February 22-24

Had lunch with Jenny and her mother on Saturday, on Sunday we were at it bright and early at the Arena on Penn Street. This was a very rare Sunday home date that was not preceded by a Saturday home game, the Royals had played on the road on both Friday and Saturday. The day started at 12:30 with the fourteenth annual Battle Of The Badges game featuring first-responders from Reading/Berks County and their brethren from Allentown/Lehigh Valley. The game was instituted in 2006 as a Reading Fire vs Reading Police contest, in 2017 it was reformatted to include our friends to the northeast. The Berks contingent prevailed in '17, Allentown returned serve the following year and on this day the team from the Valley won 9-4 to take a 2-1 series edge. At 4:00 the Royals faced off against the Adirondack Thunder in a rematch from the night before in Glens Falls. ADK defeated the Royals 3-1 on Saturday, on this day at the Arena they made it two straight with a 4-2 verdict. The Royals came out on fire, goals by Alex Roos and Chris McCarthy twenty-one seconds apart gave the home team a 2-0 lead in the first seven minutes. The Thunder replied with three in the second to take a one-goal lead, an empty-netter in the last minute wrapped up the scoring as Branden Komm suffered the loss in net. The loss drops the club's mark to "hockey .500" at 23-23-9, 10-14-4 at home. If the playoffs began immediately the Royals would be out of the picture but there is still time to make a run, with seventeen games remaining the club is not out of contention. The boys play their next six on the road (the longest road swing of the season), the next home game is not until Friday March 15. Take care, thanks for reading.