Saturday afternoon: on The Road North for the first of another back-to-back at the Arena and two nights of hockey that ended very similarly and not for the good. On this night the Wheeling Nailers visited for the first of their two appearances. The Nailers are one of a handful of clubs still in the league from the Royals' debut season in 2001-02, they were at one time a divisional rival but unfortunately are no longer thanks to league realignment. The Royals took a 2-0 lead on scores by Trevor Gooch late in the first period and Frank DiChiara early in the second (separated by forty-two seconds of game time plus the first intermission) but the visitors from West Virginia stormed back to take a 3-2 advantage after two. Early in the third Dominic Cormier lit the lamp to tie the game but two late goals by the Nailers (including one into the empty net) closed out a 5-3 Wheeling win. On Sunday the Newfoundland Growlers came in for their third and final visit, given the geography involved it's unusual to see the Growlers for a single game but they are in the middle of an eight-game road trip. The Royals trailed 1-0 before Trevor Gooch tied the game in the second, the Growlers rattled off three in a row to take a 4-1 lead. Goals from Thomas Ebbing late in the second and late in the third brought the Royals back to within one but a Newfoundland score into the empty net put the lid on another frustrating loss by the achingly familiar score of 5-3. Hayden Hawkey was goalie of record both games as the record falls to 23-12-6, 13-4-3 at home. The three-game losing streak is the longest since a four-gamer (all on the road) in late November but it's not necessarily a cause for alarm because both Wheeling and Newfoundland have been playing well lately and every team hits a bump in the road every now and then. The club plays its next five games on the road, we're back home for a rescheduled date on Wednesday March 2nd. Take care, thanks for reading.
