November 29-30

Up and at it early on Sunday for the 4:00 faceoff at the Arena. Our first two Sunday home games were at 5:00 due to early afternoon college games but 4:00 is the standard Sunday game time from here on out. The Wheeling Nailers were the opponent for the second of their five regular-season visits. The teams had met in Wheeling on Wednesday with the Nailers toughing out a 1-0 win, on this day the Royals avenged that loss with a 3-2 regulation-time decision. Mike Pereira, Yannick Tifu and Matt Hatch were the goal-scorers, Connor Knapp (back from the Phantoms) picked up the win in net. The Royals arrive at the quarter-pole of the schedule with a mark of 9-8-1, in twelve home dates the club is 7-4-1. The boys had nine home games in November but in December they play eleven of thirteen on the road, the only two home games are back-to-back with Elmira on the 18th and 19th. On Monday we finished the month with the final game of the street hockey season at Reservoir Park, the Killbots and H&F Tire met in the fifth and deciding game of the West finals. There was rain in the forecast for later in the evening, at game time there were a few drops here and there but it was nothing of consequence. I told the teams if we didn't play on this night it probably wouldn't happen until Thursday because the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday was not encouraging. We started playing on that rink in 1979, over the years we've had many memorable games and this one will certainly be long remembered. The Killbots carried a 2-0 lead into the third period but H&F rallied to tie it and force a winner-take-all overtime. A regulation dek hockey game is three ten-minute periods, the teams battled through four additional periods still tied. As the rain began in fall in earnest the marathon finally ended in the 72nd minute of play (and two hours and fifteen minutes after it had started) when a shot from the point found the net to give H&F Tire the sudden-death championship. The fall season began on September 22 and ends seventy days later (and not a moment too soon). Take care, thanks for reading.