February 19-20

Saturday afternoon: on The Road North for the first of another back-to-back at the Arena and two nights of hockey that ended very similarly and not for the good. On this night the Wheeling Nailers visited for the first of their two appearances. The Nailers are one of a handful of clubs still in the league from the Royals' debut season in 2001-02, they were at one time a divisional rival but unfortunately are no longer thanks to league realignment. The Royals took a 2-0 lead on scores by Trevor Gooch late in the first period and Frank DiChiara early in the second (separated by forty-two seconds of game time plus the first intermission) but the visitors from West Virginia stormed back to take a 3-2 advantage after two. Early in the third Dominic Cormier lit the lamp to tie the game but two late goals by the Nailers (including one into the empty net) closed out a 5-3 Wheeling win. On Sunday the Newfoundland Growlers came in for their third and final visit, given the geography involved it's unusual to see the Growlers for a single game but they are in the middle of an eight-game road trip. The Royals trailed 1-0 before Trevor Gooch tied the game in the second, the Growlers rattled off three in a row to take a 4-1 lead. Goals from Thomas Ebbing late in the second and late in the third brought the Royals back to within one but a Newfoundland score into the empty net put the lid on another frustrating loss by the achingly familiar score of 5-3. Hayden Hawkey was goalie of record both games as the record falls to 23-12-6, 13-4-3 at home. The three-game losing streak is the longest since a four-gamer (all on the road) in late November but it's not necessarily a cause for alarm because both Wheeling and Newfoundland have been playing well lately and every team hits a bump in the road every now and then. The club plays its next five games on the road, we're back home for a rescheduled date on Wednesday March 2nd. Take care, thanks for reading. 

February 14-18

Friends, at this juncture we're going to take Time Out for a moment to discuss a subject many may find uncomfortable. Recently some cellphone video from a basketball game McCaskey played within our league in an opposing gym surfaced on social media. In the footage one of our players is jogging to the bench after having been substituted for, as he is leaving the court a male voice could be heard yelling "ah, n*gg*r" (vowels purposely deleted but we all know what the word is). When the video went viral the hosting school investigated and concluded that there was no racial slur involved, one of the members of the school's student section took responsibility and claimed he was yelling "Thon Maker", the name of a professional player our man allegedly resembles. This explanation is patently ridiculous because (a) the video was shot from high in the bleachers at midcourt on the side of the floor where the benches are located and the student section is on the other side of the court at a far end of the gym, (b) the voice on the video was clearly coming from a location close to where the video was taken and (c) what this person yelled was certainly not "Thon Maker" unless his pronunciation of the letters M and K sounds remarkably like N and G. This is unfortunately not an isolated incident, it's nothing new and it's been going on for fifty years. When the league we play in was formed in 1972 it was basically a reorganization of the existing Lancaster County League with the addition of five schools from Lebanon County plus McCaskey joining from the (at that time) Central Penn League. From the beginning there was opposition to JPM being a part of the new league, several of the other schools felt we belonged in with Reading, Harrisburg, York and the other larger districts we played against in the CPL. They felt the urban inner-city minority-oriented school district had no business playing the smaller suburban otherwise-oriented districts. In that first year we played games in neighboring districts where we were viscerally hated because we were from The City and our roster was predominately young men of color. One game in particular featured the home team's student section throwing frankfurters at one of our guys during pregame introductions, their way of saying he was a "hot dog" (This is a true story, friends. I was there, I witnessed it). If a McCaskey crowd ever did an opposing player like that there would be more hell over it than you could imagine. When the explanation for this recent incident went public Coach Ramos and several of our players posted a video on social media calling for reform, fairness, discipline and equality. As a graduate of McCaskey (1974) and a thirty-four-year associate of our school's basketball program I've never been prouder of a group of young men. The opinions in this post are strictly my own, there are those who will agree and those who may not. What do YOU think? Thanks for reading.

