The hosts managed to just about get the Santagiulia arena ready for Italy’s win over France – and the locals responded
“Ladies and gentlemen! The women’s preliminary Group B match between Italy and France will get under way in five minutes! And the question is: Are! You! Ready! For! Hockey?!” Well, quite.
That had been the question for the last five months, as it happens, ever since it first became obvious that construction of Milan’s new Santagiulia arena was running massively behind schedule. At the test event last month the ice was grey because there was so much building dust in it, and midway through the match a man had to come on to the rink to repair a melted patch with a watering can.
So what was the answer at last? Well, it depends on how you define “ready”. As the International Olympic Committee’s executive director for the games, Christophe Dubi, admitted a couple of days ago: “Do we have every single space in that venue finished? No.”
There were a lot of half-built concession desks and dangling wires, the construction dust was so thick that shoes left treads on the concrete, and some of the water pipes were leaking into the press room. But they had an ice sheet, 12,000 or so full seats, and someone even turned up with a bucket to catch the drips, which, when it comes down to it, was really all they needed.
