January 27-28

The Wednesday night snow was gone by midnight, in the morning we dug out the cars in the parking lot. It wasn't as difficult and uncomfortable as those days in February 2010 had been but it was close enough. Headed to Jenny's house for a visit and lunch, the main roads to Quarryville were a mixed bag but on the whole there were no problems. The Lancaster school district was closed so the girls' game with Lebanon was postponed to the following week. On Friday there were flurries in the morning but schools were open, I went over to McCaskey to drop off our scorebooks at the athletic office. The boys were playing at Penn Manor in the evening but I would be absent as Jenny and I were at the Sovereign Center. The Royals went 1-1-1 on the road trip to Florida, the final game featured a major brawl involving fines and suspensions. On this night the Greenville Road Warriors made their first-ever appearance in Reading. Greenville, South Carolina has been in the ECHL before but not since 2006, the current franchise was formerly known as the Johnstown Chiefs. Between injuries, callups to the AHL and suspensions from the Florida incident the Royals managed to field a full team but it wasn't enough as Greenville won in overtime shootout 4-3. Jared Ross, Casey Haines and Chris Blight scored in regulation time, Michael Hutchinson was the goaltender of record. The club earns a point in the standings which is not a bad thing under the circumstances. Greenville stays in town for a rematch on Saturday night. On the way home it was decided that Jenny would stay the night in Lancaster, we had discussed it earlier since the roads south of town were expected to be slick late at night. There was one bit of good news on this day, saw on the internet where JPM won at Penn Manor 75-66. A huge win at a point in the season where every win counts, the boys are back at it on Monday in Lebanon. Take care, thanks for reading.