The Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena will host 33 preliminary and knock-out games at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February

The Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena will host 33 preliminary and knock-out games at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February

 Stefano RELLANDINI

The Winter Olympics main ice hockey rink will be ready for the start of competition next month, the IOC's sport director said on Friday, ahead of a key test event for the arena.

Asked whether there was any possibility that the Santa Giulia venue would not be ready for the Milan-Cortina Games, Pierre Ducrey said: "No chance at all."

Officially called the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, the rink is scheduled to host 33 preliminary and knock-out games at the upcoming Olympics, which run between February 6 and 22.

Developers are still rushing to complete the venue, but organisers told AFP it is structurally ready and that the remaining works on the venue are simply for "the finishing touches". 

And Ducrey insisted that players from the National Hockey League (NHL), widely regarded as the world's top hockey league, will compete at the Olympics for the first time since 2014.

Their participation was called into question as recently as last month by the NHL's deputy commissioner Bill Daly, due to concerns about the playing surface.

"I'm very confident they will be here. It's going to be extremely exciting," said Ducrey. 

"We're very excited they're coming back. 12 years. It was a lot of work from a lot of people to make sure this happens. You will have NHL players here in February, and it's going to be amazing."

Andrea Francisi, Chief Games Operations Officer for Milan-Cortina, said the NHL players' participation was guaranteed "100 percent".

td/ea

Originally published on doc.afp.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.

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