Conferences

The league runs on two tracks, along the only division line The Almighty Ice has ever drawn: the clear ice and the pale. Le Council did not build the wall between them—it read which side each arena was standing on and wrote the two lists down.

The clear ice.

La Conférence du Verglas

The clear form—hard, glassy, continuous, without grain—is verglas. It is the ice of freezing rain, of a surface arrested mid-motion, of the thin bright glaze that forms when water freezes faster than it can turn white.

24 teams1st:Medellín Mapaches

The pale ice.

La Conférence du Givre

The pale form—soft-surfaced, feathered, an accretion of fine crystal—is givre. It is the ice of frost, of rime, of the slow white bloom that gathers on a cold window overnight.

24 teams1st:Nairobi Narwhals