February 11-13

Friday night hockey at the Arena as the Trois-Rivieres Lions visited for the first of a back-to-back marking their final appearances in Reading for the regular season. This was Pink-In-The-Rink weekend for breast cancer awareness, the Royals wore pink sweaters and the ice surface was tinted pink as well. On Friday the scoring came early and often, after TR took a quick lead the Royals scored twice within twenty-four seconds. First-year pro Mason Millman (on assignment from the Phantoms) lit the lamp followed in short order by Thomas Ebbing to put the Royals up 2-1. The visitors from the Province of Quebec replied with two goals three minutes apart before Patrick Bajkov knotted the game 3-3 at the first intermission. The teams traded goals in the second period with Trevor Gooch doing the honors for the Home Team. In the third period Brad Morrison gave the Royals the lead for good, Bajkov's second of the night into the empty net wrapped up the 6-4 decision for winning goalie Hayden Hawkey. On Saturday a completely different kind of game took place, the Royals led 2-1 after the first but from there we witnessed a collapse of incredible proportion. In the second period Trois-Rivieres scored SEVEN times in a nine-minute stretch of play including three goals on a single two-minute penalty-kill to go ahead 8-3. The final score was 10-4, Jacob Pritchard scored twice for the Royals with single tallies coming from Ebbing and Anthony Gagnon. University Of Michigan product Hayden Lavigne (recently added with Kirill Ustimenko on recall to the AHL) got his first start for the Royals and didn't survive the second period, he surrendered five goals in thirty minutes played and took the loss. The club reaches the midpoint of its home schedule at 13-2-3, overall the mark is 23-10-6. The homestand continues with games on the 19th and 20th. Take care, thanks for reading.

February 8-10

Up before 7:00 on Tuesday morning, at 7:30 I hit the road north to the Arena in Reading. This was a special Education Day game starting at 10:30, the Adirondack Thunder was the opponent. The Royals reached the season's midpoint with the completion of a 4-1 road trip, since the New Year started they are 11-3-1. On this day they kept the good times rolling with a convincing home-ice win. The visitors carried a 1-0 lead into the second period, midway through the stanza Trevor Gooch and Thomas Ebbing lit the lamp twenty-two sconds apart to put the Royals up 2-1. Two minutes later Kenny Hausinger made it 3-1, late in the period Josh Winquist (back in the lineup from an injury absense) extended the advantage to three. In the final period Gooch and Ebbing each scored their second goal of the day to close out the 6-1 victory, Kirill Ustimenko was the goaltender of record. The club's mark stands at 22-9-6 and 12-1-3 at home, the Royals host Trois-Rivieres for a pair of games on the 11th and 12th. The game was over by 12:45, I got back to town in good order and relaxed before heading over to McCaskey at 5:00 for the final home game of basketball season. JPM did not qualify for postseason play but on this night we had a chance to finish the season at .500 and the mission was accomplished. In the JV game the boys lost to Hempfield to finish at 8-12, the team started poorly but improved greatly as the season progressed. The varsity game was a typical Hempfield/McCaskey battle all the way, JPM won 54-46. The atmosphere was raucous and it was great to see a good turnout for what was basically (at least for us) a "lame-duck" finale. The loss knocked Hempfield out of first place in the division, Manheim Township tied them for the top spot and finished first on "criteria" (no tiebreaker game unlike 2021 when we lost to Hempfield in a playoff game for the division). JPM's final record of 11-11 included a 7-6 league mark, the club was 4-5 against our nine non-league opponents. The club was 6-5 at home and 5-6 on the road, they averaged 59.3 points per game and surrendered an average of 54.9. The average margin of victory was 21.5 points, the average loss was by 12.7. Hasan Williams led the squad in points (349) and average (15.9), Jared Kumah averaged 10.1, Jonathan Byrd (9.6) and Shamell Burke (9.3) just missed double-figures. In four seasons as head coach Freddy Ramos' record stands at 46-40 (.535). The season ended sixty days after it began, the first eleven games were played in thirty-six days (December 11 to January 15), with the last eleven over twenty-two days (January 18 to February 8). Every season seems to go by faster and faster, this was my thirty-fourth back with the program at JPM and next December will be here before you know it. Take care, thanks for reading.

February 4-7

The Friday game at Cedar Crest was postponed to Monday, there was the threat of icy conditions and games all over the area were being rescheduled as a result. I could see the point especially since we were going twenty-four miles on two-lane road but as it turned out the weather fizzled out and we probably could have played. You pay your money, you take your chances. Had lunch with Jenny and her mother on Saturday and spent Sunday at home which is more or less typical since Sunday is always the least eventful day of the week. On Monday we met at McCaskey for the trip north and the final bus ride of the season, perhaps it was appropriate that the miserable trip into Lebanon County was the last one. In Lancaster we're very lucky in that we are centrally located, all of our trips within our county are relatively close or at least involve highway travel. Whenever we go to Cedar Crest or Lebanon proper (and the two schools are about two miles apart) it's the exact same route on a dark two-lane road just about all the way. On this night the JV squad saw a four-game win streak ended, the varsity exacted revenge for an earlier defeat. We trailed by four after one period but fought back to lead by eight at the half. Cedar Crest hung tough but never came much closer than that, the final was 68-54. Jared Kumah had the big night with 22 points and Hasan Williams added 18 as the club improves to 10-11 with one game left on the schedule. We got home a little before 10:00 which gave me time to get a bite to eat and write this blog post. Tuesday is going to be a very busy day and it starts EARLY. Take care, thanks for reading.

