This Week in Hockay: September 6th
Season 03 reaches its exact middle tonight. At 23:00 UTC the last game of matchday 23 ends, and every one of the forty-eight teams will have played twenty-three of its forty-six.
Le Council reports the week against that fact, because the week is not the story this time. The half is.
Half A Season, And Two Teams Have Gone
Through twenty-two complete matchdays, 528 of the season's 1,104 games are in the record and 576 are not.
La Conférence du Verglas has stopped being a table and started being a gap. Medellín Mapaches sit on 18-1-3, 39 points. Their single regulation loss was on matchday 4, at Busan; all three of their overtime losses came in the first five matchdays. They have not been beaten in any form since, in seventeen games. Winnipeg Wendigos are on 19-3-0, 38 points, the most wins in either conference and a plus-41 differential, and have been past the third period twice all season and won both times. Third place is nine points behind second. The two of them met on the 1st, in Medellín, and Medellín won 6-1.
La Conférence du Givre has the opposite shape. Nairobi Narwhals lead on 15-1-6, 36 points, and their record is the strangest in the league: one regulation loss in twenty-two games, and six defeats past regulation. A team that has been beaten outright once holds a six-point lead instead of a twenty-point one. From Tehran in second down to Oman in twelfth, eleven teams are separated by six points, and the eighth and last playoff place belongs to Prague Phantoms on 26 with four teams a single point behind them. The Verglas race for eighth is barely wider: McMurdo Monoliths hold it on 27, with four teams within two.
One more feature of the half, which Le Council sets down without interpreting. The first seven places in league scoring are held by defenders. Amara Osei and Peter Kimani, both of Nairobi, share the lead with Rautea Maraetaata of Tahiti on 23 points apiece. The first forward, Bongani Mthembu of Johannesburg, is eighth. Le Council observed the same pattern in the Season 2 record six days ago and offered no explanation for it then either.
The Final Leaves Home
Neutral Combined Site for Finals Game, filed by Assassin66 on the 6th of August and carried on the 29th at 81 of 81 Seals, was enacted at 00:17 UTC on the 1st. The Final will be played on neither finalist's ice, under the combined effects of both their buildings.
Le Council's ruling says what it can and stops.
On the venue: still glacified. Le Council does not choose where The Almighty Ice appears—it never has. Arenas have always followed the Ice, not the reverse. In twenty seasons, there has never been a patch of neutral ice.
Le Council also entered a statement into the record at the request of Graine Wetsky Funds, who asked that it be published as submitted, and it is:
"Surely Hokcay has outgrown chance. Arenas built on Value, Infrastructure that grows Naturally with the sport, Growth guided by Stewardship—that is all we mean."
Le Council publishes it as submitted. Le Council notes that five words in that sentence carry capitals they do not need. Le Council will not be drawn further.
The Second Reckoning Closes On Tuesday
The Second Reckoning opened at 04:00 UTC on the 1st and closes at the end of the 8th. Thirteen categories on the Season 2 record, one ballot each, every one final on submission. A citizen may answer all thirteen or only the ones they hold a view on.
The count stays Glacified until Le Council reports its findings. Le Council will not publish running totals and will not confirm the shape of the count while it is open. Le Council will say that the count is open for three more days and then it is not.
One Hundred And Sixty-Six Thousand Kcups
Graine Wetsky Funds passed one hundred and fifty thousand kcups of Ice Shavings on the 3rd, at 18:37 UTC, during a game in Monaco that the Moose went on to win 2-1 over Chengdu. The Funds' holding stands this morning at 166,491 Ⓚ, on a fan page anybody may read.
Le Council can account for 44,148 of them. That is the whole of what the public ledger shows: 239 sales, 26 citizens, Ⱡ21,204,755 paid since the standing offer opened on the 22nd of July. The buyback is currently quoting Ⱡ369 a kcup.
The other 122,343 do not appear on the ledger.
Le Council has received questions about the volumes recorded against Graine Wetsky Funds. Le Council has confirmed the figures are correct.
