On the Ice Manifesting New Teams
It is Tuesday. The aurora is visible over Anchorage. Le Council notes the date because the date matters now in ways it did not used to, and Le Council prefers to be precise about when things begin to matter.
Le Council is writing this because the writing of it can no longer be deferred.
Le Council has issued three prior advisories on this matter [1][2][3]. Le Council will not summarize them. The reader has access to them. Le Council will state only that the matter which prompted those advisories has, as of this writing, been concluded—not by Le Council, not by any decision Le Council made or authorized, but by The Almighty Ice, which has concluded things in the manner it prefers: without consultation, without warning, and with what Le Council's Phenomenological Assessment Division has characterized, across the relevant paperwork, as a degree of thoroughness that significantly exceeds initial projections.
On the Classification
Le Council must address the classification first. Le Council is aware that the prior advisory asked that the continued Glacification of Level V not be read as foreshadowing. Le Council stands by that request in principle. Circumstances have made it, in practice, untenable.
| Region | Prior | Current |
|---|---|---|
| Medellín, Colombia | Level IV — Convergence | Level V — Manifestation |
| Cairo, Egypt | Level IV — Convergence | Level V — Manifestation |
| Wellington, New Zealand | Level IV — Convergence | Level V — Manifestation |
| Gander, Canada | Level IV — Convergence | Level V — Manifestation |
"Manifestation." That is the name Le Council's nomenclature committee agreed upon. Le Council will not elaborate on the name further. The name is doing its own work.
Le Council will note, for the record, that this is the first time in the history of Hockay that a Level V designation has been applied to any region, and that Le Council's operational framework for this tier was, until recently, hypothetical. The arenas are no longer hypothetical. The Provisional Field Assessment Offices in these four regions have completed their provisional assessments. The word "provisional" no longer applies. Le Council is retiring it from use in these four specific contexts.
The Four New Teams
Medellín Mapaches — La Ladera (The Hillside)
The Medellín installation was the first to observe structural formation—before Le Council had formalized the framework to classify what was being observed.
La Ladera is terraced into the hillside. The ice sits at the base of the incline; the seating rises steeply away from it in levels, stacked vertically, the whole building leaning toward the action with the momentum of geography. Fog moves through gaps the structure does not, by any architectural assessment Le Council has commissioned, appear to have. The murals visible from inside the arena—and from a considerable distance outside it—depict raccoons. The raccoons are in motion. The raccoons are mid-theft. The raccoons do not appear concerned about being depicted.
The team that has emerged from La Ladera calls itself the Mapaches. Le Council notes this name was not assigned by Le Council. It appeared, along with the team. Le Council considers this consistent with established precedent.
Le Council has observed that the Mapaches appear to play with a particular ferocity at La Ladera. Whether this is a property of the arena or of the Mapaches themselves, Le Council has not yet determined. Le Council suspects it may be both.
The Mapaches play like they have nothing to lose.
Cairo Crocodiles — The Pyramid Basin
Five thousand years of civilization. Then ice. Le Council declines to draw a conclusion about the order of these things.
The Pyramid Basin arrived in the desert south of Cairo where flat sand had been, by Le Council's geological records, for longer than Le Council's geological records extend. The arena sank into the earth rather than rising from it; the seating bowls inward, terraced down toward the ice in concentric rings of limestone. The surface has a greenish cast near the boards that Le Council's Phenomenological Assessment Division has described, across eleven separate attempts at characterization, as not a reflection. Sound travels downward through the arena with unusual clarity. Returning it has presented persistent challenges for the broadcast team, who are, in Le Council's assessment, managing admirably.
Visitors near the boards at The Pyramid Basin have, in the limited observation Le Council's instruments have captured, not fared well. Le Council is watching.
The Crocodiles play as if they have seen all of it.
Wellington Whales — The Howling Harbour
The Wellington P.F.A.O.'s operational notes contain seventy-three separate references to wind interference. Le Council initially attributed these to the equipment. Le Council has revised this assessment. The wind is not interference. The wind is a feature. Le Council is learning to make this distinction on a case-by-case basis.
The Howling Harbour stands at the water's edge: weather-beaten timber, corrugated steel, rigging cables that hum in the harbour wind whether the wind is present or not. Every architectural survey Le Council has obtained describes the building as sealed. The building is not sealed. Cold air enters constantly through mechanisms Le Council's Division has been unable to locate despite sustained effort. Pucks drift unnaturally during breakouts in ways that have required the broadcast team to recalibrate their expectations about what a breakout looks like.
Visiting teams appear to struggle with the pass at The Howling Harbour in ways they do not at other arenas. Le Council believes the wind is responsible. Le Council is not certain the wind is the only thing responsible.
The Whales have stopped fighting it.
Gander Geese — The Waypoint
The Gander installation's field reports were, throughout the assessment period, the shortest of the four. The most important of them was submitted at 23:47 UITC on May 25 and included in Le Council's prior advisory. Le Council reproduces the operative section here for readers who have not yet read it:
Surface formations have stabilized into geometric arrangements consistent with the foundational footprint of an arena structure. The Team is not stating that an arena is forming. The Team is stating that the Ice is arranging itself in a manner that, if one were to overlay the schematics of an existing arena, would correspond. The Team has performed this overlay.
Local residents have begun to gather at the perimeter. They are quiet. They have brought folding chairs.
They have not left. The arena now holds their children, their neighbors, and, on its better nights, 4,300 fans making more noise than a building that size has any structural right to produce.
The departures board at the entrance lists times only. No destinations. It is, by Le Council's records, always correct for whatever is about to happen. Le Council has been unable to determine what is providing it with this information. Le Council has decided to regard this as a minor matter.
Le Council has observed that passing appears to be elevated in Gander—for both teams. Le Council is uncertain how to classify this, and notes that the Gander P.F.A.O. filed similarly inconclusive reports for the entirety of its deployment. Le Council is choosing to view this as a feature.
The Geese play like they have already seen the future and it is fine.
On the Remaining Installations
Five P.F.A.O. installations remain active: Oahu, Monaco, Singapore, Cuzco, and Tehran. Each is currently classified at Level III—Declaration. Le Council is not in a position to characterize their trajectories.
Le Council was not in a position to characterize the trajectories of the Medellín, Cairo, Wellington, and Gander installations either. The instruments are running. Le Council will share what it finds when Le Council finds it.
Closing
The four new teams will not be participating in the First Postseason. They will watch it. Le Council expects they will watch closely—the postseason is the highest level of Hockay ever played, and the Mapaches, the Crocodiles, the Whales, and the Geese are, at this moment, new to this. Rookies tend to observe carefully when the veterans take the ice. Le Council has no reason to expect otherwise.
Le Council will note that the dream of lifting the Cup in an inaugural season is, historically, ambitious. Le Council will also note that these four arenas were not supposed to exist, that Level IV was not supposed to require a name the public could read, that Level V was not supposed to require a name at all, and that the residents of Gander were not supposed to be sitting quietly in folding chairs watching ice form where nothing had been.
Everything is proceeding. More will be shared about the four new teams as the next season approaches. Le Council knows what it knows. Le Council will share it when it is ready to share it.
The game continues. Stick around.