The Eve—Season 04 Begins at Midnight
Today is the Eve.
Season 04 begins at 00:00 UITC. Le Council has a day of work between here and there, and publishes this notice before it starts. What follows is what happens today, what changes at midnight, and one thing Le Council will not explain.
The Week Behind
The All-Stars Verglas won both games. On Monday they beat the All-Stars Givre 3-1 at The Red Furnace, Perth. Haruto Nakamura scored twice. On Tuesday they won 2-1 at The Gulf Waters, Oman, on a goal by Juliana Santos seven minutes and forty-nine seconds into overtime. Neither game touched the record. Le Council records them anyway.
The S.H.I.F.T. is closed. The window shut at 23:00 last night. All forty-eight front offices were at the table this time, Busan and Helsinki among them. What survived the vote is on the books, and the rosters are public.
Tonight
Le Council lists the day's business in the order it is done.
- Round 4.0 is posted. Every team puts five percent of its register up for sealed bid. The round takes no bids until Season 04 opens.
- The ceiling becomes ten percent. Le Council reads each citizen's team off the register and writes it down. One team may be yours. Everywhere else, the ceiling is ten percent. No holding is unwound.
- The schedule lands. Forty-six matchdays. Twenty-four games each. One at the top of every hour. Le Council knows which game is first. It will be on the schedule tonight. It is not in this notice.
- La Confrérie strikes the Season 04 series. Every rostered player, as the S.H.I.F.T. left them. The Season 03 postseason becomes this season's game cards, the Final among them. The ordinary Season 03 runs close tonight, so a blister no longer mixes two seasons. A Season 03 card already in a binder stays there and stays good. The fifty-four sealed Blisters des Séries still open.
The Players Have Moved On
Season 03 is in the ratings now.
Of the 720 players on a roster, 360 rose and 310 fell. Fifty did not play enough to be measured, and were not. 119 gained a star. 128 lost one. Le Council notes that the second number is larger and makes no further comment.
Forty-six players retired. None of them held a seat. All forty-six were waiting in the unattached pool, and stopped waiting. Ninety more arrived in the pool after them. Ninety-four players are now unattached. Several of them will be needed this season, for reasons set out below.
G.L.A.S.S. Can See Them Now
In Season 02, G.L.A.S.S. entered beta operations. Le Council asked for patience "where the glass is still being fitted to the frame," and promised a full rollout that matched what the citizens had funded.
The glass is fitted.
From Season 04, G.L.A.S.S. does not draw the game from the record. The record is drawn from the game. Every player on the ice has a position, ten times a second, and the rink shows all of them: the forecheck, the gap, the pass that did not arrive, the defender who was already in the lane before the shot. The puck goes where the puck went. On a phone, the camera follows it.
The feed keeps the same clock. JM's call lands with the play it describes, and not before.
When the game ends, the rink goes dark. G.L.A.S.S. watches. It does not rewind.
Le Council will not promise this of every game. Where G.L.A.S.S. can see a game, it sees all of it. Where it cannot, the rink citizens already know is still in place.
The Record Reads Differently
Citizens who keep books should read this before Monday.
Because G.L.A.S.S. now watches every player, the record counts three things it never could: blocked shots, takeaways and giveaways. They are in the box score from the first game, and they move as the plays air.
The record also counts more of what it already counted. Season 04 will show more shots, more saves and more hits than any season before it. It will not show more goals.
Le Council advises against comparing a Season 04 save percentage with a Season 03 one. The goaltenders did not improve over the interseason. The instruments did.
A Player Who Goes Down
Season 04 introduces something Le Council would prefer not to introduce.
Players can be hurt.
It happens at a hit, in a fight, on a fall, or when equipment fails. The whistle goes. The trainer comes out. The player is helped off, and a teammate takes the seat. Nobody in the building knows yet how bad it is. At the next break, the record does:
- Minor. Out for the rest of the game.
- Major. Out for a number of games, posted on the player's page. The front office calls up a free agent to dress in the seat until the player is back. The pool lends the player. It does not let them go.
- Career-ending. The player retires. The front office signs a replacement on the spot, and the holders are asked to ratify the signing at the next S.H.I.F.T.
Le Council expects most injuries to be minor. Le Council expects a few not to be.
Graine Wetsky Arena Holds Two Teams
In September, Le Council recorded that Graine Wetsky Arena is nobody's home ice and cannot become anybody's.
From this week, Busan Blizzards and Helsinki Howlers play their home games there. That is §6 of the Schedule their registers aligned under, and their postseason home games go with it, should there be any. Twenty-three home dates each. Seventy-one thousand seats. The Funds state that not one shaving leaves the building.
Le Council has reread the September record. Le Council stands by it.
Series ∞, Round 4.0
Round 4.0 is posted tonight and opens with the season.
- Monday the 19th, 00:00 UITC. Bidding opens.
- Saturday the 24th, 00:00. Bids lock.
- Sunday the 25th, 00:00. The round resolves, and Round 4.1 is posted.
A bid is sealed. A citizen pays what they bid. A bid can be raised and cannot be lowered. Each bid carries a one percent fee, and the fee is burned.
Le Council repeats what it said on the 9th and on the 11th, and will say again on the 25th. When Round 4.0 resolves, the prices on the board will fall, in places by more than ninety-nine percent. What a citizen is worth will not fall with them. S.L.U.S.H. does not print. S.L.U.S.H. settles.
How a round works → · The issuance board →
The Week Keeps Its Rules
Season 04 keeps all seven.
- 🔇 Muted Mondays—arena conditions are switched off.
- 🌌 Aurora Tuesdays—modifiers run hot.
- 🌀 Weird Wednesdays—each host borrows a visitor's arena.
- 🥅 Thankless Thursdays—backups start, and nobody pulls the goalie.
- 🥊 Fist-Fight Fridays—no advisory is issued.
- ⑥ Sixth Saturdays—the Sixth is receiving.
- 🔁 Second Chance Sundays—a one-goal game does not end.
Season 04 opens on a Monday. For the first twenty-four games, the buildings are only buildings. The first Second Chance Sunday is the 25th.
What Le Council Will Not Say
Le Council has been asked whether Season 04 will be like Season 03. It will not. Le Council has been asked how.
Le Council notes, without conclusion, that the register of Marks was written in Season 03, and has never yet been read in a season that followed one. That changes at 00:00. The parishes are quiet. Le Council has asked them nothing.
Closing
Forty-eight teams. Forty-six matchdays. One thousand one hundred and four games. A sealed bid every week. A rink that sees everyone on it, and a trainer who has, for the first time, somewhere to go.
At 00:00 UITC, the first puck of Season 04 drops. It does not stop from there.
When Le Council has more to share, The Horn will sound.
Until then: the rink is always lit, and from midnight, G.L.A.S.S. can see everyone on it.
Stick around.