NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told league owners Monday that he didn’t believe construction issues with the Olympic ice hockey rink were “insurmountable.”
According to Daly, the league’s bigger concern as it gets ready to send players to the Olympics for the first time in over a decade is the quality of the ice in Milan.
Daly said the main hockey arena there was scheduled to be finished Feb. 2. The women’s hockey tournament begins three days later, and the men’s tournament begins Feb. 11, leaving very little wiggle room.
“If the players feel that the ice is unsafe to play, then we’re not going to play,” Daly told reporters after Monday’s board of governors meetings. “It’s as simple as that.”
The Olympic arenas will feature three games a day for nearly three weeks, which will challenge the resiliency of the ice. Daly categorized the updates the NHL and NHLPA received last week as positive, but said the league was upping its efforts to help see through the arena.
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