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Put aside thin ice. For now, there’s no ice.

With NHL athletes preparing to return to the Olympics for the first time in over a ten years, building work on the primary hockey arena for the Milano Cortina Games is going down to the wire.

Officials announced on Wednesday that the main trial competition for the 16,000-capacity Santagiulia facility originally planned for December has been moved to a more compact arena – 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 competition begins for the women’s preliminary round at the Olympics on 5 February – one day before the inaugural event.

“The timeline will be very close to the beginning of the games, the schedule is very tight. But we knew that,” Milano Cortina local organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier said recently.

The competition that was supposed to evaluate the Santagiulia playing surface was a segment of the U20 world championship from 8-14 December. This tournament has been moved to the Rho Fiera hockey venue, which is being established inside a massive convention center on Milan’s outskirts and will host lesser games during the games.

Typically, freshly built Olympic facilities are tested at least the year before to holding podium competitions. And with a sizable hockey arena, it’s not only about the playing surface and ensuring that the playing surface is ready and secure. It’s additionally about testing concession stands, bathrooms and everything else inside a newly constructed modern stadium.

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

In spite of the postponements and concerns, expensive passes are already being sold for events at the Santagiulia arena. Seats for the men’s gold medal final 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. Only passes for the opening and closing ceremonies cost more.

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

The men’s Olympic hockey competition is scheduled to run from 11-22 February. The women’s event occurs from 5-19 February.