March 2-8

The first full week of March had little to recommend it, this is a time of year that traditionally is very slow. The high school winter sports season has been completed, the spring season hasn't started yet and the Royals were away on a five-game road trip. The club went 4-0-1 on the trip, the last of those four wins clinched a playoff spot. It's the tenth time in the last eleven seasons the franchise has made the postseason ('18-19 the lone miss) and the fourteenth time in the club's nineteen years in downtown Reading. On Sunday the Royals returned home for a busy day at the Arena, the first order of business was the fifteenth annual Battle Of The Badges. The first eleven editions of this game featured the Reading Fire and Police as opponents, in 2017 they joined together to oppose their brethren from the Allentown/Lehigh Valley area. On this day the A-Town contingent won 8-3 to take a 3-1 lead under the current format. The afternoon's main event saw the Royals hosting the Brampton Beast for the last of their four visits to the Arena and for the home team it was an exercise in frustration. There was no scoring until the third period when the visitors from North Of The 49th struck for two goals, in the closing moments the Royals went with the extra attacker. Matthew Strome lit the lamp to make it a 2-1 game but a Brampton empty-net score in the final seconds clinched the 3-1 decision. Tom McCollum took the loss but deserved a better fate. The record stands at 36-17-6 overall at 22-7-2 at home, the boys host Norfolk for a pair of games beginning on Friday the 13th. The BOB game had started at 12:30, the Royals game ended exactly six hours later. This was also the weekend for the semiannual clock change, we lost an hour's sleep overnight into Sunday which didn't help matters at all. Evey once in a while there is talk of doing away with it and I'm not entirely certain I would object. Take care, thanks for reading.