December Reign
Minor League Hockey Team Leans Into Name Confusion For A Night
You know? Today’s post reminds me of a story.
When I was in grad school, there was another student from Africa named Niyi. The name, (Yoruba in origin meaning honor, prestige, and fame) was actually supposed to be pronounced in two syllables: Ni and Yi. My classmates typically opted to pronounce it as one syllable (e.g. knee). Anyway, when Niyi graduated, he made a point to track me down at my apartment to thank me for pronouncing his name with both syllables. In fact, he was so overwhelmed with everyone pronouncing it as a single syllable, he just went along with it. That always stuck with me.
Anyway, the Los Angeles Kings hockey team has a minor league affiliated named the Ontario Reign. Get it? Kings…Reign… synergy bro. And even though the team plays in Ontario, California partly everyone sees ‘Ontario, CA’ and assume the squad plays in Canada. That, coupled with REIGN sounding exactly like RAIN, and casual hockey fans thought a random team from Canada really loved naming their squad after the weather.
And so, on a random game this past weekend on December 15th, the team decided to go along with it like my buddy from grad school. The Ontario Reign became the Ontario Rain and featured a logo that was an actual cloud playing hockey.
Mind you, the team plays in a region that’s mostly considered a desert. For what it’s worth, Sir Cloudieton is freakin’ adorable and I wish it was socially acceptable for a grown man to have a plushie of the little guy.
As for the game, the CloudBois actually WON:
This is what makes sports so great. But seriously, I get Ontario, CA confused with Ontario, CA like half a dozen times a year