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

As NHL athletes preparing to return to the Olympic Games for the initial occasion in more than a ten years, building work on the main hockey venue for the Milano Cortina Games is cutting it close.

Officials announced on Wednesday that the main trial competition for the 16,000-seat Santagiulia arena that was scheduled for December has been relocated to a more compact arena – and that no new test event has been arranged yet.

The issue creates the possibility that there may not be a match held in the main arena until the puck is dropped for the women's initial games at the Olympics on 5 February – 24 hours before the inaugural event.

“The timeline will be very close to the beginning of the games, the schedule is highly compressed. But we knew that,” Milan-Cortina organizing body CEO Andrea Varnier stated recently.

The competition that was supposed to evaluate the Santagiulia ice was a segment of the under-20 world championship from 8-14 December. That event has been moved to the Rho Fiera hockey location, which is being set up inside a giant exhibition hall on Milan’s outskirts and will host secondary matches during the Olympics.

Typically, freshly built Olympic facilities are trialled at least the year before to hosting medal events. And with a large hockey venue, it’s not only about the ice and making sure that the rink is ready and secure. It’s also about testing food outlets, restrooms and everything else inside a newly constructed contemporary arena.

This new facility, which is being constructed by a commercial firm, is slated to become Italy’s biggest indoor arena. For after the Olympics, it’s being eyed as a potential future host of the ATP Tour Finals tennis tournament.

In spite of the delays and concerns, expensive tickets are already being purchased for events at the Santagiulia arena. Seats for the men’s gold medal game on 22 February – the closing day of the Olympics – are priced at as much as €1,400 (over $1,600). This exceeds for any other athletic competition at the Milano Cortina Games. Only passes for the opening and closing ceremonies are priced higher.

The return of NHL players at the Olympics was revealed last February, with the premier hockey organization permitting its athletes to compete in the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014 in Sochi.

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