There are major questions regarding the main hockey rink for the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics. The Games are just two months away, and they have yet to finish construction on the building.
It also surfaced this week that the ice surface, which the International Olympic Committee and the NHL agreed would be built to NHL standards, is more than 3 feet smaller than it should be.
“I don’t understand how that happened,” said Team Canada assistant coach Pete DeBoer on radio show “Real Kyper and Bourne” after visiting the site recently.
The IOC typically holds test games at the hockey venue — often junior international tournaments, sometimes a year in advance. This year’s test event was supposed to be a number of the U20 World Junior Championship games from Dec. 8-14, but the construction delay has prevented that from happening. It’ll now be the Italian Hockey League Serie A from Jan. 9-11 instead.
The NHL has a vested interest in the Olympics. Part of its mission over the last few decades has been to globalize the game of hockey. They’ve held games on four of the six inhabited continents in hopes of piquing more people’s interest.
Much of the world’s population watches Olympic events that they’d normally have no interest in, and there always seem to be stories of people who became interested in hockey by watching the Olympics.
It benefits the NHL to have the best possible product on the ice.
Despite that, the league did not permit its players to participate in the last two Winter Olympics, often citing owners’ concerns about player injuries. Most of the game’s current stars have never had the chance to represent their countries on the biggest international stage, so they’re itching to go.
Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin asked NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly to put a percentage chance on the NHL pulling its permission for players to participate.
“Depends on the percentage you want to place on the possibility the rink doesn’t get completed,” Daly responded. “If there’s no rink completed, there’s no NHL players going to the Olympics.”
Ryan Smith’s comment
Utah Mammoth owner Ryan Smith is well-acquainted with less-than-ideal arena situations, and more importantly, the problem-solving skills that it takes to improve them.
When the NHL first arrived in Utah, the end zones behind the nets at the Delta Center didn’t have enough space to fit more than a few rows of seats. Smith Entertainment Group and its construction partners worked around the clock during the summer of 2025 to retrofit the building for hockey.
It took a crew of 500 workers, with 200-300 in the building at any given time between 6 a.m. and midnight throughout the summer. That involved 33 trade partners and approximately 3.5 million labor hours.
The upper bowl is still untouched, but SEG’s plan is to get that done over the next two summers.
They did all that while simultaneously constructing a new practice facility in Sandy, which, by all accounts, is one of the best in the NHL. It took just 13 months from the groundbreaking to the opening, though they’re still working on the less essential aspects.
And they also announced recently that they’re moving the Utah Jazz — which SEG also owns — to the same building. That’s another major construction project.
Smith weighed in on the Olympic issue on Thursday morning, via his X account.
He expressed confidence that the folks in Italy would be able to solve the problem, while also promising that the Utah 2034 Olympic experience would be “next level.”
In 2002, the Maverik Center was the primary hockey venue, with the Delta Center hosting figure skating and short track speed skating events. The 2034 Olympics will primarily use the Delta Center for hockey.
Barring any extreme circumstances, the building will be fully renovated by that time, and it will have five and a half NHL seasons’ worth of test games to work out any wrinkles.
The plaza outside the stadium will get a major facelift, too, as Smith and the Salt Lake City Council are working together to create an arena district similar to those found around pro sports venues in many other cities.