January 18-20

Overnight into Friday we had what they call a "wintry mix" but by morning it was just about gone. In the evening the Royals continued their three-game homestand at the Arena as the Brampton Beast made the first of their three regular-season visits. The game was scoreless into the second period, two goals by the Beast less than a minute apart gave the visitors a 2-0 advantage. Chris McCarthy got the Royals on the board six minutes into the third but a Brampton empty-netter in the closing moments gave the visitors from Ontario a 3-1 win. It's the third consecutive home game to end 3-1 with the Royals on the wrong end in each of the last two. On Saturday there was a winter weather watch in effect but we never saw any precipitation of any kind until late afternoon. We were back at the Arena as the Wheeling Nailers visited for the first time since October. It began to snow lightly around 5:45 or so, I looked out during the first intermission and the security parking lot was WHITE. By the time the game was over the snow had turned to rain, the walk across the street to the parking garage was slushy but the drive home was of little issue. The game itself was another exercise in frustration for the Royals as they fell to Wheeling 4-3. Josh MacDonald put the good guys up 1-0 in the first, midway through the second the Nailers evened it before player/assistant coach Tyler Brown responded to make it 2-1. Wheeling netted a pair late in the second to go up 3-2, early in the third Adam Schmidt lit the lamp to knot it at 3-3. Midway through the period the Nailers took the lead for good and held on for the one-goal decision. The Royals' goalie of record on both nights was Branden Komm, back with the club after an injury absence and a stint with the AHL Phantoms. The record stands at 17-14-8 overall, 8-9-4 at home. The next home date is on Wednesday the 30th against Maine. There was one good bit of news on the weekend, McCaskey played at home on Friday in my absence and beat Hempfield 67-54. The boys were scheduled to play in a showcase event at Reading HS on Saturday afternoon which was postponed (unnecessarily in retrospect) by the weather forecast, there is talk of trying to reschedule it as a regular JV/varsity date so we'll see what comes of it. Take care, thanks for reading.