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Put aside thin ice. Currently, there’s no ice.

As NHL athletes gearing up to return to the Olympic Games for the first time in more than a decade, building work on the primary hockey venue for the Milano Cortina Games is cutting it close.

Local organizers confirmed on Wednesday that the main trial competition for the 16,000-capacity Santagiulia facility originally planned for December has been relocated to a smaller venue – and that no additional trial has been scheduled yet.

This situation creates the possibility that there might not be a game held in the main arena until the competition begins for the women's initial games at the Olympics on 5 February – one day before the inaugural event.

“The timeline will be extremely tight to the beginning of the Olympics, the schedule is very tight. But we knew that,” Milan-Cortina organizing body CEO Andrea Varnier said recently.

The event that was supposed to test the Santagiulia playing surface was part of the U20 world championship from 8-14 December. That event has been moved to the Rho Fair hockey venue, which is being set up inside a massive convention center on Milan’s outskirts and will stage secondary matches during the games.

Usually, freshly built Olympic facilities are trialled at least the prior year to hosting medal events. And with a sizable hockey arena, it’s not only about the playing surface and ensuring that the playing surface is prepared and secure. It’s additionally about checking food outlets, bathrooms and everything else inside a newly constructed contemporary 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 Finals tennis event.

Despite the postponements and concerns, expensive tickets are already being sold for matches at the Santagiulia arena. Tickets for the men's championship final on 22 February – the final day of the games – are priced at as much as €1,400 (more than $1,600). This exceeds the price of any other athletic competition at the Milan-Cortina Games. Solely passes for the inaugural and final events cost more.

The comeback of NHL stars at the Olympics was announced last February, with the world’s top hockey league allowing its athletes to participate in the Winter Olympics for the initial occasion since 2014 in Sochi.

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