Friday night on Penn Street in downtown Reading, the Royals hosting the Adirondack Thunder for the first of a back-to-back. The Thunder visited twice in November and lost both, in the Friday opener the Royals extended that streak to three. ADK scored first in game's fourth minute but from there it was all Royals emphatically. Charlie Girard's score tied the game at 1-1, in the final thirty seconds of the period Tyler Kirkup put the Royals up 2-1. In the second Alec Butcher extended the advantage to two, midway through the third Garrett McFadden scored ten seconds after exiting the penalty box to make it 4-1. In the closing moments Butcher netted his second goal of the evening to put the cap on a 5-1 Royals win. On Saturday afternoon the teams reconvened for a rare 4:00 start, this was Flintstones Night with the Royals wearing special sweaters saluting the well-known Modern Stone-Age Family. On this day the visiting "ThundeRocks" once again scored first, that lead held up well into the third period before the "RoyalStones" came alive. Tyler Kirkup drew the game even eight minutes into the period, just over five minutes later Charlie Gerard tapped home a rebound to put the Royals ahead. Brenden Hoffman's empty-netter in the final minute wrapped up the 3-1 win and the weekend sweep, Pat Nagle (back from a stint with the Phantoms) picked up both wins in goal. The Royals have gone 22-7 since starting 0-3-1, the full record of 22-10-1 includes a home-ice mark of 12-4. The club stays home for the annual Martin Luther King Day game on Monday afternoon. It was a good day all the way around, saw on the internet where JPM won on Saturday in my absence. The boys hosted John Bartram (from Philadelphia) in a non-league game and won 83-70 to improve to 9-6 overall, the next game is another non-leaguer at home on Tuesday the 17th. Take care, thanks for reading.
