With Olympic arena ready for play, Canadian Don Moffatt's magic has given Italy its own 'Miracle on Ice'

Chris Jones reports from Milan.

Forty-six years since the Americans witnessed their miracle on Olympic ice, the Italians — with some Canadian help — might be on the verge of one of their own.

Only a month ago, the Milano Santagiulia hockey arena was a construction site. Cranes obscured the façade. An abandoned car blocked the main entrance. Workers left a trail of paper espresso cups, as though they might need them to find their way back through the maze of temporary fencing.

A test event three weeks ago failed to ease mounting concerns. Don Moffatt, the 67-year-old Canadian ice master, had stood on his creation, staring at his rink like a farmer worrying about his slow crops. 

He hadn’t lost a loonie in it — "There’s nothing in this ice but pure reverse-osmosis water,” he said Tuesday — but drywall dust and dirt made the ice look grey, and a hole appeared during the first period of the first game, requiring a patch that went viral.

As recently as last week, Moffatt still wasn’t sure he’d manage to make a playable surface. 

“I was like, okay, we could be the laughingstock of the world, because this might not happen,” he said. “That’s how close we were.”

Moffatt had begun fearing the dust and dirt would surface during the weeks of fierce competition ahead, the way a splinter works its way to the skin. “It’s all trying to get to the top,” he said. He decided to shave the ice down to the pipes of refrigerant that run beneath it and pour a clean sheet.

But when he arrived last Monday with a full crew to begin his rebuild, he was halted yet again by the construction around him, and an inch of muddy water in his Zamboni room.

“I’ve never had a challenge like this,” Moffatt said. “I waited until the last possible second.”

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