December 22-25

Made my way south to Jenny's place on Friday, it was her choice to do the holiday gift exchange on this day. This is a time of year that is of no concern to me, many years ago something happened in the month of December that destroyed the feeling and it has never come back. Jenny is the only reason I would pay any mind to it, I make sure she isn't disappointed. She didn't ask for anything specific but she liked what I got for her. In the evening we were back in downtown Reading as the Royals opened a two-game series with the Manchester Monarchs. This was the first two of four visits for the Mons at the Arena, the other two are part of another back-to-back scheduled in March. Manchester entered the weekend with the division''s best record and it wasn't difficult to see why, they won both games in relatively easy fashion. In the Friday opener the Royals took an early lead on a Michael Huntebrinker goal but the Monarchs rang up three in a row in the second to lead 3-1. Matt Willows brought the Royals to within one midway through the game but a Monarch score late in the second and another early in the third put it out of reach, the final count was 5-2. On Saturday the morning weather was rainy and gloomy which was the perfect backdrop for the evening's events at the Arena. The game on this night was never really in doubt, the Monarchs scored the first four goals and won easily 6-2. Ryan Penny and newcomer Jimmy DeVito scored for the Royals, Devito played in college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY) when Royals head coach Kirk MacDonald was an assistant coach there (K-Mac is himself an RPI alum). Mark Dekanich was the goalie of record in both games for the Royals as the club's losing streak reaches five games, four of those on home ice. The overall record stands at 14-13-2 (9-5 at the Arena), we're back home on the 28th against the new Worcester Railers. Take care, thanks for reading.