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Forget about poor conditions. Currently, there’s no ice.

With NHL players gearing up to return to the Olympic Games for the initial occasion in more than a decade, building work on the main hockey arena for the Milano Cortina Games is cutting it close.

Officials announced on Wednesday that the primary test event for the 16,000-capacity Santagiulia arena originally planned for December has been moved to a smaller venue – 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 main arena until the competition begins for the women’s preliminary round at the Olympics on 5 February – 24 hours before the inaugural event.

“It’s going to be extremely tight to the start of the games, the timeline is highly compressed. However, we were aware,” Milan-Cortina local organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier stated recently.

The competition that was supposed to evaluate the Santagiulia playing surface was part of the U20 world championship from 8-14 December. This tournament has been moved to the Rho Fair hockey location, which is being established inside a giant exhibition hall on the outskirts of Milan and will host secondary matches during the Olympics.

Typically, freshly built Olympic facilities are tested at least the prior year to hosting medal events. And with a sizable hockey venue, it’s not only about the ice and making sure that the rink is ready and secure. It’s additionally about checking concession stands, bathrooms and everything else inside a brand-new contemporary arena.

The Santagiulia venue, which is being built by a private company, is scheduled to become Italy’s biggest indoor arena. For after the Olympics, it’s being considered as a potential future host of the ATP Tour Finals tennis event.

Despite the delays and worries, high-priced tickets are already being sold for events at the Santagiulia arena. Seats for the men’s gold medal game on 22 February – the closing day of the games – are priced at as much as €1,400 (more than $1,600). That’s more than the price of any other athletic competition at the Milan-Cortina Games. Solely tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies cost more.

The comeback of NHL players at the Olympics was announced in February of last year, with the premier hockey league allowing its players to participate in the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014 in Sochi.

Men's Olympic hockey competition is set to take place from 11-22 February. Women's tournament runs from 5-19 February.