January 18

Left the house at 9:00 Monday morning, the temperature was 16 degrees with a wind chill of -3. When I returned around 5:30 in the afternoon it was all the way up to a balmy 18 with the wind chill at 3 above zero. In between we were at the Arena for the annual Martin Luther King Day game, the Royals hosted the Adirondack Thunder for the rare 1:00 faceoff. The game had a definite feeling of deja vu to it as the teams skated through a scoreless first period, in the second ADK struck twice and carried that lead into the final frame. Midway through the third period newcomer Joey Sides (five-year pro from Sun Valley, Idaho) put the Royals on the board but a Thunder empty-netter in the final seconds salted away a 3-1 win for the visitors. Martin Ouellette made his eighth consecutive start in goal and suffered the loss, he continues to be the Iron Man in the absence of Connor Knapp and Adam Morrison. The club's record stands at 18-16-5 (10-9-1 at home), the boys have off until the weekend when we play another three-in-three at home. The Brampton Beast visit for games on Friday and Saturday, the Elmira Jackals come to town on Sunday. When I got home I took a shower, had a hot bowl of fifteen-bean soup (try it sometime, you'll like it) and settled in to watch the NHL game on TV. I took notice that this blog recently saw its 10,000th page view since its inception in November of 2010. I actually started writing an online blog in January of that year, I moved it here to blogger.com in November when the former hosting site became unsuitable. I do it largely for the mental exercise, I'm not trying to prove anything by it and I certainly don't feel that I use it to push any personal agenda. I don't know who reads the tripe and drivel I post here but obviously someone enjoys it and I'm glad they do. Thanks for reading (and I mean that), take care.