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Forget about poor conditions. For now, the surface isn't ready.

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 Milano Cortina Games is going down to the wire.

Officials confirmed on Wednesday that the primary trial competition for the 16,000-capacity Santagiulia arena originally planned for December has been moved to a smaller venue – and that no additional trial has been arranged yet.

This situation raises the prospect that there may not be a match held in the primary venue until the puck is dropped for the women's initial games at the Olympics on 5 February – one day before the opening ceremony.

“The timeline will be very close to the beginning of the Olympics, the timeline is highly compressed. However, we were aware,” Milano Cortina organizing body CEO Andrea Varnier stated in a recent update.

The competition that was supposed to test the Santagiulia ice was a segment of the U20 world championship from 8-14 December. That event has been moved to the Rho Fiera hockey location, which is being established inside a giant convention center on Milan’s outskirts and will host secondary matches during the games.

Usually, freshly built Olympic facilities are trialled at least the year before to hosting medal events. And with a large hockey arena, it’s not just about the playing surface and ensuring that the playing surface is ready and safe. It’s additionally about checking food outlets, restrooms and everything else inside a brand-new modern arena.

This new facility, which is being built by a private company, is slated to become the nation's largest indoor arena. For after the Olympics, it’s being considered as a possible future host of the ATP Tour Finals tennis event.

In spite of the postponements and worries, high-priced passes are already being purchased for matches at the Santagiulia arena. Tickets for the men’s gold medal game on 22 February – the closing day of the Olympics – 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 passes for the inaugural and final events are priced higher.

The return of NHL players at the Olympics was announced last February, with the world’s top hockey league allowing its athletes to participate in the Winter Games for the first time since 2014 in Sochi.

Men's Olympic hockey competition is set to run from 11-22 February. Women's event runs from 5-19 February.