The Coral Rink
Lore
The Coral Rink smells of salt air, which the assessment team initially attributed to instrument fault and subsequently attributed to the ocean. The ice is of the verglas form—clear and hard, in a place that has never had a reason for it. Under the Swarm designation, the Barracudas' defensive stats climb each period once they have scored: a team that lets Barbados draw first blood rarely recovers the initiative. They operate as a pack, and the crowd feeds it. The Barracudas are patient until they are not, and the assessment team reports that the moment between the two states is very short and that it is audible from anywhere in the building.
The Building
Coral stone, quarried locally and left rough, in a horseshoe open at the seaward end so that the trade wind crosses The Almighty Ice on its way to the water. The 7,600 seats are shaded by a canopy of pale sailcloth stretched on steel arms, which moves in the wind and throws a shifting pattern across the ice that nobody has asked to have corrected. The boards are inlaid at intervals with sections of actual reef, dead and bleached and set behind glass, and the facilities office has confirmed that these were placed and not found. The concourse opens directly onto sand. Steel pan carries from the eastern terrace throughout, including during play, and the tempo of it tracks the game closely enough that visiting coaches have learned to listen for the change.