November 8-11

Monday night at Reservoir Park for the second night of the postseason tournament, on this night we played the losers bracket semifinal and the winners bracket final. The Misfits rallied from a two-goal deficit in the final minute of regulation to force overtime against the Hammerheads, in the extra session they completed the comeback to advance to the losers bracket final. One must give the Misfits credit for the literal last-minute comeback but at the same time you have to feel badly for the Hammerheads, that's one rough way to have your season be ended. LWG advanced to the championship final with a win over the Hustle who will meet the Misfits in the losers bracket final. Tuesday was a quiet day with only a morning errand run of consequence, Jenny and I had lunch together on Wednesday morning. In late afternoon I was on 222 North headed to the Arena on Penn Street for the first time in seventeen days. This was the first of six straight at home, the Norfolk Admirals were the opponent. By the time this homestand is over we will have played seven games at home, five of them will have been against Norfolk and we won't see them again until March (gotta love the ECHL schedule). On this night the Royals started quickly, Jacob Pritchard's score fifty seconds into the game made it 1-0 right out of the gate. Midway through the period Patrick Bajkov struck to extend the lead to 2-0 at the first intermission. In the second the visitors from Virginia got on the board but the Royals replied on a score from Dominic Cormier (second-year pro from the University Of Ottawa) to go back up by two. In the third the Ads scored early and at the period's midpoint to tie and force overtime, the extra session lasted all of seventeen seconds before Norfolk completed the comeback and won 4-3 (eerily similar to the game on Monday at Reservoir Park except that Norfolk's rally didn't all happen in the last forty-two seconds). Pat Nagle was goalie of record as the Royals drop to 1-0-1 at home and 3-1-3 overall, the club is at home on Friday and Saturday against (guess who?). There was no dek hockey in Lancaster on Wednesday night (both Don and I were absent), we had planned on playing on Thursday but fate intervened in the cruelest possible manner. When I got home after the Royals game on Wednesday there was a phone message from one of the competing captains, one of his players had lost his father on Tuesday evening and they were asking for a postponement. Don and I talked it over and agreed (under the circumstances how can you say no), we'll figure on Monday the 15th weather permitting. Take care, thanks for reading.