February 1-3

The new month began on a Tuesday which for JPM was an off-night from the league schedule. When the league's divisional crossover games are going on everybody has a partner but during divisional play there's always an odd team out since there are five teams in each. We've been hearing for the last few years how this format is on its way out and every season it seems to stay around, maybe someday it will actually disappear for good. On Wednesday we had our usual lunch date in Quarryville, in the afternoon we met at McCaskey for another non-league bus ride. The last time we were west of the river for a basketball game was January of 2018 at York High, the destination on this night was Central York, located about three miles or so northeast of York proper. We played a district playoff game at CY in 1999 but that was in a completely different gym in a different building, from what I was told the current facility has only been around since 2005. There are occasions in sports where things happen that are almost inexplicable, this night was one of them. After one quarter we were ahead 18-13 but from there the wheels came off in a big hurry. Central absolutely caught fire and scored thirty-three points in the second quarter on the strength of nine (that's NINE) three-point field goals, they would score fifteen on the night on the way to an 89-63 win. When a team shoots the ball like that the greatest coaching in the history of the sport wouldn't be able to stop it. The club's record drops to 9-11 with two games left, we'll be back on the bus on Friday for the trip north to Cedar Crest (oh, joy). Take care, thanks for reading.

January 28-31

There was snow in the forecast for late Friday into Saturday, we actually had a touch of it early on Friday morning. There were some schools that opened late and postponed evening activities but McCaskey was not one of them, the game at home with Penn Manor went on as scheduled. It was Senior Night, at halftime of the varsity game the five graduating cheerleaders were spotlighted and before the game we saluted John Stewart, Nyaud Frazier, Thomas Foster, Kevin Ramirez, Grady Bachman, Shamell Burke and Hasan Williams as members of the Class of 2022. Haz and Shamell have been starters for most of the season, the others have played as reserves and on this night they comprised the all-Senior starting five. That unit combined to score seventeen points in the first quarter and forty-four for the game as JPM won going away 88-49. The result wasn't really surprising, Penn Manor has struggled through a two-win season and they were missing a few key people. In a way you feel sorry for them but at the same time you must win against teams that have poorer records because if the situation was reversed you know there would be absolutely no sympathy of any type shown to us. We had another shot of the white stuff overnight into Saturday, when I came out in the morning it was fifteen degrees and the wind made it feel like zero. We pulled out of the parking lot at McCaskey at 10:15 for the forty-mile trip northwest to suburban Harrisburg. In recent years Susquehanna Township has been a regular preseason scrimmage opponent, the boys were there back in November and Freddy commented on how strange it was to play an actual game against them so soon after. The games on this day were typical of those played against Mid-Penn Conference opponents in their gyms, the officials tried very hard to make it all about themselves. The JV game started with a technical foul issued in the pregame warmup (?), in the varsity game both coaches were T'd up. To say the afternoon wasn't an artistic success would be putting it mildly but both teams managed to bring it home, the JV won by twelve to improve to 7-10 and the varsity prevailed 60-50 to move to 9-10. The varsity played its first eleven games in the space of thirty-six days (from December 11 to January 15), from the 18th to the 29th the club played eight games in twelve days with two sets of back-to-back and one set of three-in three. The boys get to relax and get some quality practice time in before the next game on Wednesday the 2nd. Take care, thanks for reading.

