Inside the Olympic Hockey Arena Chaos: Secrets and Scandals You Won’t Believe
The league’s relationship with the Olympics has been fraught for a while, but 2026 will see NHLers compete in the Games for the first time since Sochi. So it sounded perhaps like a squeaky wheel seeking some grease when Gary Bettman complained way back in 2023 that construction hadn’t yet begun on the 16,000-seat Santagiulia Arena, in Milan’s outskirts, which will host half the men’s and women’s tournaments and most of the marquee games. But Bettman was right to be concerned. When league officials toured the site this past August, they saw a complex still under heavy construction. Ground hadn’t been broken on a planned practice facility. They hadn’t yet even laid down roads leading to the arena. That’s Italian excellence in action; historically, most Olympic venues are opened and tested a full year in advance of the Games.
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