January 7-8

According to the newspaper we got two inches of the ugly white stuff on Tuesday, with wind chills figured in it was downright arctic on Wednesday. I went to Jenny's place in the morning, the drive from the city wasn't much of an issue but the parking lots in her complex had not been plowed. The snow was packed down from other traffic but it was still a mess. In the evening we made our first trip north in the new year, it was a hockey night in downtown Reading. The Royals hosted the Wheeling Nailers for the fourth of their six regular-season visits. The walk between the parking garage and the Arena was absolutely brutal, you know it's bad when going indoors into an ICE ARENA is warmer than being outside. Cam Reid gave the Royals a 1-0 first-period lead but the Nailers evened it early in the second period. In the latter part of the period Olivier Labelle reestablished the Royals' advantage, early in the third Jordan Heywood and Ryan Cruthers scored a minute apart to make it 4-1. Wheeling got one back but Adam Hughesman's empty-netter in the final moments cemented a 5-2 Royals victory. Connor Knapp was the winning goaltender as the club's record improves to 20-10-2, at the midpoint of the home schedule the mark on home ice is 10-7-1. The Royals are on an 11-2 run since December 6, they play in Wheeling on Friday the 9th before returning home on Saturday the 10th. The weather on Thursday wasn't much better than Wednesday, with nothing special going on the morning errand run was about all that happened. Take care, thanks for reading.