MILAN, Feb 21 (Reuters) - With the Winter Olympics drawing to an end and its ice rinks due to be removed, joint host city Milan has unveiled plans for a permanent ice arena both to seal the Games' legacy and house a professional local hockey team.
Facing a clamour from athletes and residents, local authorities announced the project this week for a new 5,000-seater, 30x60m rink inside an exhibition centre area on Milan’s outskirts to be built within three years.
"This is what we had been asking for a long time, and I believe it would truly complete these Olympics, which have been extraordinary,” Andrea Gios, president of the Italian Ice Sports Federation, told Reuters.
The northern Italian city successfully staged figure skating, speed skating, short track and hockey competitions across three venues.
All of them — including the newly built Santagiulia arena, which hosted hockey — will now be repurposed for live shows and other sports.
Authorities envisage a temporary new ice arena being set up in October before making it permanent and hopefully becoming home to a professional hockey team competing in the Ice Hockey League alongside Austrian, Slovenian and Italian sides.
The surprise announcement came after many Italian athletes and Milan residents lamented the prospect of the city being left without a permanent arena for ice sportsafter the Olympics.
INVESTMENT NEEDED
Gios said he spoke with some North American investors interested in investing in a professional Milan hockey team, which would cost about 5 million euros ($5.9 million) per year.
A new facility would also serve as a venue for major figure skating and short-track events, as well as a hub for grassroots activities.
Despite delivering Italy’s biggest haul of Olympic golds — with Francesca Lollobrigida winning both the 3,000 and 5,000 metresand the men’s squad taking the team pursuit title — Italian speed skaters will have no domestic indoor training rink once the Games end.
Building a skating dome with a 400‑metre ice track would be very expensive and offer less certain returns than a multi‑purpose venue, Gios said, though some private investors who had shown interest in the past would be sounded out.
Until then, top Italian speed skaters will continue to carry out part of their training abroad, on indoor tracks such as the one in Inzell, Germany.
“I know it’s not easy to keep a facility like ours open, but of course it’s disappointing," Lollobrigida said of the Games venue. "If our results don’t speak for us, there’s nothing more we can do."
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(Reporting by Elvira Pollina and Giancarlo Navach, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
