9. March 2026
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Ice Hockey At The Milan / Cortina Olympic Games 2026 at Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

1.9

Rating

 1.9/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • New, modern arena
  • Nice (very North American) atmosphere

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Extremely narrow seating
  • Traffic and access chaos
  • Rude security with biased behavior
  • Food and service concept

Would it be fit for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games or not? The Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena was the key venue in the news before the major sports event in February 2026 in Milan and Cortina. Finally, the organizers made it, had a first test match in January 2026 and opened the gates for the (majorly men’s) matches of the Olympic Games. The German national team just played one of their group matches there, on 15th February 2026 vs. the USA. Thus, this match was the last one on my trip to Milan. Here is my review of the venue, which will be named Arena Milano or PalaItalia after the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

 

Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena – Location & Transport

Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena is located in the Southeast of Milan. It is right at the A51 motorway and thus comparably close to Milan-Linate Airport (LIN). The arena is next to a rather residential district in the Italian city. At least during the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, there were just very limited services, a few restaurants and street food cars, in the area. The only hotel in walking distance is the Novotel Milano Linate Aeroporto, where I stayed one night.

A key issue during the Games was the transport to and from the arena. The only public transport option is the tram station V.Le Ungheria L.Go Gonzaga, which is served by tram lines 12 and 27 (27 only during the games) connecting to Central Milan. It is a some ten minutes walk away. Additionally, there were shuttle buses to Milano Rogoredo, a train station featuring local up to national trains. However, after some matches, there have been massive lines to reach these shuttle buses. An additional issue after the match was congestion around the tram station.

Apart from the shuttle buses and normal traffic, the street was blocked by limousine, taxi and ride share drivers, as this point was the one closest to the arena available for picking up passengers. There are parking garages right next to Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena / PalaItalia. However, these were not operational / not available to public. I heard from other fans that there were no sensible parking options for visitors, which also lead to quite a couple of foreign cars parking in the residential area around.

 

 

Entering the Arena Issues

The match I visited was the last one of that Sunday. The match before started 4:30 hours before. However, due to the capacity of the arena and the fact that people could not do merchandise before the match (see below) clearly caused that the time gap between the end of the match before and the beginning of the Germany-USA match was too short (roughly 100 minutes). In contrast to Paris 2024, spectators were not forced to leave the arena quickly as well.

While you did security and ticket checks before, this lead to the situation that the in-fact gates to the arena did not open earlier than 55 minutes before face-off – which is far too short for a sold out arena at Olympic Games. Hospitality guests, though, could enter the arena beforehand, through a separate corridor. In that huge waiting area, which likely hosted the vast majority of spectators already at gate opening, there was neither a food nor a merchandise opportunity, which significantly worsened the situation. Overall, the turnaround between the matches felt absolutely poorly organized, even though this had already been the tenth matchday at the venue (the fifth one with multiple matches scheduled).

 

Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena – The Venue / Ticketing

The construction works for Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena / PalaItalia started in 2023. The owner is the German CTS Eventim group. Interestingly, the official opening date is 6th May 2026, i.e. two and a half months after the Men’s Gold Medal Game on 22nd February 2026. The arena capacity is 16,000 for sports / 20,000 for concerts. However, during the Olympic Games, the arena operated at a capcity of 11,500 roughly. The Northern curve was blocked and some areas there were covered with curtains. Likely, due to that reason, you also could not circle around the venue.

I sat in the lower ranks on the North end, there was just one entrance for the whole curve. Overall, the arena felt modern, but lacks character. The screens in the commuting area were used for advertisement, there was no match screen and no time screen (which would have been very helpful for the intermissions). Overall, the width of the aisles felt too small, especially around the food stands, where the lines in the intermissions reached the opposite wall.

