The Ontario Reign are a professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

team in the

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the le ...

(AHL) that began play in the 2015–16 season. Based in

Ontario, California Ontario is a city in southwestern San Bernardino County in the U.S. state of California, east of downtown Los Angeles and west of downtown San Bernardino, the county seat. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire metropolitan area, ...

, and affiliated with the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

Los Angeles Kings The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference and was founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent ...

, the team plays its home games at the

Toyota Arena Toyota Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Ontario, California, United States. The arena hosts local sporting events and concerts and is suitable for indoor events, including basketball, ice hockey, ice shows, boxing, graduation ceremonies and con ...

. The franchise is a relocation of the former Manchester Monarchs AHL franchise when several other franchises created a Pacific Division in 2015. The team is owned by the

Anschutz Entertainment Group The Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), also known as AEG Worldwide, is an American global sporting and music entertainment presenter and a subsidiary of The Anschutz Corporation. It is the world's largest owner of sports teams and sports even ...

. The Reign replaced the

ECHL The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams scattered across the United States and Canada. It is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL). The ...

team of the same name, which played from

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until 2015, after which they moved to

Manchester, New Hampshire Manchester is a city in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the most populous city in New Hampshire. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 115,644. Manchester is, along with Nashua, one of two seats of New Ha ...

, to play as the Manchester Monarchs.

History

On January 29, 2015, the Los Angeles Kings announced that they would be moving their AHL affiliate, the Manchester Monarchs, to Ontario as one of five charter members of the AHL's new Pacific Division. The team retained the Reign nickname from its ECHL predecessor (which moved to Manchester and take on the Monarchs moniker, in essentially a "franchise swap"). The Reign's AHL logo, based on the Kings' 1980s-90s "

Chevy Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and oust ...

" logo, was unveiled on Wednesday, February 11. The franchise retained head coach Mike Stothers during the move from Manchester. In its inaugural season in California, the Reign won the first Pacific Division regular season title with a 44–19–4–1 record. Goaltender

Peter Budaj Peter Budaj ( ; born 18 September 1982) is a Slovak former professional ice hockey goaltender. He had previously played in the National Hockey League for the Colorado Avalanche, which drafted him, Montreal Canadiens, Los Angeles Kings, and Tam ...

was named to the 2015–16 AHL First All-Star Team and was selected as the league top goaltender with the Baz Bastien Memorial Award.

Sean Backman Sean Backman (born April 29, 1986) is an American former professional ice hockey player. He most notably played in the American Hockey League (AHL) and with Eisbären Berlin of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL). Playing career Sean Backman play ...

lead the team in scoring with 21 goals and 34 assists while playing all 68 games for the Reign. The Reign would also win the division in the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

, defeating the San Jose Barracuda three-games-to-one and the

San Diego Gulls The San Diego Gulls are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL) that began play in the 2015–16 season. Based in San Diego, California, and affiliated with the National Hockey League's Anaheim Ducks, the Gulls play th ...

four-games-to-one. In the conference finals, the Reign were swept by the eventual

Calder Cup The Calder Cup is the trophy awarded annually to the playoff champions of the American Hockey League. It was first presented in 1937 to the Syracuse Stars. The cup is made of sterling silver mounted on a base of Brazilian mahogany. In its cur ...

champion

Lake Erie Monsters The Cleveland Monsters are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL). The team began play in 2007 as the Lake Erie Monsters and since 2015 has served as the top affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hock ...

in four games. During the next season in 2016–17, due to goaltender injuries and call-ups for their parent club, the Los Angeles Kings, the Reign ended up using a Canadian father-son duo Dusty and Jonah Imoo during a game in October 2016. Dusty Imoo (age 46) was a goaltending consultant with the Kings. Jonah (age 22) made his AHL debut on a tryout contract. Both the Imoos had grown up in Surrey, British Columbia. By the end of the season, the Reign qualified for the playoffs in third place in the Pacific Division, losing in the first round to San Diego. The 2019–20 season was curtailed by the onset of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

in March 2020. During the offseason, Stothers' contract was not renewed and was replaced by John Wroblewski as the new head coach. Approaching the delayed 2020–21 season, the Reign announced they would temporarily relocate and play out of the Kings' practice rink, Toyota Sports Center, in El Segundo due to pandemic-related restrictions. The Sports Center hosted all the Reign's home games closed to spectators.

Season-by-season records

Players

Current roster

Updated December 23, 2022.

Team captains

* Vincent LoVerde, 2015–17 * Brett Sutter, 2017–22 * T.J. Tynan, 2022–present

References

External links

Ontario Reign official website
{{California sports 1 Ice hockey teams in California Sports in Ontario, California Sports in San Bernardino County, California Sports in the Inland Empire Ice hockey clubs established in 2015 2015 establishments in California