Saturday night in downtown Reading for the twenty-third home opener in Royals history, the Wheeling Nailers were the opponent. Wheeling was last in our division in 2017-18, the following year they were replaced by Newfoundland and Maine. With the late Growlers now disbanded the Nailers are back in the fold as a divisional rival. On this night the game started about as poorly as you could imagine, in the early going of the second period the Royals trailed 3-0. Goals by Todd Skirving and Connor McMenamin a minute apart brought the club back to within one, early in the third Travis Broughman pulled the Royals even at 3-3. Wheeling retook the lead moments later and added an insurance marker, with a minute left Skirving made it 5-4 but the Royals could not find the equalizer as Parker Gahagen took the loss in net. Sunday was a busy day, it began with two games in Rothsville. One new player joined up raising the total to forty-eight, thirty-six were in attendance. On this day Warwick beat Hillside and Ephrata won over Township, the regular season finishes on November 3. We were done by 12:30, from there I highballed it north to the Arena for the back end of the weekend. This day was just about all Royals from the get-go, scores by Connor McMenamin and AHL Phantoms assignee Jacques Bouquot (pronounced "boo-coh") made it 2-0 in the first five minutes. Wheeling got one back midway through the period, that slim lead stood up until Todd Skirving made it 3-1 early in the third. In the late going the Nailers pulled the goalie, Powell Connor hit the net from the defensive zone putting the lid on a 4-1 Royals win. Goaltender Keith Petruzzelli (another Phantom assignee and a former teammate with Skirving in St. John's) picked the win as the Royals split the weekend at home and stand at 4-1-0 overall, the club returns home on November 6. I got back home around 6:15 to discover the power out in my neighborhood, the family next door said it had gone out about twenty minutes earlier. It was finally restored about three hours later, in the meantime there was little to do but sit in the dark and wait. Take care, thanks for reading.
