February 11-12

Earlier in the week I was contacted by longtime friend Phil Zangari, the APBA baseball league he founded in 1977 was having its annual draft on Saturday morning. I played in the league the first six years it existed, whenever I'm available to help out at the draft it runs smoother for the other guys (plus it gives us a chance to renew acquaintances). The draft usually happens in March but the previous season ended early and nobody wanted to wait. When it was over I headed to Jenny's place, we had a late lunch/early supper at the local sub shop. From there it was back to the city for a quick shower, then on to Reading for a hockey night at the Arena. The Norfolk Admirals were in town for a back-to-back set comprising their first two of five visits for the season. The Ads came in with one of the league's poorer records but you would never have known it by the weekend's results. On Saturday Norfolk scored the first two goals and made them stand for a 2-1 decision, Olivier Labelle accounted for the Royals' lone score as Mark Dekanich (making his first start at home since December 21) suffered the tough-luck loss. On Sunday the clubs met again, another event earlier in the day required this game to be pushed back to 7:00 instead of the usual 5:00 faceoff. On this night the Royals scored first thanks to Johnny McInnis but the Ads bagged the next three and carried a 3-1 advantage in to the third period. Midway through the period McInnins struck again to bring the Royals within one, Norfolk replied with two more (one into the empty net) to go up by three. Tyrell Goulbourne lit the lamp in the dying seconds but it wasn't enough to avoid a 5-3 loss, Martin Ouellette was the goalie of record. The lost weekend extends the losing streak to three games and drops the club's mark to 28-17-3, 14-9-0 at home. The boys return home for a back-to-back with Elmira on Saturday the 18th. Take care, thanks for reading.