February 27-28

Friday night hockey in downtown Reading as the Royals played their first home game in nineteen days. The club went 3-1-1 on the road trip, on this night the Greenville Road Warriors made the last of their three regular-season visits. The Royals took a 1-0 lead on a early marker by Olivier Labelle but Greenville responded with four straight, a fifth score in the early part of the second period made it 5-1 Road Warriors. Cam Reid cut the deficit to three midway through the frame but entering the third period it was still 5-2 Greenville. In the final period Mike Marcou and Jordan Heywood brought the Royals to within one, with three minutes left Maxim Lamarche lit the lamp to tie the game at 5-5. The deadlock was broken in the overtime shootout, Greenville outscored the Royals three to one and claimed the 6-5 win. New goaltender Kenny Reiter (third-year pro from Minnesota-Duluth recently added as a free agent) made his Arena debut and struggled, surrendering four goals and fifteen minutes of work. Connor Knapp entered in relief and suffered the hard-luck loss. The shootout loss is the Royals first defeat of any type at home since January 10 but it's still a valuable point in the standings where every one is important. The club's record stands at 35-14-4, 16-8-2 at the Arena. The Royals have a rare Saturday off before hosting Elmira on Sunday but it wasn't originally scheduled that way. The Jackals were supposed to visit on Saturday and Sunday but the Arena's management was offered an opportunity to book a major attraction on a one-night-only basis and February 28 was the only date available. As a result the Saturday game was transferred to Monday the 2nd (still a doubleheader but with a rare Monday night home game at the back end). With the schedule change Saturday itself was a slow day since Jenny and I had done our weekend lunch on Friday instead. Take care, thanks for reading.