November 11

Saturday night was a hockey night in downtown Reading, the Royals were at home for the first time since October 29. The club went 1-3-1 on the road trip, on this night the new Jacksonville Icemen made their lone scheduled appearance of the season. Jacksonville, Florida was in the ECHL previously from 1995-2000, in the 1970s the city hosted an AHL franchise for two seasons. The new team is the franchise that was in Evansville, Indiana from 2012 to 2016, over the summer it was reactivated in Florida after one year of dormancy. Before the game there was a ceremony observing Veterans Day, the teams participated with a local scout troop in displaying a large flag on-ice during the performance of the national anthem. The Royals took a 1-0 lead in the first on a goal by Steven Swavely, early in the second Matt Wilkins lit the lamp to extend the advantage, The Icemen got on the board midway through the period but less than a minute later Adam Schmidt replied to make it 3-1. In the third Matt Willows padded the lead, Alex Krushelnyski's empty-netter with a minute to go put the lid on a 5-1 decision. John Muse got the start in net and picked up the win. Rookie defenseman Frank Hora (from Kitchener in the Ontario League) played to a +5 and was the game's #3 star, Schmidt earned #2 honors and James de Haas (back from his AHL stint with the Phantoms) was #1 with four assists and a +5 for the evening. The club improves to 6-3-1 (5-0 at the Arena), the next three are on the road before the boys return home on Tuesday the 21st to host Adirondack. The ECHL schedule is always a curiosity and here's a case in point: the Royals play sixteen home games during the 2017 portion of the schedule, eleven of them are against Adirondack and Wheeling. After the first of the year the Thunder and the Nailers visit just once each. Strange...but true. Take care, thanks for reading.