November 19-25

Dek hockey playoffs semifinals started at the rink on Monday night and ended on Tuesday with both best-of-three series decided in two-game sweeps. The Misfits ousted the Riot and Risky Business defeated the Pub Dawgs, the winners meet for the championship in a best-of-five series starting on Tuesday the 27th. On Tuesday afternoon my mother had the stitches removed from her head wound, it's healing nicely and everything appears in order. Jenny and I had our usual lunch date on Wednesday, the next day was (as we called it when I was in school) Turkey Day which was spent watching football from noon to almost midnight. On Black Friday the Adirondack Thunder came into downtown Reading for the second of their five visits and left three hours later with an 8-3 win. The Royals led 1-0 early on but the Thunder posted one in the first, five in the second and two in the third and were never seriously threatened. Micheal Huntebrinker, Steve Johnson and Alex Krushelnyski scored for the Royals, Angus Redmond suffered the loss in net. The club stands at 6-5-6, 2-5-3 at the Arena. Jenny and I had lunch on Saturday, on the way there I made a detour stop at McCaskey. The basketball team was scrimmaging against Susquehanna Township (from suburban Harrisburg) and it was my first chance to meet the new coach. His name is Freddy Ramos, he was most recently the head junior varsity coach at Lancaster Catholic and comes to JPM with an excellent resume. He seemed to know a lot about me, perhaps what they say about reputations preceding oneself has some truth to it. Ray Lewis is back as JV coach and the new varsity assistant is Tim Glackin, a man I've known for years and a former head coach at Solanco in the early 2000s. It's a new beginning in more ways than one but I have a feeling it won't be dull. On Saturday night in Glens Falls the Royals and the Thunder played the back end of their home-and-home series and an incredible story unfolded. With Branden Komm on the disabled list, Austin Lotz on an AHL tryout with the Phantoms and Redmond banged up from the Friday game and unable to play the Royals were forced to insert Nick Niedert as their starting goaltender. Nick has been with the Royals before, he is what they call an EBUG, an emergency backup goalie who only plays in case of injury. He and others like him are in every team's phone directory for just such a situation, they are guys who have experience at the position and are competent to step in if needed. On this night in Glens Falls Niedert was the #1 star as the Royals pulled off a 2-1 victory. Royals broadcaster David Fine called it "the most stunning result of the season" and given the circumstances it might just very well be. Take care, thanks for reading.