March 15-17

Friday night at the Arena in downtown Reading, the Royals were back home for the first time in nineteen days. The club went 3-3 on its season-high six-game road trip, on this night the Indy Fuel was in town for the opener of a two-game set. As a non-divisional opponent the Fuel is an infrequent visitor, this was their first appearance in Reading since December of 2016. It was an emotional night for many Royals fans as longtime fan favorite Olivier Labelle returned to Reading as a member of the Fuel. Labby played five seasons with the Royals (most recently in 2016-17), he still holds the club records for goals scored and games played. He spent '17-18 playing in France, when his wife's job took her to Indiana he elected to follow suit. In the Friday opener the Royals jumped to a 2-0 first-period lead on goals from Tyler Brown and Charlie Vasaturo. Indy got on the board early in the second but scores by Nick Luukko and Michael Huntebrinker made it 4-1 Royals at the second intermission. The Fuel came within two in the third but a Tyler Brown empty-netter in the final moments capped a 5-2 Royals victory. On Saturday the clubs met again and a completely different result played out. On this night the Fuel took a 2-0 lead in the first, another score early in the third put the Royals in a three-goal hole. Adam Schmidt broke the shutout bid with three minutes left but two Indy empty-netters put away a 5-1 win for the visitors. New goaltender Jamie Phillips was in net for both games, he is on loan to the Royals from the Carolina Hurricanes organization. He becomes the eight goaltender to appear for the Royals in '18-19 largely thanks to the goaltending issues within the Flyers organization (someday somebody will write a book about it but that's another story for another time). The weekend split puts the record at 27-27-9 (11-15-4 at home), the club starts a five-game homestand on Friday the 22nd. Sunday was a busy day not because of hockey but because my mother was accepted into a care facility. The admissions director and the head of their wellness department visited on Friday morning and met her, in the afternoon they called and said they had a spot available. She is going in for what they call respite care, it's not intended to be permanent but to get her healed up and back on her feet (so to speak). We spent most of the day getting personal items together, she goes in either on Tuesday or Wednesday. Take care, thanks for reading.