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Put aside thin ice. Currently, there’s no ice.

With NHL players gearing up to make a comeback to the Olympics for the initial occasion in over a decade, construction on the primary hockey arena for the Milan-Cortina Games is going down to the wire.

Local organizers announced on Wednesday that the primary test event for the 16,000-seat Santagiulia arena originally planned for December has been moved to a more compact venue – and that no new test event has been scheduled yet.

The issue creates the possibility that there might not be a game held in the primary venue until the puck is dropped for the women’s preliminary round at the Olympics on 5 February – 24 hours before the opening ceremony.

“The timeline will be very close to the beginning of the Olympics, the timeline is highly compressed. However, we were aware,” Milan-Cortina local organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier stated recently.

The competition that was supposed to test the Santagiulia playing surface was a segment of the under-20 world championship from 8-14 December. This tournament has been moved to the Rho Fair hockey venue, which is being established inside a giant convention center on Milan’s outskirts and will stage secondary matches during the games.

Typically, freshly built Olympic facilities are tested at least the year before to holding medal events. And with a large hockey arena, it’s not just about the playing surface and making sure that the playing surface is ready and secure. It’s additionally about testing food outlets, bathrooms and everything else inside a brand-new modern stadium.

The Santagiulia venue, which is being built by a private company, is scheduled to become the nation's biggest covered stadium. Following the Olympics, it’s being considered as a potential future host of the ATP Tour Finals tennis event.

In spite of the delays and concerns, expensive tickets are already being sold for events at the Santagiulia venue. Tickets for the men's championship final on 22 February – the final day of the games – are going for as much as €1,400 (over $1,600). That’s more than for any other sports event at the Milan-Cortina Games. Solely passes for the opening and closing ceremonies are priced higher.

The return of NHL stars at the Olympics was revealed last February, with the premier hockey organization permitting its players to participate in the Winter Games for the initial occasion since 2014 in Sochi.

Men's Olympic hockey competition is set to run from 11-22 February. The women’s tournament occurs from 5-19 February.