December 26-28

Tuesday morning: took my mother to a doctor appointment only to learn that it had been canceled since the doctor she was supposed to see is no longer associated with the office (one would think someone could have called and informed her of this when it happened back in OCTOBER). On Wednesday night we were at McCaskey for opening night play in our annual holiday tournament. In other places it's not unusual for the hosting team to play an easy touch in the opener and insure a berth in the championship game but at McCaskey it's the other way around. This edition of the tournament featured Oxon Hill (from suburban Washington, DC), John Bartram (Philadelphia) and perennial participant York High. Oxon Hill Hill beat York in the first game, in the nightcap we lost to Bartram 67-59. Isiah Speller had 18 and Makai Ortiz added 14, the only two players in double digits for JPM. On Thursday (in my absence) the boys lost to York in the tournament consolation game, the record after eight games stands at 2-6. There's an expression for what's going on, it's called "growing pains". Thursday night found me at the Arena for hockey, the Royals hosted one of the league's new clubs as the Worcester Railers made the first of their eight scheduled appearances. Worcester, Massachusetts was in the AHL from 1994-2015, that franchise fell victim to the AHL's western migration. The Royals entered the night on a five-game winless streak which came to a screeching halt in short order. Michael Huntebrinker gave the club a 1-0 lead four minutes in, eight seconds later Jimmy DeVito made it 2-0. Midway through the period Chris McCarthy lit the lamp, before the period ended Worcester cut the deficit to 3-1. In the second period scores by Adam Schmidt and Nolan Zajac bookended a single Railers marker, Matt Willows' goal in the third put the wraps on a 6-2 win. John Muse (back from the Phantoms) was the winning goaltender in his first Royals appearance since December 1. The club improves to 15-13-2 (10-5 at home), the next home game is on the 30th versus Adirondack. Take care, thanks for reading.