April 1-5

The first day of the year's fourth month featured the start of major league baseball season. The local cable TV company offers a MLB package, they made it available as a free preview to encourage new subscriptions. I admit it's a nice deal but since the teams I follow are on TV around here on a regular basis it wouldn't be worth the extra money to me. On Wednesday Don and I met with some of the street hockey league captains, we agreed to delay the start of the season until the 15th to allow for extra organization time. On Friday evening the ECHL Eastern Conference Quarterfinals got underway at the Sovereign Center in Reading, the Royals took a 1-0 lead in the series with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over the Greenville Road Warriors. Team captain Yannick Tifu netted the lone goal in the second period on assists from Nikita Kashirsky and Alex Berry, Riley Gill and the defense corps made it stand up for the shutout. The Royals beat Greenville in both regular-season meetings but those games were back in November which in the sports world is eons ago. It didn't take long for the playoff "hate factor" to develop, the play was physical and at times downright nasty. Game #2 of the best-of-seven is on Saturday the 6th at home, from there the next three are in Greenville starting on April 10. Take care, thanks for reading.