February 20

Off and running early on Monday morning as Jenny and I headed north on 222 for the Sovereign Center (Helen could not come since she was babysitting the great-grandchildren). This was the second of our two Kids Days, with no school because of the holiday we got started at 1:05. The Royals were looking for a second consecutive home-ice win but the visiting Elmira Jackals had other ideas as they won via shootout 4-3. The Royals led 3-1 with five minutes left before an all-too-familiar script played out, the Jackals got one back to make it 3-2 then tied the score in the final minute. After a scoreless OT period Elmira won the shootout one goal to none to claim the victory. Kenny Ryan, Olivier Labelle and Casey Haines were the Royals goal-scorers, Jussi Rynnas took the tough-luck loss. This game marked the two-thirds pole of the home schedule, the club's mark at the SC is 7-13-4 (24-22-7 overall). There are nineteen games left on the schedule with twelve of them at home, the boys will host the Greenville Road Warriors for a back-to-back set on Saturday and Sunday. District basketball playoffs get underway on Wednesday, as the #5 seed JPM will host #12 Hempfield in a first-round matchup. It's a one-and-done scenario, win and go on or lose and go home. After losing twice to us during the regular year you know Hempfield would love nothing more than to end our season so it should be a battle. If we advance to the next round that game would be on Saturday against either York or Dallastown and I'd most likely be out of it because of hockey. I guess we'll find out on Wednesday night. Take care, thanks for reading.