The Milan Cortina Olympics leave a legacy of the rebirth of ice hockey in a city of great tradition. Here is the project of the Fiera Foundation which will give a new ice house to the Milanese.
There was a time when Milan was the capital of ice hockey. A time in which the Assago Forum was too small to contain the love of the Milanese for Saima and a time in which the rivalry with the Silvio Berlusconi-branded Devils set the city on fire. A distant time which was followed by a long season of ups (few but intense) and downs, until the nothingness of now. A season over. The Milan Cortina Olympics leave as a legacy to the economic capital of the country a new opportunity to return to giving a home to ice sports.
It may seem like a small step but, in fact, it isn’t. It is a step into the future with the urgency of linking it to the present because the weeks of the Olympics and Paralympics under the Madonnina have confirmed that Milan remains a city hungry for ice. The kids, hundreds of them, forced to emigrate or give up cultivating their passion, are asking for it and tens of thousands of spectators who crowded the five-circle arenas during the weeks of the Games have affirmed it, if it is true that 72% of the total attendance on the competition fields of Milan Cortina was generated by ice sports and with them 70% of the ticket revenues.
In short, the market is there. And also the rush to connect Olympic enthusiasm to the future. This is why after looking around in February, after a month Fondazione Fiera Milano and the Fisg (Italian Ice Sports Federation) moved on to concrete things. The project will cost around 5 million euros and will be financed entirely by FFM as the first step of a more ambitious programme. We begin with a temporary building that will have to cover a period of three years and then complete the design and work for a larger definitive arena.
Where? The Milano Ice Fiera Arena will be built within the Rho exhibition area, where during the Winter Games there was the Live Dome which celebrated Francesca Lollobrigida’s gold medals and the theater building together with the Santa Giulia Arena (used for shows) for ice hockey matches. A capacity of around 4000 spectators, designed to be perfect for both hockey and figure skating and the Paralympic versions of the ice disciplines. A field 60 meters long and 26 meters wide on the model of the American NHL arenas, audience attached to the track and everything needed to reproduce the spectacle and dynamics of times gone by.
A bet on which the Fiera Milano Foundation, with the support of the Fisg, the Lombardy Region and the Municipality of Milan, has decided to focus heavily. A project that requires an important driving force and for this reason an ice hockey team is about to be reborn in Milan that will turn the hands of time back to the wonderful nineties and two thousand. The proposal arrived on the federation’s table in recent weeks with two large investors: House of Dodge, a cryptocurrency company made in the USA, and the Leitner family from Vipiteno which deals with ice-related systems.
It will be called Hockey Club Milano, the colors will (perhaps) be the white and red of Milan and the budget will have to be between 5 and 8 million euros per year with a three-year investment forecast. A lot of money needed to make a competitive team. At the end of April the application to register with the ICE, a private league in which Bolzano and Brunico already play, will receive a hopefully positive response: it would mean for Milan to place itself in a transnational championship which already includes the presence of large cities such as Vienna, Budapest and Ljubljana. The start is mid-September, so we need to hurry.
The tensile structure built by Fondazione Fiera Milano will obviously also cover the rest of the demand for ice in Milan, it will allow children and young people who today have no home to train, and to develop talents leaving the Alpine valleys. “We have been chasing the dream of having a plant in Milan for years and the structure was born with the idea of becoming a federal centre” explained Andrea Gios, president of the Fisg. “The Olympics have rekindled the flame of passion for these sports and we don’t want it to go out. This is why we are quickly moving from words to deeds – said Giovanni Bozzetti, president of FFM -. It will be a way to strengthen the multifunctional vocation of the exhibition center while also expanding its brand”.
Fondazione Fiera Milano is looking for sponsors who want to link their name to the temporary arena and then, from 2029/2030 to the definitive one whose planning starts now. It could be within the fair perimeter (the temporary one will be built near the South Gate entrance without, however, coming into conflict with the activity of the Fair itself) or elsewhere. Three years that will also serve to give substance to the dream of bringing great hockey back to Milan.
