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Forget about poor conditions. For now, there’s no ice.

With NHL athletes preparing to return to the Olympic Games for the first time in more than a ten years, building work on the main hockey venue for the Milan-Cortina Games is going down to the wire.

Officials announced on Wednesday that the main trial competition for the 16,000-seat Santagiulia facility originally planned for December has been moved to a smaller arena – and that no new test event has been scheduled yet.

This situation raises the prospect that there might not be a game held in the primary venue until the puck is dropped for the women's initial games at the Olympics on 5 February – 24 hours before the opening ceremony.

“It’s going to be extremely tight to the beginning of the Olympics, the schedule is highly compressed. However, we were aware,” Milano Cortina local organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier stated in a recent update.

The competition that was intended to test the Santagiulia playing surface was a segment of the under-20 world championship from 8-14 December. That event has been transferred to the Rho Fiera hockey location, which is being set up inside a giant exhibition hall on the outskirts of Milan and will host lesser games during the games.

Usually, freshly built Olympic facilities are tested at least the year before to holding medal events. And with a sizable hockey arena, it’s not just about the playing surface and ensuring that the playing surface is ready and safe. It’s also about testing concession stands, bathrooms and all other amenities inside a brand-new modern stadium.

This new facility, which is being built by a private company, is scheduled to become the nation's largest covered stadium. Following the Olympics, it’s being considered as a possible future host of the ATP Tour Finals tennis tournament.

Despite the delays and concerns, expensive tickets are already being purchased for matches at the Santagiulia arena. Tickets for the men’s gold medal game on 22 February – the final day of the games – are going for as much as €1,400 (over $1,600). This exceeds the price of any other sports event at the Milan-Cortina Games. Solely passes for the inaugural and final events are priced higher.

The comeback of NHL players at the Olympics was revealed last February, with the world’s top hockey organization allowing its athletes to compete in the Winter Games for the first time since 2014 in Sochi.

Men's Olympic hockey tournament is scheduled to take place from 11-22 February. Women's event runs from 5-19 February.