Concerned about the ongoing construction process surrounding the official ice hockey venue for the 2026 Winter Olympics, the National Hockey League will send representatives to Milan next week to inspect the site. The Athletic hockey insider Pierre LeBrun reported from the NHL’s GM meetings in Toronto on Tuesday that the league will send Derek King and Dean Matsuzaki to Italy for an in-person check-in with less than three months remaining until the first puck drops. “It continues to be concerning,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told LeBrun after Tuesday’s meetings. “Hopefully we’ll have a much better sense of it next week.” The 2026 Olympics will be the sixth with NHL player participation and the first since the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. The league opted not to send its players to the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea amid disputes over travel costs and marketing; scheduling complications in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a similar abstention from the 2022 Games in Beijing. In F
