Olympic hockey arena to install lighter boards after player feedback

MILAN – After player feedback and feedback from the NHL, the banners at Milano’s Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena are expected to be changed to a lighter color, multiple NHL sources confirmed Monday night. ESPN’s Emily Kaplan was the first to report.

The new banners are expected to be pasted on in time for the men’s hockey qualification round Tuesday, the league sources say. Arena staff began removing the current banners immediately following Monday night’s women’s hockey semifinal between Canada and Switzerland.

The banners were going to be changed all along due to wear and tear, but players and NHL officials have pointed out to the IOC how the darker green color specifically in different areas of the boards could be problematic for sight when it comes to finding a black puck.

In the U.S.-Denmark game, United States goalie Jeremy Swayman said he couldn’t see a puck coming at him fired from near the Denmark bench.

“It was a flash screen and it was just the perfect height right between the stands and board level, and I truly lost it,” he said.

The CBC and NBC broadcast crews wondered aloud during the telecast whether Swayman lost the puck because of the color of the boards in the vicinity of where the puck was shot.

To Swayman’s credit, he didn’t use it as an excuse, joking after the game that he was colorblind, so it didn’t matter to him anyway.

“It’s something all of us always have to face and we play in different arenas every night in the NHL, so this is just one, another one, and it’s a challenge that we have to embrace,” Swayman said.