Sunrise over Philadelphia. DogGONE, but this is early! And I still have two more segments of my commute left to go, to boot. I'd never have believed it possible, but I actually woke up before the alarm this morning. I'm nearly over the jet lag, I guess.

Last night was a good news-bad news kind of game for the Phantoms. The good news: we had yet another come-from-behind win last night. The bad news: two of our players left the game injured. In the first period, it was Riley Cote (see the myspace link on the left side of the screen), and in the second period, it was Martin Houle, our starting goalie (and one of the two players whose scrapbooks I did last season). From my seat next to the tunnel, I could see that each of them was having trouble making his way up the tunnel once he got off the ice. In Riley's case, he was having so much difficulty maneuvering, I took a closer look because I was afraid he was concussed and "out on his feet". But he was perfectly lucid, thank goodness, and when he flat-out roared an expletive, I was sure his head was fine. Nobody who's half-dazed could have summoned that much vehemence. Unfortunately, since dented players don't tend to fly into a rage about it, and since Riley's not prone to losing his temper, I fear that he could tell that whatever was wrong would put him on the sidelines for a while. I hope I'm mistaken, but fear I'm correct. This rots: he was supposed to get called right back up to the Flyers after getting some playing time in with the Phantoms this weekend, or so I read. If my fears are on target, this will delay his NHL debut, in which case it's no wonder he was furious. DId I mention that I hope I'm mistaken?

So I posted a well-wish on his myspace page. On checking the site again this morning, I saw some other posts from people he knows face-to-face, and their tone leads me to believe that he's headed to the IR. Sigh.

OK, signing off. I want to rest my eyes before I spend a whole morning reading small print.