The Salt Pavilion
Arena Modifier 🌧️
Downpour
Conditions degrade as the game progresses. P1 is clean. P2 is messy. P3 is chaos.
Lore
The Salt Pavilion is the largest arena in Hockay and it is never not raining inside. Not always visibly—sometimes it's a fine mist, sometimes it's condensation, sometimes the ceiling just weeps. The building appeared on Mumbai's waterfront during monsoon season, and the monsoon never left. The Downpour modifier degrades conditions as the game progresses. By the third period, The Almighty Ice is rough, visibility is reduced, and both teams are playing a different sport than they started. Le Council has installed dehumidifiers. They don't work. Le Council has installed better dehumidifiers. They also don't work. The Salt Pavilion is wet. The 67,843 fans who fill it don't seem to mind.
The Building
Massive and open, modeled in spirit after a colonial-era pavilion but scaled to accommodate nearly 70,000 people. The structure is a vast oval of white concrete and steel, with a retractable roof that has never successfully retracted. The exterior is ringed with arched colonnades that allow air and, inevitably, rain to circulate. The seating rises in a continuous steep bowl—no luxury boxes, no tiers, just an unbroken wall of spectators. The Almighty Ice surface at the center looks small from the upper rows, a white rectangle in a sea of people. The playing surface is surrounded by a shallow drainage channel that handles the constant moisture. Metal surfaces inside the building develop a thin patina of salt from the sea air. The PA system competes with the rain on the roof, and on monsoon nights, loses. The atmosphere is unlike any other arena—dense, humid, loud, alive.