Sunday morning in Rothsville for the finale at Lions Park. The league started in the spring of 2021 as a vehicle for the game's "older generation" to play street hockey in a relaxed atmosphere without the nonsense, we had no idea at the time how long the league might last but every season we seem to have enough interest to make it worthwhile. Fifty-one players participated in the fall of '25, on this day in Rothsville Hillside defeated Warwick in the championship game (the consolation game was canceled, one of the teams only had three available players). In ten seasons Ephrata and Township have each won three titles, Hillside and Warwick have each won two which says a lot for parity. We're figuring on starting the spring '26 season in April, hopefully it won't be plagued with the difficulties we had the previous spring. We were finished by 12:15, from there I highballed it north to the Arena for a 3:00 faceoff with the Wheeling Nailers. This game marked the start of a somewhat ridiculous stretch for the Royals, over the next twenty-four days the club plays eleven games with six of them against Wheeling and five of those six are at the Arena. On this afternoon the Royals took a 1-0 lead on Cam Cook's first-period score, in the second Jacob Frasca lit the lamp but the Nailers scored before and after to tie the game 2-2. The game was decided in the final minute, with fifty-one seconds left on the clock Jake Willets found the net to give the Royals the lead, Vinnie Purpura was goaltender of record. On Tuesday morning we were up and at it early, the Royals and Nailers faced off at 10:30. This was one of two school-kids games on the schedule, the other comes up in its traditional February spot. On this day there was no magic for the Royals as Wheeling won 2-0, Keith Petruzzelli took the tough-luck loss. It's the first time the Royals were zeroed at home since November of 2024, the club stands at 8-3-3 overall and 3-2 at home. The miniseries continues in Wheeling on Friday and the Arena on Saturday. Take care, thanks for reading.
