April 6-7

Called the hospital on Saturday morning, Helen was still there. I went over and was told she would be discharged in early afternoon. I brought Jenny into town and took her to the hospital so they could be together, from there I went to The Hotel for about an hour to check on my mother. Around 1:30 I was back across town where Helen and Jenny were waiting, we had a quick lunch and came back to my place. Helen said they couldn't figure out what the problem was but she's had these episodes before. I wouldn't have blamed her had she chosen not to go the game but she felt up to it, at 4:00 we headed north on 222 for what was to prove to be the final night of ice hockey season at the Arena. The Royals had to win their game and get help in order to qualify for playoffs, they held up their end with a victory over Adirondack but the outside help failed to materialize. The boys fell behind early 2-0 before Michael Huntebrinker lit the lamp but another ADK tally made it 3-1 Thunder after one. Brayden Low scored in the opening seconds of the second period to bring the Royals within one, midway through the frame Steven Swavely (back from the AHL Phantoms) and Tyler Brown went back-to-back twelve seconds apart to give the club the lead. Chris McCarthy's empty-netter in the closing moments put the exclamation point on a 5-3 win, Jamie Philips was the goaltender of record. The final mark: 34-28-10 overall, 16-15-5 at home. On New Years Day the club was 15-9-7 but they struggled badly in January and February at 8-14-2. The ship was righted in March and April with an 11-5-1 mark including a 7-0-1 record in the final eight games but there was too much ground to make up and they simply ran out of time. It's the first season since 2008-09 that the franchise misses the postseason (and that year there was no question about it, we had the worst record in the league).Forty-six players made an appearance for the club including eight goaltenders. The end of the season is always a sad time but October will be here before you know it. Take care, thanks for reading.