January 27

Back at JPM on Thursday night for the first game of a three-in-three, the sort of schedule we see often in the ECHL but rarely in high school basketball. This game was almost literally added at the proverbial last minute, Freddy received confirmation on it while we were awaiting the start of the JV game on Tuesday night. For the longest time we had only twenty games on our schedule and you're allowed twenty-two, this game and the game upcoming on the 29th were late additions. The opponent on this night was Academy Park from Sharon Hill, a southwestern suburb of Philadelphia. Nobody knew very much about them but Freddy was able to find some video and formulate a scouting report. Apparently the program was dormant in 2021 because of The Circumstances, they are essentially starting over with a new head coach. The crowd was somewhat sparse but those in attendance saw the Home Team win easily 70-36. All twelve available players got into the game and ten of them scored: Hasan Williams led the way with 20, Shamell Burke had 11, Grady Bachman and Jared Kumah added ten each. De'Shaun McFadden and Jonathan Byrd had six apiece, Eric Centeno scored three, John Stewart had a field goal, Nyaud Frazier and Elias Garcia each went 1-2 at the line. The club's mark improves to 7-10 with Penn Manor visiting on Friday for Senior Night. This night also featured an example of sophomoric high school humor at its best (or worst depending on your point of view): a member of the opponent's JV squad had the surname Cheeseboro, when he entered the game the JPM student section (not surprisingly) welcomed him as "cheeseburger". I've been there and done that myself but 1974 was a hell of a long time ago. Take care, thanks for reading. 

January 24-26

 A quiet Monday started the new week, after supper I went over to practice to get the scorebook from Freddy. JPM lost to Hazleton by eleven points in that showcase event in Reading on Saturday, on Tuesday we were back on the bus for the short trip north to Manheim Township. This was the start of the second round of divisional play, the club went 2-2 in the first half including a ten-point loss to MT at home in December. On this night in Neffsville the teams engaged in an up-and-down back-and-forth affair that was decided in overtime with JPM coming out on the wrong end of a 44-42 decision. In the four-minute OT period we were outscored 2-0 with both points coming from the foul line. It's often been said that personal foul calls in basketball are not always a matter of how many are called, it's more a matter of WHAT is called and WHEN it is called. At one end of the court a man drives to the basket and is driven to the floor with no call made, at the other end every little ticky-tack violation is whistled down. In the dying seconds of overtime we had possession with a chance to tie, after a timeout an obvious hold on the inbounds play (which would have put us on the line for two shots) went uncalled as the clock ran out. After the buzzer one of our players (and I don't know who because I legitimately didn't see it happen) punted the ball into the air in frustration but luckily nobody was injured. I would say it's unbelievable but it really isn't because we've seen it too many times and after almost fifty years it's not likely to change anytime soon. The loss drops the record in 4-6 in the league and 6-10 overall. Wednesday was quiet except for lunch with Jenny and her mother but the weekend will be busy. The boys have three games in three days coming up, two of them were just recently added to the schedule. On Thursday we host a non-league opponent from the Philadelphia area, Friday features Penn Manor coming into town for a divisional game and on Saturday morning we'll be on the bus to Dauphin County. The JV game on Saturday starts at 12-noon so the three dates in full are all within less than forty-eight hours. I'll be tired just watching it, can't imagine how the kids are going to feel. Take care, thanks for reading.

January 22-23

On the road early on Saturday for a 4:00 start at the Arena and the first of a back-to-back with one of the league's newest franchises. Trois-Rivieres, Quebec (English translation: Three Rivers) had a professional hockey team in the late 1950s known as the Lions, when this new franchise joined over the summer that nickname was resurrected (the team logo is the head of a lion shaped like a Fleur-De-Lys). On this day the visitors from La Belle Province made their first-ever appearance in Reading with a roster that was unsurprisingly just about all natives of Quebec. I've often explained that nicknames to the contrary notwithstanding I personally am not French, I have no French ancestry and there is absolutely NOTHING about me that is French. As a lifelong fan of the great game of ice hockey I have a reasonable knowledge of how to pronounce French-oriented names, that allowed me to get through the weekend in good order (especially since the Lions had no broadcaster present or pronunciation guide in their media notes). In the Saturday opener the Royals were awarded a power play four seconds after the game started, Trevor Gooch cashed in fifty-one seconds later giving the Royals a quick 1-0 lead. It stayed that way until midway through the third period when Brayden Low lit the lamp, in the late going the Lions broke Hayden Hawkey's shutout bid but he and the Royals held on for a 2-1 win. On Sunday the Lions scored the game's first and third goals sandwiched around a Dominic Cormier marker to lead 2-1 at the first intermission. In the second period Jackson Cressey scored on a breakaway to tie the score 2-2 but in overtime TR struck for the winning goal and took it 3-2, Kirill Ustimenko took the tough-luck loss in net. It was a physical series, after the game angry words were exchanged on both sides with some of the Royals ire directed at the game officials. The club stands at 17-8-5 overall at 11-1-3 at home, the next five are on the road with the next home date scheduled for February 8. Take care, thanks for reading.