November 12-13

The Royals completed their season-long eight-game road trip with a Friday night loss in Wheeling, the final mark was 4-3-1 which is about as good as anyone might have expected. On this weekend the boys FINALLY returned home for the first time since October 21. Saturday's activities at the Arena began at 2:00 with the third annual Veterans Appreciation Day Army/Navy game featuring the club teams from West Point and Annapolis. A crew of college officials worked the game, one of them spelled his name in syllabic form so I could accurately pronounce it. The name was "No-see-kay Own-yah-mo-bim" and I have no idea what the correct spelling may have been, in my business it doesn't much matter. Navy won 5-1, since losing the 2014 inaugural game it is their second consecutive victory in the series. At 7:00 the Royals hosted the Manchester Monarchs and suffered a frustrating 6-4 loss. Goals from Mike Pereira and Ryan Penny had the club ahead in the second period but the Mons potted three straight to go up 4-2. In the third period Union College product Matt Wilkins brought the Royals back within one, Manchester answered back just twenty seconds later to make it 5-3. In the final minute Kevin Sundher (five-year pro from Surrey, BC) lit the lamp but a Monarch empty-netter in the dying seconds ended the game, Martin Ouellette was the Royals' goalie of record. On Sunday the Atlanta Gladiators visited for the first time since March of 2014 (when the franchise was still known as "Gwinnett" in honor of the Georgia county it calls home). As maddening as Saturday's game had been it proved to be a mere warmup for what happened on this day. The Glads took a quick 2-0 lead in the first before newcomer Florian Iberer (SEVENTEEN-YEAR veteran from Graz, Austria) got the Royals on the board. The teams would trade the next four goals with Robbie Czarnik and Mike Pereira scoring for the Royals, another Atlanta score late in the second period gave the Glads a 5-3 lead entering the final period. In the third period former Manchester Monarch Michael Boivin brought the club back within one, Steven Swavely tied the score and moments later Nick Luukko found the net to give the Royals a 6-5 lead. The Gladiators did not go away, they tied it up at 6-6 with 1:07 to go and overtime seemed likely but there was still one round left in the chamber. In the final seconds Atlanta got a break in the Royals zone and scored with THREE-TENTHS OF A SECOND left on the clock. Mark Dekanich took the hard-luck 7-6 loss but deserved a better fate. The club's record drops to 6-6-1 with the next four games back on the road. The team returns home on the 26th, by then the boys will have played thirteen of seventeen on the road (better than one-third of the thirty-six away games on the schedule completed by that point). It all evens out by April but obviously that's a long way off. Take care, thanks for reading.