COSTA NAVARINO, March 20, 2025 - Giovanni Malagò, the president of the Organising Committee for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Games, has described the return of National Hockey League (NHL) players to the Olympic Winter Games as “a very huge opportunity”.

The NHL, a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams - 25 in the United States and 7 in Canada, alongside the International Ice Hockey Federation and the NHL Players’ Association announced an agreement on 2 February that will allow for the players to participate in both the 2026 Games in Milano Cortina and the 2030 Games in the French Alps.

NHL players last participated in the Olympic Winter Games in 2014 in Sochi, Russia. In 2018, the NHL, which produces the best players in the world, did not send players to PyeongChang due to travel costs and sceduling issues, and in Beijing 2022 due to COVID-19.

VERY HUGE OPPORTUNITY Speaking about the impact of this decision to allow the players participate in Milano Cortina 2026, Malagò said: “It's obvious that it's a very huge opportunity for us, for Italy, for the Games, for the Olympic Movement. For Milano Cortina 2026 specifically, the fact that the professionals will come back is an additional value.

“If you see what is happening concerning the tickets, it is easy to connect these tickets to the ice hockey event. Of course, this is a card that we are very happy to play, to put on the table for image, for commercial revenues and for many, many other things. Because we know how complicated it is, of course, to find all the right solutions for obtaining this wonderful opportunity,” the president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) added.

ICE HOCKEY VENUE Rapid work is ongoing at Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, which is due to be the main host venue for ice hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Andrea Varnier, the Chief Executive Officer of Milano Cortina has assured that the venue will be ready in time for the Games.

“The venue is being developed by a private entrepreneur, and so we've been following through the process since the very beginning. There was a slow start because, again, being a private investment, and with COVID, they really slowed down at the beginning of the operations because of the risk of making a big investment without knowing what happened to the world. And so we were really worried at one point, but then finally work started and is going very, very fast.

“And so the master schedule remains the same that we established with the developer a year ago. We will start operating in the venue starting from October. We will start to install some of the temporary elements that are necessary, including the ice, because this is not an ice venue.

“So there will not be permanent ice, it will be temporary. And then the venue will finally be delivered to us at the very beginning of December so that in the first weeks of December we'll be able to do our test event and then be ready. So we will mount everything starting from October and we will go all the way through the Olympic Games. We have also decided to do the Paralympic Games in this venue as well, which I think is very important.”
 

LEGACY OF CORTINA SLIDING CENTRE Speaking at the 144th IOC Session on Thursday, delivered great news regarding Cortina’s controversial Olympic sliding track. The century-old track in Cortina d’Ampezzo is set to receive around 60 athletes next week for a test event. And Varnier explained why it was important to build this sliding centre.

“When we had the discussion about building or not building the sliding centre, we really thought that if there was one place in the world where the sliding centre would make sense, it was Cortina. Because of the incredible history, incredible tradition in this sport. I mean, everybody you know knows about Eugenio Monti. And so there is a real passion for the sport within the people, even if the old track was not used for almost 15 years, it's still a Bob club. The first Bob club," Varnier said.

“We believe that that is the foundation. It's a very sustainable venue. It's the first one in the world that is not refrigerated with ammonia, but with glycol. It's a very nice track. So we really expect that it will be used for training, and it will be used for international competitions. There is a commitment by the three federations to bring international competitions. And starting from the Youth Olympic Games in 2028, we'll use that track already. So I think there is a future for this track, and there is a passion for the sport in Cortina, and we strongly believe in that.”