EDMONTON — While there has been so much focus on the NHL’s reaction to the dimensions of the hockey rinks at the Winter Olympics and that the main arena isn’t scheduled for completion until just a few days before the Opening Ceremony, it’s the women’s tournament — not the men’s — that actually starts three days after the newly announced completion date.
Nine of the 28 games in the women’s tournament will be played at Santagiulia Arena, which now has a listed capacity of 14,012 (despite being reported for two years as 16,000) and is way behind schedule with the arena’s construction now scheduled to be complete Feb. 2.
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The women’s tournament begins at the arena Feb. 5 with a preliminary-round game featuring Italy and France. A test event is scheduled for the ice surface on Jan. 9-11.
The other 19 Olympic women’s hockey games will be played at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena, which has a capacity of 5,738 and is technically a temporary rink built at a convention center.
At the Rivalry Series that featured the United States and Canada and ended with a four-game sweep by the U.S. over the weekend, none of the players or coaches for the respective countries voiced concern.
“It’s just kind of noise,” said Team Canada defenseman Renata Fast, who is preparing for her third Olympics. “There’s always noise around the Olympics, no matter where the Olympics are. Each one I’ve been to, there’s been noise around it. So I know the teams and whatever group of people that go there, they’re just excited. We’re honored to represent Canada.”
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Added soon-to-be four-time Olympian Kendall Coyne Schofield, “It’s something we can’t control. You know, we’re reading the same thing you’re reading, and at the end of the day, none of us here can control it.”
The NHL, and for that matter the USA Hockey men’s brass, wasn’t pleased two weeks ago when they first learned that the rinks at both arenas will be a little more than four feet shorter and a little less than a foot wider than a typical 200-by-85 NHL rink. While the changes are largely irrelevant and the league says it has no safety concerns, this still was in defiance of the Olympic agreement signed by the NHL and NHLPA as the entities sending NHLers to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years.
As for the women, they don’t care.
“We’re so used to playing on different ice surfaces,” Fast said. “Every time we go over to Europe, we’re playing on a different ice surface. There really isn’t any standardized ice surfaces around the world. It’s just the NHL used to being on NHL ice. I think we’ll be ready for whatever the conditions are, and you just adjust throughout the game.”
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The IIHF said in a news release that the Santagiulia Arena ice dimensions are the same as the rink size used at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. NHL players have not competed in the Olympics since 2014.
Both coaches echoed that rink size doesn’t matter as long as the main arena is complete. The United States and Canada play a preliminary game at Milano Santagiulia on Feb. 10, and the semifinals and bronze and gold medal games will be at the arena.
“I just don’t get caught up in it,” Canada coach Troy Ryan said. “I’m not in the construction business. I’m not there to know exactly when all the deadlines are going to be. The one thing with the IOC and Hockey Canada, everybody does such a good job of updating us. I’m not too concerned. I think it’s somewhat common that construction goes right until the final days. I’ve had the honor, I guess, of being part of two Olympics. Women’s hockey starts pretty early in these events, right at the front end of it. And a lot of times you’re going into the village, and things are just getting ironed out as you move in on day one. So it’s all part of it. A lot of these athletes have been through it — it’s what you expect. You just kind of got to learn to adapt.”
Added United States coach John Wroblewski, “I mean, I’ve been to enough IIHF events, and they’re all over the world, whether it’s Russia, Slovakia, there’s always something happening at the end that they have to tighten up. And they want the event as much as anybody, that things will go off. I’m sure it’ll be fine, and as long as there’s ice somewhere, the players will find a way to solve that equation and provide a winner.”
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
NHL, Olympics, Women’s Hockey
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