The Map Keeps Opening

Three days ago Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. recorded six sites at Level III — Declaration [1]. As with the wave before it, the sites did not stop at Level IV — Convergence. Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. has begun to suspect that Level IV, which Le Council spent an entire prior advisory declassifying, may not describe a stage the Ice still passes through. Le Council is retaining the level in the framework regardless. Le Council is sentimental about the framework. It is one of the few things in this affair Le Council built itself.

U.I.P.I. Classification Update

The Six New Teams

Amsterdam Aardvarks — The Floating Canal

The assessment team reports that a canal city was given a rink and that no one in the canal city appeared surprised. Under the Tolerance designation, every penalty at The Floating Canal is reduced by one tier—a major becomes a minor, a minor becomes a warning—on the operating principle, per the assessment team, that Amsterdam has seen worse. The ice is of the second form, pale and layered. The Aardvarks are methodical, persistent, and mildly impossible to move. Their supporters arrive by bicycle and heckle with what the assessment team described, at some length, as "aggressive courtesy."

The Aardvarks are patient the way water is patient. The city was built by people who lost that argument.

Dublin Dragons — The Emerald Pitch

The ice at The Emerald Pitch is of the second 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. At The Emerald Pitch, the impossible has a home-ice advantage.

Cyprus Chimeras — The Divided Grounds

The Divided Grounds present Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. with a documentation problem. Under the Hybrid designation, the Chimeras are assigned, before each game, a modifier belonging to another arena—never the same one twice in succession, never announced in advance. The ice is of the second form, though the assessment team notes it was reluctant to commit even to that, on the grounds that at The Divided Grounds commitment tends not to survive the next fixture. An island claimed by more than one world was given a team assembled from more than one team. Le Council has stopped attempting to maintain a current record of what the Chimeras are.

No two games at The Divided Grounds are the same game. The Chimeras prefer it that way, insofar as the Chimeras can be said to prefer anything twice.

Moscow Mules — The Copper Hall

The Copper Hall is the second Russian arena to join the league, and the assessment team reports it arrived with the settled air of an institution that had merely been waiting for the paperwork. The ice is of the second form. Under the Kick designation, each period opens with a two-minute surge of home-team speed before subsiding—brief, real, and, the assessment team notes, quite enough. The Mules are heavy, immovable, and untroubled by fatigue. Their supporters are described as "not subtle," which Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. includes verbatim because Le Council could not improve on it.

The Mules do not chase the game. The game is brought to them, eventually, and they are still standing when it arrives.

Panama Pangolins — The Lock

The world's most important passage was given a rink, and Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. notes that the Almighty IceThe living force that created Hockay. It appeared. It is spreading. has always understood transit. The ice at The Lock is of the first form—clear, hard, fast. Under the Transit designation, every modifier a visiting player carries is amplified to one and a half times its strength, for good and for ill alike: everything passing through Panama is made larger. The Pangolins roll up and wait. Then, at the least convenient moment available to them, they unfurl.

The Lock opens when the Pangolins choose. Visitors are welcome to time their arrival. Visitors are not permitted to time their departure.

Phuket Parrots — The Andaman Pavilion

The most tourist-oriented arena in the league receives opposing teams as guests, and then, per the assessment team, "eats them." The ice is of the first form. Under the Festive designation, scoring probability is elevated—for both teams, which Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena.'s records indicate was not the original specification, and which no one has moved to correct, on the grounds that the correction would make The Andaman Pavilion worse. The Parrots are loud, bright, and considerably more dangerous than the welcome suggests.

The Andaman Pavilion wants goals. It is not particular about whose. The Parrots have made peace with this. Their opponents rarely do.

On the Two Forms

Four of the six arenas manifested this week took the second form; two took the first. Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. notes, for the running record, that the league's arenas are now split between the two forms in numbers that are close but not equal, and that the gap between them is the sort of gap that resolves, sooner or later, into a structure. Le Council is watching the gap. Le Council continues to decline to name the two forms, though Le Council concedes the decline is now purely ceremonial.

On the Remaining Installations

Fresh activity, classified Level III — Declaration, has been registered in:

• Samarkand, Uzbekistan
• Muscat, Oman
• Chengdu, China
• Lagos, Nigeria
• Zanzibar, Tanzania
• Caracas, Venezuela

Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. notes that Provisional Field Assessment Offices are en route, and that Le Council has retired the joke about the word "provisional," not because it stopped being true, but because it stopped being a joke.

Closing

The league now contains forty-one arenas. Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. is aware that this number is climbing toward a rounder and more consequential one, and that when it arrives, Le Council will have decisions to make that Le Council has, so far, been permitted to defer.

The game continues.

If you have theories, Discord remains the appropriate venue. Le CouncilThe governing body of Hockay and Unexplained Ice Phenomena. notes that the community's two lists are still correct, still growing, and still ahead of Le Council's own.