April 13-15

Monday morning lunch at the mall as usual, in the evening Don and I spoke on the phone about spring street hockey. He was still getting callbacks from captains but the basic format is established. We'll have twelve teams in two divisions (four in one, eight in the other) and every team will play the other division's teams one time each. We'll have four games each on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays with Sundays and Mondays left open for makeups as needed. Some of the teams in the league travel on weekends for tournaments, leaving Mondays open affords them a chance to recover somewhat before playing league games during the week. On Tuesday Marty came into my place, from there we headed northeast to Allentown for the Phantoms hockey game at PPL Center. Normally a trip to Allentown during the week wouldn't be part of the plan but Marty wanted to go because the Hershey Bears were the opponent and he is a fan of their NHL affiliate. There was a time in the past when I was a virtual regular at games in Hershey but that time is past, I haven't been there since January of 2014 and quite frankly I don't miss it. On this night in downtown Allentown the Phantoms trailed 1-0 early in the second period when Scott Laughton found the net to tie the game. The deadlock remained into the third period, goals by Petr Straka and Jason Akeson gave the Phantoms a 3-1 lead. Danick Martel's empty-netter in the final minute capped the scoring as the Phantoms took it 4-1, winning goalie Rob Zepp was named the game's #1 star and deservedly so. The AHL regular season ends on the weekend, the Phantoms are out of the playoff running but it's safe to say the first season of Allentown pro hockey has been a resounding success. On Wednesday Jenny and I had lunch in Quarryville, in the evening Don and I firmed up the street hockey league's divisional and schedule format . Each team plays fourteen regular season games plus two guaranteed playoff games, the regular season starts April 21 and runs through June 4. Take care, thanks for reading.