This isn't your daddy's Slap Shot.

The Charlestown Chiefs hockey team featured in the famed Paul Newman flick were a collection of ragtag misfits who played their games in a tiny rink a thousand times removed from the National Hockey League. Like the Chiefs, the Ontario Reign is also a minor-league hockey outfit, but that's just about where similarities to the Chiefs begin and end.

“

We're very much a social atmosphere. People that sit in different sections have kind of taken ownership in those sections. They've built a lot of camaraderie around that.

”

-- JUSTIN KEMP, team executive

The Reign call the year-old 10,000-seat Citizens Business Bank Arena home, complete with 36 luxury suites. Players on the Reign roster play a physical game, sure, but there's also some actual hockey taking place, too. Just two rungs below the NHL, Reign skaters actually have a prayer of making it to the parent club, the Los Angeles Kings, located just a few miles away in sunny Southern California.

"You're gonna find guys here who might have just gotten out of college. They might've just gotten out of juniors, so they're usually between the ages of 21 and 27," says Justin Kemp, executive vice president of business operations for the Reign. "You don't have too many guys who are that much older than that.

"So what you also get in terms of the product is a lot of guys who are very hungry for it. You don't get the grizzled veterans who are just trying to earn a paycheck. For the non-hockey fan, you could say that it's a much faster, hard-hitting, intense form of hockey that you might see at the AAA level."

Last season, in the team's first year of existence, the Reign won the ECHL's Pacific Division championship. Still, hockey in Southern California can be a tough sell. It's what Kemp calls a "non-traditional" market for hockey.

Something must working. The Reign finished second last year in attendance in the ECHL, which features teams from across the country. The team ranks third in the league in number of season-ticket holders. One charity auction of 25 game-used Reign jerseys fetched a stunning $36,000. That was the lowest. Another sale brought down $51,000. Team captain Jon Francisco's sweater brought $4,500.

Obviously, Kemp and the rest of the Reign's staff have convinced some of hockey's allure. Now convince the rest of us.

"We have to come into this and assume that not only had nobody seen a professional hockey game before, but they also didn't like hockey," Kemp begins. "Our marketing strategy has been about the entertainment value and everything else that surrounds the experience of going to a game.

"We're very much a social atmosphere. People that sit in different sections have kind of taken ownership in those sections. People who sit in Section 115 say, 'Section 115 is the best.' [Others might say], 'Section 117 is the best.' They've built a lot of camaraderie around that."

The players, Kemp continues, are very accessible.

"Unlike at the major-league level where it's difficult to interact with the players, we've got multiple times for season-ticket holders where they have the opportunity to actually interact with the players," Kemp says. "We do a pre-season party. We do a post-season party. We do a party during the season. We have skates down on the ice after the games on occasion."

Best of all, Kemp concludes, the Reign offers free parking. Based in Ontario, the Reign is a community event. It's a far easier proposition to check out the Reign than to get caught in traffic headed to some other Southern California event. The Reign? Door to door in 20 minutes. That's it.

Twenty minutes? Where do we sign up?