November 4-5

Not much doing on Saturday which was more than acceptable since Sunday was busy. In the afternoon we made our way north of Reading for our annual hockey visit to Allentown. The Flyers' AHL club has played in the Lehigh Valley since 2014, in past years our visit there has been in the latter part of the season. When the schedule was released in August I noted that the Phantoms had only four Sunday dates at home, two were on occasions when the Royals were at home and one other at a time of the year when weather concerns could be an issue so I selected this game in November (in the '16-'17 season there were no workable Sundays, we ended up doing a Saturday night in April instead). The Phantoms have several players who have spent time with the Royals including former Royals captain Maxim Lamarche, Tyrell Goulbourne, Reece Willcox and Radel Fazleev (one game in Reading in '16-'17). The Phantoms also have Adam Comrie and rookie James de Haas on recall from the Royals, de Haas is a Clarkson Unversity product. The Toronto Marlies (the Maple Leafs' AHL affiliate) were the opponent, both clubs entered with excellent early-season records but this game was just about all Marlies. The Phantoms took a 1-0 lead three minutes in on a goal by red-hot Danick Martel, it was his thirteenth score in the team's thirteenth game. Toronto took control from there scoring five unanswered and winning it going away 5-1. Veteran goaltender Dustin Tokarski started for the Phantoms and suffered the loss. The Flyers' AHL team has played under the Phantoms name since 1996, for thirteen years the club played its home games in Philadelphia at the old Spectrum and I was able to visit several times a season. In 2009 the Spectrum was closed and eventually demolished, the club was moved to Glens Falls, NY and played there until 2014 when the arena in Allentown was ready to go. The trip is not unpleasant (about 75 miles one-way) but I figure if I can get Jenny and her mother there once a year and take care of the Royals as well that's good enough for me. Take care, thanks for reading.