Saturday night in downtown Reading as the Royals hosted the Indy Fuel in the first of a back-to-back, this was the Fuel's first appearance at the Arena since opening weekend back in October 2022. The Royals took a 1-0 lead in the first on a shorthanded breakaway score from Lou-Felix Denis (pronounced "dah-NEE"), after Indy tied it in the second Phantoms assignee Sam Sedley gave the Good Guys a 2-1 advantage entering the final frame. Scores by Tyler Gratton and Parker AuCoin (the capital C is correct) thirty-four seconds apart put the Royals up 4-1 early in the period, in the late going Indy got one back but Keith Petruzzelli shut the door from there for the 4-2 win. On Sunday morning we were in Rothsville for the street hockey Grand Finale, in the "bronze medal" game Township beat Hillside and for The Gold Warwick won over Ephrata. Forty-eight players participated, forty-three of them qualified for the postseason and thirty-six were in attendance. It's Warwick's first championship since the very first season back in the spring of 2021, overall through eight seasons Township has won three titles, Ephrata and Warwick two each and Hillside one. If all goes well we'll be back in April for the ninth season at Lions Park. We were done around 12:30, by shortly after 1:00 I was back at the Arena for game #2 with Indy. Offensive highlights on this day were few and far between for the Royals, in the third period the Fuel scored first and went on to a 3-0 win. Indy scored at even strength, on the power play and into the empty net, Parker Gahagen started in goal for the Royals and deserved better. The club plays its next five on the road before returning home on Friday the 22nd. The week following had very little going on except for Jenny beginning a liquid diet in preparation for a surgical procedure. She has been considering this for some time, it's scheduled for Monday the 18th and she should be home the following day. Take care, thanks for reading.
