January 5-6

Saturday morning lunch with Jenny and Helen, later in the afternoon we were headed north on 222 for the start of a busy hockey weekend at the Sovereign Center. The Royals hosted the Elmira Jackals in the second game of a home-and-home, after a Friday night loss in Elmira the Royals returned the favor with a come-from-behind 6-4 win. Joel Champagne scored two goals for the Royals, Adam Comrie, Kirk MacDonald, David Vallorani and Danick Paquette (the game-winner) added single tallies. Veteran goaltender Drew MacIntyre picked the win in his Royals debut, he joined the club earlier in the week as a free agent. On Sunday we were back at the SC for a 4:05 faceoff as the Wheeling Nailers visited. The Royals took it 3-1 as Adam Comrie, David Marshall (the GWG) and Kirk MacDonald lit the lamp in support of winning goalie Philipp Grubauer. With the Sunday victory the club hits the midpoint of the home schedule at 15-3-0, the overall mark improves to 25-8-2. The boys play the next four on the road before returning home on Friday the 18th, by then the entire landscape of the sport could be very different. On Sunday morning the National Hockey League announced an agreement with the players union on a contract that would end the ongoing lockout and start the season at the major league level. Every team in the ECHL will lose players to the AHL as those clubs lose players to the NHL, in the Royals' case Philipp Grubauer would almost assuredly be promoted to Hershey (the acquisition of MacIntyre is a preemptive move should this occur). We'll see how how it plays out in the coming days. Take care, thanks for reading.