The Emerald Pitch
Lore
The ice at The Emerald Pitch is of the givre form. Under the Luck designation, scoring probability is elevated for both teams—but the assessment team is obligated to note that the luck is not distributed evenly, and that it is not difficult to guess which team receives more of it at home. Nothing at the arena confirms this. Nothing denies it either. The assessment team reports a persistent sense of being watched over, which it was unable to instrument, and which it has filed under the same heading as the folding chairs. The Dragons produce the occasional impossible moment, and at The Emerald Pitch the impossible has a home-ice advantage.
The Building
Red brick and green steel, built tight into a terrace of houses so that two sides of the building have no facade at all and the main entrance is a gap between numbers 14 and 18. Inside, the roof is a single span of riveted trusses painted a green that the facilities office has matched to nothing, and the 15,800 seats run close to the boards on three sides with a standing end behind the northern net. There are folding chairs. Le Council's assessment team counted them on arrival, counted them again on departure, and recorded a different figure, and has asked that the matter not be pursued. The bar under the western stand predates the manifestation by an amount the licensing authority declines to confirm. The Almighty Ice is fast and true and has never, in any fixture, taken an unkind bounce for the home side.