Skip to Content
/ Articles / Sports & Recreation /

Royals’ Matt Willows Selected Sher-Wood Hockey ECHL Player of Week

Feb 07, 2017 • by The Reading Royals
Matt Willows

The Reading Royals have announced that forward Matt Willows has been selected the Sher-Wood Hockey ECHL Player of the Week for January 30 – February 5.

In three wins for the Royals this past week, Willows scored four goals, assisted on three others (seven points) and played to a plus-2 (+2).

Willows, a second year pro from Congers, New York, began the week by picking up an assist on the Royals’ second goal in the team’s 3-2 win last Wednesday over the Toledo Walleye at Huntington Center in Toledo. Willows followed that up with a two point game (1g-1a) in Reading’s 7-5 win in Toledo on Friday, which included scoring the team’s fifth goal. Willows capped the week off by scoring all three goals for Reading in regulation time — all on the power play — and picking up the primary assist on the overtime game winner by Jesper Pettersson in the Royals’ 4-3 OT win over the Wheeling Nailers on Saturday at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling, West Virginia. That was the first pro hattrick for Willows, and the third time this season that a Royal has bagged three goals in a single game.

Willows, who was selected as the ECHL’s Rookie of the Year last season, was loaned to the Royals from the San Jose Barracuda of the American Hockey League, on December 8. Since that time, he has registered twenty-four points (11g-13a), picked up eleven penalty minutes (which includes a fighting major) and played to a plus-10 (+10) in twenty-three games for Reading. Overall this season, Willows has thirty-five points (15g-20a) in forty ECHL games.

This is the second time this season that a member of the Royals has been selected as the league’s Player of the Week. Justin Crandall received the weekly award on January 3. This marks the twentieth time in the sixteen year history of the Royals that one of the team’s players has been named as the ECHL Player of the Week. Willows joins seventeen other skaters who have won the award including Chris Blight, Brendan Brooks, Justin Crandall, Ryan Cruthers, Stefano Giliati (twice), Ben Gordon (twice), Kevin Goumas, Greg Hogeboom, Ryan Kinasewich, Olivier Labelle, Brian McCullough, Mike Pandolfo, Yannick Riendeau, Andrew Sarauer, Daniel Steiner, Shay Stephenson, and Sean Wiles.

On behalf of Willows, a case of pucks will be donated to a Reading youth hockey organization by Sher-Wood Hockey, the exclusive puck supplier of the ECHL. Since beginning its sponsorship of the award in 2000-01, Sher-Wood Hockey has donated more than 35,000 pucks to youth hockey organizations in ECHL cities.

Royals’ Upcoming Games

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9

v SOUTH CAROLINA STINGRAYS

Santander Arena – Reading, PA (7 pm)

Thirsty-Thursday: $2.00 off Select Beers from 6 – 7 pm

 

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11

v NORFOLK ADMIRALS

Santander Arena – Reading, PA (7 pm)

SPECIAL OLYMPICS NIGHT

“Shake, Shiver & Freeze”

Fans Encouraged to bring a Bathing Suit and Towel

to take an Indoor “Polar Bear Plunge”!

 

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12

v NORFOLK ADMIRALS

Santander Arena – Reading, PA (7 pm)

 Limited Edition Train Bank Giveaway

First 1000 Kids (14 & Younger) Courtesy of Prospectus Berco and M.J. Butterworth & Associates

 

Broadcast:

Broadcast Begins 30 Minutes Prior to Opening Face-Off

With Pre-Game Warm-Up Show

Digital Stream on iHeartRadio Rumba 1340 – Reading

  Road Games Only: BCTV Telecast in Berks County, PA

(Comcast Reading Cable Channel 15, Service Electric Cable Channel 19,

Comcast Southern Berks Channel 965)

 Pay-Per-View Streaming Video at ECHL.TV

We need your support!

Your contribution makes community media possible.

A donation of any size to your nonprofit media organization supports the future of media access in our community - the things you love, and the places you care about, by the people you know.

Live Streaming