The seats in the area where I sat were ridiculously small. Yeah, I am fat – but even the people sitting next to me had issues just to use the space assigned by the blue plastic seats. A few seats in the curve and a wider distance to the neighboring seats. I was also surprised about the ticketing categories. While at Rho Arena, the seats behind the goal were the cheapest category (30 EUR), these seats were the top one at the major Olympic ice hockey venue – 190 EUR! You simply cannot justify that, especially given the terrible “comfort” of the arena. Nonetheless, in fact all matches came with high sales, close to or in fact sold out.

 

Ice Hockey at Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena – Atmosphere

As said, the matches at Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena were constantly very well sold (despite some really terrible short-term ticketing issues). This also lead to a very nice atmosphere. Even though the USA was too strong on that day for the German team, there were quite some cheers from both sides. You have to note that the ice hockey tournament at Milan was presented in a very North American way – the support could have been even better. Some matches, like the Canada–Switzerland clash on 13th February 2026, though, came with stunning support from both sides.

 

Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena – Merchandise & Food

As said above, entering the venue was far too late. Even though I was likely rather in front of the masses, the situation inside the arena had already been chaotic, especially around food and merchandise. The arena featured a major merch area as well as a few merch booths with limited offers. Similarly, the food stands were absolutely crowded. As part of an Olympic ice hockey experience, you want to grab food, get some merch and enjoy the warm-up of your team. This was absolutely unrealistic during my visit at Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena.

 

As my block had quite a walk from the seats to these services, it was also very difficult to do one of these things during the intermission and be back for the match in time. One thing which will improve after the Olympic Games is that you will definitely be able to pay with credit cards other than VISA then – I talked about this ridiculous policy in my Milan 2026 Megastore post. Key potential sales like plush mascots or larger sized were – not too surprisingly – not available as well.

 

Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena – Services

You have to praise the masses of volunteers at the Milan Cortina Olympic Games 2026. They buffer a lot of the bad experience I had on that day in Milan. While the atmosphere at the smaller Rho Ice Hockey Arena at Milan Trade Fair was very relaxed, I have to say that I felt that the treatment of visitors was not fully respectful. During security check, one of the security guys wanted to put duct tape on my ice hockey jersey. I wore a fan jersey of the German Women National Team, which is featuring a German discount grocery store as main sponsor. I was told that this company is not a sponsor of the Olympic Games and I have to cover it.

This is absolutely ridiculous, especially given the fact that in fact practically all European club and national team jerseys (if you haven’t bought the Olympic edition beforehand) do feature sponsors – and they are likely not part of the supporters’ pool of the event. Other people passed easily, so that I feel that I faced in a whatever way biased treatment by these people. This is absolutely disgusting and a shame for the Olympic games.

I made clear that I absolutely do not agree to this treatment and thus turned the inside of the jersey out. I feel that wearing your national colors is an essential part of supporting your team – and obviously I turned it back once I was out of sight. Nobody complained about this “unlawful” jersey (which is official German Ice Hockey Federation merchandise, by the way) in the arena, obviously.

 

Bad Sanitary Situation

The arena features by far too few toilets. Especially at the Northern end, where I was sitting, the distance to the next toilet was too short, their capacity too small. Some facilities were not operational. I typically don’t share toilet pictures, but the right one was straight after I entered. The toilet was in a disgusting state. Despite the long turnaround time they took, there has obviously not been any cleaning or other maintenance (paper towels at the sink were missing as well partially). This was absolutely poor organization and bad hospitality by the hosts.

 

Ice Hockey at Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena – My View

Poor organization, bad service and no traffic concept – there is a reason why this arena in fact really opens three months after its initial Olympic puck drop. The arena needs to make use of the time after the Olympic to bring this place to its full potential, which is definitely there. Some issues, like the lack of toilets and the limited area around the food courts, though, will be hard to manage.

A key point whether Milan and Italy will finally love their PalaItalia from May 2026 onward, though, will be the parking and transport concept. There won’t be a direct tram access in that shorrt time, even if you manage to solve the other issues. I have to rate the arena based on my experience at the time of visit – and I just have to give it a poor review. Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena simply did not give an experience as Olympic Games should give you.

 

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