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Put aside poor conditions. Currently, there’s no ice.

With NHL athletes preparing to return to the Olympics for the initial occasion in more than a decade, building work on the main hockey arena for the Milan-Cortina Games is going down to the wire.

Officials confirmed on Wednesday that the main test event for the 16,000-seat Santagiulia facility originally planned for December has been relocated to a more compact arena – and that no additional trial has been scheduled yet.

This situation creates the possibility that there may not be a match held in the primary venue until the puck is dropped for the women’s preliminary round at the Olympics on 5 February – 24 hours before the inaugural event.

“The timeline will be extremely tight to the start of the games, the timeline is highly compressed. But we knew that,” Milan-Cortina local organizing committee CEO Andrea Varnier said in a recent update.

The event that was supposed to evaluate the Santagiulia ice was a segment of the U20 world championship from 8-14 December. That event has been moved to the Rho Fair hockey location, which is being set up inside a massive convention center on the outskirts of Milan and will host secondary matches during the Olympics.

Usually, new Olympic venues are tested at least the year before to holding medal events. And with a sizable hockey venue, it’s not only about the playing surface and ensuring that the rink is ready and safe. It’s additionally about checking concession stands, bathrooms and all other amenities inside a newly constructed modern stadium.

The Santagiulia venue, which is being built by a private company, is scheduled to become the nation's largest covered stadium. For after the Olympics, it’s being eyed as a possible upcoming venue of the ATP Finals tennis tournament.

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

The return of NHL players at the Olympics was announced in February of last year, with the world’s top hockey league allowing its players to compete in the Winter Olympics for the initial occasion since 2014 in Sochi.

The men’s Olympic hockey tournament is set to run from 11-22 February. The women’s event occurs from 5-19 February.