{"id":447698,"date":"2026-02-05T20:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T20:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/447698\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T20:55:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T20:55:11","slug":"santagiulia-arena-opens-smoothly-for-olympic-womens-hockey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/447698\/","title":{"rendered":"Santagiulia Arena opens smoothly for Olympic women\u2019s hockey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-olympics \">Women\u2019s ice hockey at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics \u201ckicked off without any issues\u201d at the newly built Santagiulia Arena in Milan, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/02\/01\/work-continues-on-milan-cortina-ice-hockey-venue-days-before-games-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/02\/01\/work-continues-on-milan-cortina-ice-hockey-venue-days-before-games-open\/\">helping shrug off previous concerns<\/a>\u201d that the arena would not be ready for the event. Italy beat France 4-1 \u201cin front of a raucous crowd.\u201d Organizers \u201cworked around the clock until as late as Thursday morning\u201d to have the venue fit for Thursday\u2019s game, with \u201cdozens of people busy laying cables, finishing interiors, cleaning and setting up hospitality areas\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sports\/ice-hockey-underdog-italy-earns-first-olympic-win-crowd-supports-side-arenas-2026-02-05\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sports\/ice-hockey-underdog-italy-earns-first-olympic-win-crowd-supports-side-arenas-2026-02-05\/\">REUTERS, 2\/5<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-olympics \">Not all the amenities \u201cwere quite ready,\u201d with \u201cmerchandise stalls being built and posters still to be put up.\u201d This was \u201cjust over three hours before the opening match.\u201d Inside the arena, \u201cone side of the stadium was simply a big black wall.\u201d In the stands, it was \u201cvery dusty and dirty.\u201d The arena \u201chad the feel of a new build, finished in a hurry without much spit and polish.\u201d It was \u201cnot perfect,\u201d but it was \u201cready to host Olympic ice hockey\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/ice-hockey\/articles\/ceqz411d72ro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/ice-hockey\/articles\/ceqz411d72ro\">BBC.com, 2\/5<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-olympics \">The decision by organizers to\u202fpostpone the Canadian women\u2019s hockey game against Finland came after \u201cseveral Finnish players came down with norovirus.\u201d The fact that organizers \u201cmoved so quickly\u201d to shut down the game about 14 hours before it was to be played, \u201cshould indicate the level of concern at play.\u201d The game has been postponed until next Thursday (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/sports\/article-canada-olympic-womens-hockey-finland-game-postponed-norovirus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/sports\/article-canada-olympic-womens-hockey-finland-game-postponed-norovirus\/\">GLOBE &amp; MAIL, 2\/5<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s ice hockey at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics \u201ckicked off without any issues\u201d at the newly built&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,1372,28860,1374],"class_list":{"0":"post-447698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-milan-cortina","11":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116020020794727736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}