READING, Pa. – It\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve at Santander Arena, and this year, the celebration comes with skates, sticks, and pajamas.<\/p>\n
Fans packed the stands for the Reading Royals\u2019 Pajama Party game, but many were also there for something bigger: the team\u2019s first game back after the players\u2019 union and the league reached a deal to end the strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played my whole life, and we\u2019re happy that the strike didn\u2019t hold up and that we were able to come,\u201d said fan Jimmy McKee.<\/p>\n
For families, it\u2019s part hockey, part holiday tradition.<\/p>\n
\u201cCheering and having fun,\u201d said Ella McKee.<\/p>\n
And for longtime fans, it\u2019s about being together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all excited about the game. I just hope they play good. And whatever happens, happens,\u201d said Barry Petrillo.<\/p>\n
Some fans say they were worried the strike could have changed, or even ended, the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrike\u2019s finally over. Thank God. So, we got a game tonight. The strike could have ended the league, actually,\u201d said fan Kevin Dunkelberger.<\/p>\n
On New Year\u2019s Eve, there\u2019s a lot to celebrate, and Janet and Richard Zerbe say this is exactly how they want to spend it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe come here, have a good time, and still get home in plenty of time to watch the ball drop,\u201d said Richard Zerbe.<\/p>\n
And they came dressed for the occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, you like my flames? I like it. That\u2019s because the Royals are hot,\u201d said Janet Zerbe.<\/p>\n
Hockey. Family. A little celebration. And a fresh start for the new year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut luckily, they got them back together, settled on something, and then we\u2019re playing. 2026 is going to be another exciting year,\u201d Richard Zerbe said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wfmz.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" READING, Pa. – It\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve at Santander Arena, and this year, the celebration comes with skates, sticks, and pajamas. Fans packed the stands for the Reading Royals\u2019 Pajama Party game, but many were also there for something bigger: the team\u2019s first game back after the players\u2019 union and the league reached a deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2218546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[406840,23982,357335,429006,391765],"class_list":["post-2218545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-new-year","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-royals-pajama-party","tag-santander-arena"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Fans-ring-in-the-new-year-at-Reading-Royals-Pajama.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2218545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2218547,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218545\/revisions\/2218547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2218546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2218545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2218545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2218545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}