Sunday morning dawned with temperatures right around thirty degrees and wind chills in the teens, the first order of business was the final date of fall hockey in Rothsville. On Saturday we got word that the third-place game was canceled, one of the teams was going to be severely shorthanded and they elected to forfeit. The championship game started as scheduled at 11:15 with twenty-three of the twenty-seven eligible players present, Township claimed the title with a 4-3 decision over Hillside. It's interesting to note that we've played four seasons in Rothsville with the same four basic teams and we've had four different champions (Warwick in the summer of '21, Ephrata in the fall, Hillside in the summer of '22 and now Township). A total of fifty-one players participated in the six-game season which was regrettably shortened from the scheduled nine thanks to four dates being ruined by rain. We were done around 12:15, I got into the car and cranked up the heat for the drive north on 222. By the time I arrived at the Arena I was warm and toasty but the walk from the garage to the building wasn't much fun, I couldn't wait to get inside and out of the wind. The Royals hosted Adirondack in the back end of the weekend set at 3:00 and made it two straight with a 3-2 win. Goals by Trey Bradley and Yvan Mongo gave the Royals a 2-0 lead after one, in the second Colin Felix upped the advantage to three (Colin is the son of the late Chris Felix who was the AHL Phantoms team trainer when the club was established in 1996). The visiting Thunder broke the shutout midway through the third, another score in the last minute made it a one-goal game but they could not find the equalizer. Nolan Maier was the goalie of record in the club's sixth straight victory, the Royals improve to 7-4-1 overall and 4-2 at home. High school winter sports practice began on Friday, on Monday I dropped in at basketball workouts at McCaskey. Freddy Ramos is back for Year #5 as head man, all of the assistant coaches are back as well. The boys start the season on December 2 and I'll be absent because that is the next Royals home date. On Wednesday we did lunch in Quarryville, from there I took Jenny and Helen to their relatives' place in Parkesburg. They stayed overnight and had the holiday meal on Thursday, in the evening Jenny called to let me know they were home. Take care, thanks for reading.
