While everyone else is excited about the return of (American) Football, I'm excited to return to the ice rink to cheer on my local, Ontario, REIGN! Kicked off my 2nd season as an ALL-IN MEMBER on September 19, 2026 with a return to Toyota Arena to watch the Empire Classic where I saw the LA Kings take on the Vegas Golden Knights.
And what better way to do that than kicking off a new blog!
Empire Classic - GO, KINGS, GO!
Returning to the arena, and stepping through the doors to feel the familiar cold air brought back the joy and excitement only hockey can bring. Hearing the excitement of the crowd and cheers of the fans as I stepped through that "ice wall divide" to head over to my [new] seats only added to that fire.
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While the Kings ended up losing, it was great to see familiar Reign players [Lee, Hicketts, and Chromiak] suit up in Kings jerseys! I'm not entirely sure if they were officially called up, but I did not see them play during the pre-season game either.
Good on them if they made it, though it also means I have to learn all new names now.
Pre-season Game - GO, REIGN, GO!
But the Kings aren't the reason I go. Those games are far away from me, and far too expensive to have season tickets. This is a great time and scratches that hockey itch, especially if you go with friends.
Definitely want to thank my bud who got me hooked on the local minor league teams and bringing us out to these games for these fun nights out (and hurting my pocketbook in the process, lol)!
The game against the Gulls had a lot of memorable moments, but the most memorable moment was when we started that Sudden Death and came out swinging! We ended up winning and I'm pumped to see what this new Reign team are gonna do, because I can sense there's something new a-brewing!
What's that new logo?
Let's jump back to that logo though. Because it definitely stands out on both the jersey (the one the light-up Marshmello helmet head man) and center ice. It heavily calls into the Ontario community and ties back to the LA Kings. cue joke about the fact it rarely "reign"'s here in Ontario
Crown: Probably the most evident. Not only is it a crown, reminescent of a King, but it's topped with a gold "O" that represents the people and community of Ontario.
Local Tribute: Looking more closely, one can see the pistons inside the crest that was inspired by the historic Ontario Motor Speedway.
Color Palette: Purple and Gold + white/black/silver elements further tying this team back to the LA Kings.
New Blog
While I can't say I learned too much about blogging as I was not diligent the first go-around, what I did learn is that blogging is difficult. Especially to do it effectively. It requires a skill so mad respect to those who excel at it.
It can be fun though, as long as you don't take it too seriously. And leveraging modern-day tools to solve modern-day problems is the way to approach it! While I'll keep my old one around as I use it to showcase all the analytics of the bots trying attempting to circumvent the WAF and security protections in my every-day job, this is where I'll continue as it leverages those modern-day solutions I spoke about (writing in .md, leveraging more of Cloudflare services,etc.). Hope to share some of that soon.
Until next time!
Cheers,
- Mike