January 5

The round of precipitation we had on Thursday ushered in brutal cold and wind chills, Friday was bitterly uncomfortable and it's supposed to linger through the weekend. Jenny and her mother were considering staying home from the hockey game because of it but the walk from the garage to the Arena isn't terribly far so they decided to tough it out. Friday's game started a three-in-three weekend, the Brampton Beast were in town for the first time since the 2017 playoffs. In hockey it's often been said that a rivalry never truly exists until the clubs have met in a playoff scenario, in 2017 the Royals lost to Brampton in the first round. On this night the Royals struck first on Derek Whitmore's first-period tally, early in the second the Beast evened the score. Three minutes later Ryan Penny restored the advantage, Chris McCarthy's goal eight minutes after that made it 3-1 at the intermission. Brampton cut the lead to one in the late going of the third period but from there John Muse and the defense corps held the fort for the 3-2 win. It was a very quiet game in terms of penalty calls, there were only two all night and both were against Brampton. The Royals improve to 18-14-2 overall and 12-5 at home, the Worcester Railers come in for a back-to-back on Saturday night. Take care, thanks for reading.