Rest Easy: IIHF President Confirms There Will Be Hockey At Upcoming Olympics

We're one month from the start of the women's hockey tournament at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, with the men's tournament — featuring NHLers for the first time in over a decade — getting started shortly after.

However, all the excitement has been somewhat tempered by the primary arena situation, which is running way behind schedule and has a rink built several feet shorter than it was supposed to be.

Still, the president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, or IIHF, is giving a proclamation I bet he never thought he'd have to give just four weeks before the start of the Olympics. 

That, yes, there will indeed be hockey at these Games.

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"We can be confident on that," IIHF President Luc Tardif said this week at the World Junior Championships, per The Canadian Press. "You’re not going to go to Milano for nothing."

Well, that's good to know. If you're making the trek over to Italy, there will be hockey.

Despite concerns thanks to an arena that's way behind schedule, the head of the IIHF confirmed we will see some Olympic hockey in February. (Getty Images)

The fact that the president of the IIHF has to say that so close to the start of the tournaments shows what a debacle this has been. We should just assume that when the Winter Olympics roll around, hockey will be part of it.

You don't have to have the head muckety-muck of international puck come out and say, "No, seriously, if you go, there will be hockey, don't worry about it.

We already know that it was crunch time for Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, which was behind schedule, and features an ice surface several feet shorter than the standard NHL size it was supposed to be. 

However, Tardif addressed another issue about the arena. It won't hold as many people as he had initially believed, with a capacity of 11,800.

Which isn't tiny, but it's way smaller than every NHL barn.

"That’s a little bit short," Tardif said, according to The Canadian Press. "But it will be a nice setup for the Olympic Games."

Well, hopefully the on-ice product will make us all forget about the pre-tournament concerns.