiulia between Italy and France, we can’t know what the state of the arena will be and how it will affect the athletes and gameplay at the 2026 Olympics.