Sawt Falasteen - NHL 'optimistic' about Olympic rink but could pull out

The Santa Giulia arena is set to host 33 preliminary and knock-out games at the Milan-Cortina Olympics which run between February 6 and 22 but its opening has been put back.

The NHL, the world's top league, has agreed to break its season and allow its players, who come from all the competing countries, to take part for the first time since 2014.

Bill Daly, the NHL's deputy commissioner, said after the first day of a league meeting on Monday, that while the league was reassured about progress, it was still worried about the playing surface.

"I'm getting positive reports about what they're going to do, what the next plan is, what the next day is, what it looks like, how the parties are reacting, etc, etc," Daly said.

The 15,000-seat ice rink was originally scheduled to be handed over in December. However, construction has fallen behind schedule and delivery will now take place "in January", the month before the Games open, the developer told AFP last week.

The 2026 Olympic Games organising committee has said that the rink will be inaugurated on January 9 with a series of Italian domestic matches, running until January 11, which will serve as "test events".

Daly suggested a later date.

"The buildings are supposed to be done by February 2," he said. "So we have some time, and the latest reports I was getting, I was at the table in the meeting, were positive."

- Different dimensions -

The NHL had agreed with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) that the rink would be of the dimensions used in the North American league but it has been built slightly shorter.

"I think the IIHF was under the impression they had a different interpretation of what NHL ice meant than we would have," Daly said.

"Even at the site visits I'm not sure it was anything that was perceptible to anybody. It's not like people bring tape measures there."

The dimensions will be the same as the rink in Stockholm where the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators played last month in regular-season games, which Daly said produced no negative feedback.

But he raised the question of the quality of the surface in Milan.

"If the ice is unplayable, the ice is unplayable," Daly said. "I don't want to be flip about it. We probably will know that in advance of the official start of the Games. What you do at that point becomes a different issue."

"Obviously, if the players feel that the ice is unsafe, we're not going to play," he said. "It's as simple as that."

The Rho Arena in Milan will also host games but Daly said there was no plan B for hosting the final stages of the women's and men's tournaments at any venue except Santa Giulia.

NHL ice technicians are advising their counterparts in Italy and Daly said the league will have access to test the Olympic ice from now until the start of the event.

"We're basically moving everybody there to try to help get this done in a way that is acceptable for NHL athletes," Daly said.

"As we get closer to the Games, we'll assess the situation on whether they have the sufficient manpower, resources, expertise to do it the way it needs to be done. We're willing to chip in and help to the extent that we need to."

K.AbuTaha--SF-PST