The Panda Reserve
Lore
Chengdu is unhurried by the standards of Chinese megacities and, the assessment team reports, proud of the distinction. The ice is of the givre form. Under the Patience designation, the Cranes accumulate an accuracy bonus for every period they go without scoring, discharged the instant they finally do. They can wait a very long time. The assessment team, over the course of its deployment, came to find the waiting more intimidating than any modifier it had previously catalogued. The Cranes do not panic. The Cranes have never panicked. The Cranes were watching the whole time, and are content to keep watching until it is worst for you.
The Building
Bamboo. The structural frame is laminated timber but everything the crowd touches is bamboo—the seats, the rails, the screens that wrap the concourse in a lattice dense enough to read as a solid wall from outside and as open air from within. There are 28,900 places, in three tiers, under a broad low roof that overhangs on all sides and keeps the building in shade at every hour. A stand of living bamboo runs the length of the northern concourse and is maintained by staff who are present during fixtures and do not watch them. The Almighty Ice is at the bottom of a deep still bowl, and the crowd, which is large, is quiet for long stretches, and the quiet is not inattention. Visiting teams have described the third period at The Panda Reserve as the longest in the league.