April 7-8

Saturday night hockey at the Arena for the final game of the '17-18 regular season, the Norfolk Admirals were in town for their first and only appearance of the year. The Ads are out of the playoff running so for them it was THE last game, for the Royals it was a chance to solidify their position for the postseason. Before the game we observed a moment of silence in honor of the Humboldt Broncos, the junior league team in Saskatchewan recently involved in a tragic bus accident where sixteen lives were lost. Matt Willows gave the Royals a 1-0 lead late in the first period, early in the second Chris McCarthy upped the advantage to two. Norfolk replied quickly with a marker of their own, at the second intermission it was 2-1 Royals. Midway through the third Steven Swavely made it 3-1 but the Ads (playing for nothing but personal and professional pride) battled back to within one. Thirty seconds later newcomer Jack Riley scored his second goal as a pro, he joined the Royals in mid-March from Mercyhurst University where he was team captain. Riley comes from a hockey family, his father is the head coach at Army-West Point and his grandfather coached the gold medal-winning USA hockey team at the 1960 Olympics. Norfolk pulled the goaltender in the closing moments for an extra attacker, Matt Wilkins' score into the empty net put the wrap on a 5-2 Royals win. The guys on the ice all surrounded Wilkins in celebration of his goal, it was his 20th of the season allowing him to join Willows, McCarthy and Michael Huntebrinker in the 20-goal club. Mark Dekanich got the win in net as the club closes at 39-24-9 overall, 24-10-2 at home and 15-14-7 on the road. The Royals finish in third place in a very tough division and meet the Manchester Monarchs in the first round of the playoffs beginning on the 13th in Manchester. The top four finishers in our division were separated by a mere seven points, Adirondack placed first with 89, Manchester 88, the Royals 87 and Worcester 82. By comparsion the spread from first to fourth in the league's other three divisions were by 26, 27 and 43 points. The winner (or maybe I should say survivor) of our series meets the Worcester-Adirondack winner in the second round but that's a long way off. The immediate concern is the Monarchs in a best-of-seven, the format is 2-3-2 with games at the Arena on the 16th, 18th and 19th if needed. Take care, thanks for reading.