November 28-30

Thursday was the typical holiday for this time of year, nothing special going except for football on TV all day. Black Friday was a hockey night in downtown Reading as the Cincinnati Cyclones made their lone appearance of the season. In hockey it's often said that any strong rivalry is based on playoff history as opposed to the regular season, if that's true the Royals and Cyclones have all that and more. The franchises have met four times in the postseason, the Royals lost to Cincinnati in 2008 and 2010 (both times in agonizing fashion) before ousting the Cyclones in '11 and '13 (the latter on the road to the Cup). On this night at the Arena the Royals fell behind 3-0 and never recovered as the 'Clones took it 4-1. Ethan Cox scored the lone goal for the Royals, Brandon Anderson took the loss in net. Another member of the Cup team returned as an opponent, over the summer ex-Royal Barry Almeida signed an AHL deal with the Nashville Predators organization. He was named the game's #2 star and although now a visitor he was warmly cheered by the crowd. The Royals next play on December 6 in Wheeling before returning home on the 7th. Saturday was largely an open day (Jenny and I had done lunch on Friday since she was at home), in the morning I was at McCaskey for the first basketball scrimmage of the new season. The gym was overhauled over the summer with new lighting and new bleachers, this was my first chance to see the upgrades in person (our gym opened in 1973 so the renovations were certainly needed and welcome). The team is itself in a overhaul of its own, the 2013 squad was senior-dominated so the roster will be virtually brand-new. Susquehanna Township (from suburban Harrisburg) was the opponent, the teams played six ten-minute periods. After it was over Coach Powell was pleased with the effort but correctly noted that there is a lot of work left to be done. Most of the roster comes from the junior varsity ranks, over the last two years the JV combined record was 36-2 so they have had success at that level. It's all a matter of how that success will translate to the varsity level and how quickly the chemistry develops. The talent is there, the experience is not. It will be interesting to see how quickly it comes together. Take care, thanks for reading.