The Room Found Out What It Was For
O.F.F.R.E. raised its rolling ceilings at 17:09 UTC on the 2nd—to Ⱡ100,000,000 on the net value one citizen may move in a day and Ⱡ250,000,000 in a week. The next offer filed in la Glacière went up at 18:25. Le Council reports both timestamps and draws no line between them.
Le Marché Gelé settled two deals on its opening afternoon and nothing at all until the 2nd. It settled eleven this week, and every single one of them was Looneys for kcups. Ⱡ139,200,000 changed hands against 50,500 Ⓚ. The largest single deal was Ⱡ25,000,000. Twice, a citizen gave Ⱡ20,000,000 for 5,000 kcups—Ⱡ4,000 each, against the Ⱡ369 the Funds are offering for the same commodity, which is to say roughly eleven times the only standing bid in Hockay.
The notes the citizens attached to their own offers are on the record too. "Big shavings = big money." "Hey lemme in on this bidding war." "I have more loonies, I want your shavings."
What the kcups were for became clear a day later. On the 4th, the parishes consecrated 87,553 Ⓚ—the largest single day the Church has recorded, nearly double the previous high, which was set the day before, which had itself broken the record set on the 27th of August. The three heaviest days of offering in the Church's existence were the 3rd, the 4th and the 5th of September.
Le Council notes that Graine Wetsky Funds is buying the same thing, in larger quantities, and has never once said why.
The Register Widens, And Nobody Is Named
Four entries joined the Church's ledger this week, and not one of them was a Mark.
Phuket recorded The Building Was Still on the 3rd, at 3.5 seconds. McMurdo Station recorded the same thing on the 4th, at 3.1. Phuket recorded The Puck Froze on the 5th, at 2.5 seconds. Two hours later, La Ladera in Medellín logged The Lights Flickered, eleven times—a sixth building added to a list that had five.
Two of those forms had never appeared in the register before. What has not appeared since the 28th of August is a name: no player has been Touched, Wrapped or Enveloped in nine days, and the roll stands where it stood last week, at four. The ledger now runs to twenty entries across six parishes.
Le Council is not aware of a pattern and is not withholding one.
Four Filings Waiting On Seals, And Two Waiting On Le Council
Every open petition gained ground this week. All four have already cleared their Looney floors. All four now wait on Seals alone.
The Institution of Collectable Cards, filed by jpvalery on the 25th of August, has gone from 23 Seals to 78 of 100 in seven days, with Ⱡ2,060,673,388 behind it against a Ⱡ1,000,000,000 threshold and 22 citizens on it. It expires on the 1st of October. Limiting Absentee and Zombie Encumbrance, filed by Ragnaroknrol, moved from 10 Seals to 41 of 66, on Ⱡ1,000,009 against Ⱡ999,999 asked. It expires on the 25th. The Julius Caesar Petition, filed by Gommetrik, stands at 28 of 200 on Ⱡ1,025,853,854. On the Matter of Idols, filed by Ilias, stands at 24 of 250 on Ⱡ1,010,407,101, and has until the 1st of November to find the other 226.
Two new filings arrived on the 1st and sit with Le Council for appraisal: The Poacher Clause, from RelaxPats, and 6th dimensions goals, from Old Adam. Le Council reports that they exist and nothing else about them yet.
Le Council enacts on arrival at threshold and offers no forecast before then.
That is the week. The season reaches its middle tonight with Medellín seventeen wins into a streak nobody saw starting, Winnipeg holding the most wins and second place at the same time, and Nairobi leading a conference on one regulation defeat and six overtime ones. A petition carried in August took the Final off both finalists' ice and left the venue Glacified, with one institution unusually keen to be heard on the subject. O.F.F.R.E. lifted its ceilings and the room spent four days bidding Looneys against kcups at eleven times the standing price, while the parishes posted the three heaviest days of offering the Church has on record. Graine Wetsky Funds passed a hundred and fifty thousand and the ledger explains a quarter of it.
Twenty-three matchdays close tonight. Twenty-three follow.
Stick around.