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BEIJING - It looks like it's goodbye to GM Place during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

The home of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team will get a new name for the Olympics, Vancouver Games organizers told International Olympic Committee officials in Beijing Wednesday.

The suggested name for the primary ice hockey venue is Canada Hockey Place.

General Motors spent $18.5 million in 1995 for the naming rights to the arena for 20 years, and the automaker is a sponsor of the Olympics, but venues must be what's known as "clean" - free of corporate advertising inside and out.

The IOC is expected to shortly approve the new name as well as the proposed moniker of Vancouver Olympic Centre for the curling venue.

The head of Vancouver's Olympic organizing committee used the new names during an update to the international committee in Beijing on Wednesday.

"We made a commitment in (2003) to you that we would be essentially complete with the venue construction for the sports venues this year and we will," John Furlong said.

"We're almost there now."

IOC officials also heard about the state of non-competition venues like athlete housing, sponsorship dollars and plans to recruit thousands of volunteers to assist during the Games.

The bulk of the report was made up of details Vancouver organizers have released publicly in recent months and Furlong's update was warmly received.

"The project is perfectly on schedule and has met a wonderful and positively enthusiastic response from the market and from the public at large," said Rene Fasel, the head of the international co-ordinating committee for the 2010 Games.

"The preparations are of such a quality that we are entirely confident that everything can be completed in the next 18 months."

Delegates to the IOC were also informed that their home for the 2010 Games will be the upscale Westin Bayshore Hotel on Vancouver's waterfront.

"I think you'll find you'll be very very happy there," Furlong said.

Though he wasn't asked directly by IOC delegates, Furlong also volunteered an update on the state of the Sea-to-Sky highway, the main artery linking Vancouver to the Nordic venues in Whistler, B.C.

"You may have read in the media last week we had a slide on this road, some rocks gave way and came down onto the highway," Furlong told them, making no mention of the fact the road had been closed for five days.

"This is precisely why this road needed to have these upgrades so at Games times we'll have an efficient modern road through a beautiful piece of geography."

Furlong told reporters after the IOC session he was pleased by the reaction from delegates.

"I only got three questions and the commentary from the commission chair was absolutely remarkable positive," he said.

"It was good to hear."

Furlong was quizzed on the new anti-doping centre for the Games being built inside the speed skating venue in Richmond, B.C., and about space for the athletes in the dining hall.

He was also asked on how entry visas for visitors to the Games will be handled.

"There is a great effort being made by all partners on both sides of the border to try to make sure that the coming and going into the area during the period of the Olympics will be first class and efficient," Furlong said.

"You will really notice a flat-out effort at Vancouver International Airport to make the coming and going in that facility effortless for everyone much as it was here in Beijing over the past few days."