The Olympic Hockey Tournament Is Already Shaping Up To Be A Total Shit Show With The Arena Still Under Construction And The Rink The Wrong Size
So the piece of this story that is taking most of the headlines is the fact that the rink being built in Milan is going to be smaller than a standard NHL-sized rink.
Part of what makes international hockey so unique is that it's typically played on an Olympic sized surface. Those rinks are 15-feet wider than NHL rinks, so the game is more open. It benefits a more creative style of play. There are more open passing lanes, there is less ability to just muck it up with physical play. And now that it's being reported that this rink in Milan is going to be a few feet smaller than an already smaller NHL rink? Well it's going to feel like these guys are constantly on top of each other. These guys already only have a fraction of a second to get open on a nightly basis in the NHL, and now that fraction of a second is going to be getting cut down even more.
But the biggest concern here shouldn't be the size of the ice surface. It should be the ice in general. The fact that they're not with construction yet is crazy. We're only a couple months away from the 2026 Olympic Games, and who knows if the ice surface is even down yet. Clearly these guys don't know what they're doing if they're making the rink smaller, so can you really trust them to be able to provide an ice surface that doesn't turn into complete and total garbage after just a few games are played on it? No chance. Even NHL ice goes to shit when they host events like the World Juniors, and they have to deal with multiple games being played per night. And those rinks all have the best guys in the business working on that ice.
Beggars can't be choosers, I suppose. We've spent the past 12 years waiting for best-on-best international hockey to come back into our lives. And now that it's here, I guess we can't complain about having the tournament being played on shitty, small ice. But is that really too much to ask for? It would be like a city hosting the Summer Olympics and they decide to make a track that is only .15 miles long and the surface is just dirt. You wouldn't expect Usain Bolt to be cool with running on that.
Really I think the only way that the IOC can make this up to the hockey community is if they let Russia back into the tournament. Give me USA vs Russia on any sheet of ice in the world. Doesn't matter.