I hate the Florida Panthers, and I am giddy for the biggest choke in NHL history

Sometimes the best things in sports aren’t watching your team win, but watching a team you despise lose. And when they do so in embarrassing, humiliating, historic fashion? Well, that’s simply all the better.

I am a diehard fan and neighbor of the three-time Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning. With apologies to my Philadelphia Eagles, whom I keep spending actual legal tender to see lose playoff games in Tampa every other year, the Bolts are the professional sports franchise I live and die with the most.

I was forced to watch Game 7 of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final from a bar in North Tampa because that was the last day in history any law enforcement agency in the 813 area code enforced a scalping law. I have a Canadian passport and desperately searched for a loophole during the pandemic to be in the bubble rink when Stammer, Kuch, Pointer and Vasy won the franchise’s second title in 2020 in Toronto.

And I was in the barn when the Bolts skated their last Cup a season later and got a small piece of the goal net from an on-ice employee in a local bar later that night that is one of my prized possessions. I flew to Denver the following year in search of a three-peat. I still can see the Game 1 turnover seven rows from me that might have ended the dynasty (though it looks like the Lightning are going to make at least one more run at a Cup next season, the long-term draft and salary cap implications be damned).

So when the Bolts' 2-0 playoff series record against the only NHL team that plays in reclaimed-swamp-nee-developer-planned-sprawl ended over a month ago, it was an understandable passing of the torch. Tampa Bay dealt with injury issues, an aging roster, hard salary-cap limitations, and goaltending that went from the best on the planet to merely excellent.

And the forgotten Florida franchise that probably should have folded decades ago finally got better ownership and management, while building a quality roster through the draft, free agency, and Lightning castoffs. While you can’t actually see the sunrise in Sunrise, Florida because of all the strip malls and highways blocking your view, it’s certainly a new day for the team that played for years as an accessory for the much more popular Sawgrass Mills outlet mall next door.

But it doesn’t mean I like them. The Florida Panthers are my No. 1 team in terms of NHL hate, due to their decades of mismanagement making Sun Belt hockey look like a joke. The Bolts are consistently rated as one of the best franchises in all of North American sports. Every home game feels like a sold-out party, with some of the best crowds you’ll ever see. Owner Jeff Vinik is deeply invested in his adopted community, building plenty of the skyscrapers filling a revitalized downtown that is now one of the best urban cores in the country.

Tampa Bay has proven that hockey can be done perfectly in a place where the only ice is in the drinks, with as passionate and knowledgeable a fan base as there is in the game. But our neighbors to the north would continually lump us in with the degenerate little brother down I-75, whose arena was so empty every night you could buy one ticket and get the rest of the row for free.

The Panthers won the 2022 Presidents Trophy, the 2023 Eastern Conference, and the 2024 Atlantic Division for a reason. Sasha Barkov has been one of the most underrated players in hockey for too long. Matthew Tkachuk is a playoff-tested warrior and one of the best leaders in the sport. Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky... well, actually you can’t trust him. And Carter Verhaeghe still isn’t invited to any Lightning 2020 title team reunions, while fortunately being an absolute zero in this year’s Final.

So to watch the Florida Panthers be on the verge of the greatest choke in NHL history has given me life I didn’t know I had. While this long-term trash franchise somehow does have some die-hards, the playoff seats in the last two seasons are still full of bandwagoners that showed up too late.

I’m in two different group text chats with actual Panthers fans, and watching them twist and squirm while recognizing they’re likely to be on the wrong end. The sports hate has flowed through me, even though I resigned myself just over a week ago to watch a Stanley Cup parade everyone would need to pay tolls to attend as they roll by all that zero-lot-line stucco built by the lowest bidder.

Some Panthers fans are in denial, like my friend Jason Brzosowicz: “Regardless of outcome, today will go down as the biggest day in Panthers history, and I still like their chances to just win one out of four.” I love Jason but he does play roulette, so the gambler’s fallacy is in effect. Because now it’s one out of one buddy!

Or NFL play-by-play announcer Josh Appel, who is one of those rare Panthers fans in attendance on what looked like buy-one-get-20-free nights a decade ago: “I’m not sure I’ve ever trusted a team more in my entire life, yet been more pessimistic about the result,” which weirdly having watched his team makes perfect sense. “The idea of the Panthers winning their first-ever Stanley Cup or finishing off one of the greatest collapses in the history of sports causes me insane stress.” And this is from a guy that got in a hit-and-run car accident two days ago.

As Pan Wagon conductor Mike Ryan of the Dan LeBatard Show said this morning, “You either win your first title as a franchise, or you become the biggest joke in the sport. No in-between.”

I look to embrace positivity and kindness in the world whenever possible. Despite an inherently caustic sense of humor, I try to spread as much sunshine and love as I can to those around me.

But my God watching the team I loathe as much as any spit the bit in overwhelming historic fashion would be just glorious.

Seeing them thrashed 8-1 in Game 4 was great, but Game 5 was the opus in “Uh oh, we’re really going to blow this.” And Game 6 in Edmonton felt like a foregone conclusion before anyone stepped on the ice.

But this is hockey, puck luck still exists, and Game 7s are always inherently weird because mistakes decide winners much more than great plays.

I have no ties to the Edmonton Oilers except seeing Leon Draisaitl score a four-goal playoff hat trick in person last season but still lose 6-4, and Connor McDavid is absolutely the best player I’ve ever seen in person. Which makes this absolute jinx of a hot take piece by Miami Herald columnist Greg Cote pale in comparison to anything I’m doing here.

Temporarily, Edmonton is my favorite hockey team in the world. Texting and Tweeting #LetsGoOilers feels like I’m riding a bandwagon myself, but one cloaked in darkness more than light.

I embrace this. It’s ok to let the sports hate flow through you once in a while, and I cannot wait for tonight’s puck drop. With hopefully so many tears freezing on the swamp ice it turns as salty as the Atlantic Ocean no one can see a sunrise from in Sunrise.

Finish them, Edmonton. For my Bolts, and for the darkness in my soul.