April 7-13

The past week was largely uneventful but business will be picking up shortly. On Tuesday Don and I firmed up the street hockey league's format. We'll have eleven teams in two divisions, five in the East and six in the West. Everybody plays sixteen games, one against each team from the other division and the remaining games against divisional opponents. We'll play four games on Mondays and Tuesdays and three on Wednesdays, Thursdays will be open for use as makeup dates as needed. On Sunday we had a work party at the rink, we repositioned the surface (it had moved out of alignment) and fixed some other items as well. The league starts on Monday the 14th, the last scheduled regular-season date is June 4th. On Friday evening McCaskey's baseball team played at home, I was there to work the PA. Most of their games are played after school at 4:15 but occasionally they play under the lights. One of the teachers usually does the PA but he couldn't make this game, Jon Mitchell contacted me and asked if I could help out. The baseball field at McCaskey is adjacent to the football stadium, the second floor of the concession stand serves as the press box for baseball. There was rain off-and-on all night long but the game proceeded uninterrupted, JPM won it in walk-off fashion 4-3. The win snapped a five-game losing streak so at least I can say I brought the team some luck. The Royals finished their regular season on Saturday night, they went 1-1-1 on the road trip. The final record: 46-22-4 and the #1 seed in the ECHL's Eastern Conference. The boys meet the Fort Wayne Komets in the first playoff round, the series starts at the Arena with the first two games on the 17th and 19th. The middle three games are in Indiana, the final two if needed would be back in Reading on April 29 and 30. Take care, thanks for reading.