December 21-22

The rain picked up overnight into Friday, with the wind blowing at a gale and the rain splashing against the windows it was quite noisy while I was trying to sleep. In the morning I was in Quarryville, the ladies and I did our Saturday lunch a day early. In the afternoon the rain was gone but it was much colder as we headed to Reading for the start of a big weekend of hockey, the Gwinnett Gladiators were in town for the opener of a two-game series. The Royals and Glads entered the weekend as the top two clubs in the ECHL's Eastern Conference, the Royals in the top spot at 19-7-1 for 39 points and Gwinnett virtually even at 19-8-1. On Friday the Royals bolted to an early 2-0 lead on a pair of goals from Ian O'Connor but the Glads fought back to tie it in the second period. Kirk MacDonald gave the Royals the lead once again and Philipp Grubauer made it stand up, Brett Flemming's empty-netter in the final minutes cemented a 4-2 win. Saw on the Internet when McCaskey kept the ball rolling with a 72-47 decision over Penn Manor. On Saturday Jenny and Helen were not along for the rematch with Gwinnett, they were invited to a neighbor's house in the evening (thus the reason for our Friday lunch). The Royals completed the sweep emphatically with a 6-3 win as David Marshall led the charge with two goals. Joel Champagne, Kirk MacDonald, Adam Comrie and Ethan Cox added single tallies as Philipp Grubauer picked up another solid win. The club's mark improves to 21-7-1, since the start of November the Royals have gone 20-2-0. After starting the season 1-5-1 they won eleven in a row, after dropping two of three the current win streak is up to eight. The boys play in Trenton on Thursday the 27th, the Titans come to Reading the following evening. Take care, thanks for reading.