In the span of a week, South Florida has learned that Jimmy Butler no longer wants to play for the Miami Heat and that Tyreek Hill also wants out from the Miami Dolphins.
Amid all of this chaos lies the stability of the Florida Panthers.
Superstars aren't trying to flee the Panthers. They're getting traded and signing contract extensions, which was the case with Matthew Tkachuk. Fans aren't complaining about how the Panthers are struggling to get into the Stanley Cup playoffs. They're the defending Stanley Cup champions, trying to win a consecutive title. Sitting inside Amerant Bank Arena no longer feels like an empty and sterile environment, because the Panthers are selling out every home game for the first time in their history.
This is the golden age of the Florida Panthers.
It's also why the NHL finally decided to not only have the Panthers play in an outdoor game, but host the sport's signature event, the Winter Classic, on Jan. 2, 2026 against the New York Rangers at LoanDepot Park in Miami.
"We are always trying to raise that bar and do something unique," NHL president of business Keith Wachtel said. "The legacy that it leaves behind in the local market, I think is key. It has great national appeal and quite frankly you hear it all the time. Even though they won a Stanley Cup, unless you get one of those marquee events like an All-Star Game, certainly, but one of these Winter Classic or Stadium Series, it's like another validation for them as an organization."
The Winter Classic is coming to South Florida 😼 pic.twitter.com/Cbo0O33Ltu
— Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) January 8, 2025
The Panthers and South Florida playing host to the Winter Classic is part of the NHL's plan to make the state of Florida a priority. On Feb. 1, 2026, the Tampa Bay Lightning will host the Stadium Series against the Boston Bruins at Raymond James Stadium.
Having both games within a month of each other was a decision by the league that Wachtel said allows the state of Florida "to be the center of the hockey universe."
South Florida has hosted numerous Super Bowls, the NBA Finals, the World Series, national championship games, College Football Playoff games, an annual Formula 1 race, the Copa América Final and will add the World Cup to that list in 2026.
The Panthers alone have hosted three Stanley Cup Final games, two All-Star Games and two NHL drafts.
Yet the Panthers entered this season as one of three NHL teams that had never played in an outdoor game. Now that list is down to one (the Utah Hockey Club), as the Columbus Blue Jackets will host and play in this season's Stadium Series on March 1 at Ohio Stadium against the Detroit Red Wings.
Why now? What has suddenly made the Panthers and South Florida an attractive choice despite a team being in the market for 30 years? What could something like this mean for the franchise? And could another marquee event potentially help the Panthers plant even more seeds in their bid to grow generational fandom?
"Even when the Panthers were a newer franchise playing in downtown Miami, there was some [interest] down here," said Laura Courtley-Todd, an assistant sports administration professor at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens. "It was a little bit of a hockey town but not as much as it is now. It's become exciting to see. You just talk to people who are going to games. I have friends who are season-ticket holders. It's much different than it used to be."
ALTHOUGH THE NHL held an outdoor exhibition game at Caesars Palace back in 1991, there was still a belief those games were meant for more traditional hockey hotbeds. That dynamic changed once the league introduced the Stadium Series. The Stadium Series saw "nontraditional markets" get to host an outdoor game in venues such as Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas, Nissan Stadium in Nashville and Carter-Finley Stadium at North Carolina State.
But what about Florida? Those in favor cited the truly unique experience that a venue in the state would bring. Those opposed wondered how the league could avoid an unplayable surface, given the humidity.
The court of public opinion received its long-awaited verdict in December 2024 when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said at the Board of Governors meeting that the league was finalizing its plans for the Panthers to host an outdoor game.
"Wow? He said it?" Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad told ESPN on the day Bettman made the announcement. "It's obviously really exciting, and I would love that opportunity. I hope it will all work out and we will get that opportunity."
Ekblad, who has played his entire 11-year career for the Panthers, was instantly met with another question: Why does he think it took the league this long for the Panthers to be included?
"I think it's more just the logistics of it, right? It's Florida. It's hard to get ice in Florida," Ekblad explained. "I think that might be the only reason. I imagine that if we were in another city, then, we'd get it. It is what it is. I don't see it as a slight. The logistics of it are really difficult."
NHL president of content & events Steve Mayer said LoanDepot Park having a retractable roof makes it like T-Mobile Park in Seattle, where the NHL held its 2024 Winter Classic. The roof will allow the league to cover the ice surface and control the climate conditions while the ice is being built. Mayer said they will open the roof just before the game for a dramatic entrance.
It's a contrast from Raymond James Stadium. Mayer said the humidity -- along with Raymond James Stadium being a fully outdoor venue with no roof -- led to the NHL working with a Dallas-based company that will create a mini-warehouse where they'll build the ice surface in a controlled climate.
Bettman was asked if the NHL considered an alternate venue such as Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, but said the venue wasn't an option because the Orange Bowl will be played around the same time.
With the 2026 Classic plans in place, some were left to wonder: Why hadn't the Panthers been invited to play in the game in prior years as the visitor? After all, the Lightning got that chance in 2022. And franchises younger than the Panthers, such as the Seattle Kraken and Vegas Golden Knights, had played in games before Florida.
Bettman reiterated that the state as a whole is in a golden age of hockey. He said items such as fan engagement along with both franchises hosting events such as the All-Star Games and Stanley Cup Final were pivotal to making the call.
As it specifically relates to the Panthers, they are eighth in average attendance and are fifth in average attendance among American markets. A team spokesperson told ESPN that the Panthers sold out of season tickets for the first time in their 31-year history.
"The Violas and Viniks have done an amazing job of making Florida a true hockey destination," Bettman said of the respective Panthers and Lightning owners. "Florida has been very supportive and very good to us. We think it's time to bring two of our tentpole events to the state."
One of the trademarks of the Stadium Series and Winter Classic is the themes the NHL uses as part of the game-day environment. Mayer, who oversees the outdoor events, has a team that has come up with ideas such as getting an actual fighter jet on a faux landing area next to the ice surface for the 2020 Stadium Series at the Air Force Academy.
Mayer said being in Florida is going to allow his team to get creative in ways that are unique to the state. When the NHL held the All-Star Game in 2023 in Sunrise, the league came up with South Florida-specific ideas for the skills competition such as using a dunk tank on the beach.
"Instead of snow or fake snow, how about sand?" Mayer said. "Like we did at All-Star, we'll lean into the environment creatively."
THE PANTHERS' RUN of success comes at the perfect time, given the status of the area's other pro sports teams.
Franchises that have existed for more than 50 years are built up as being something more than a team. The wins, the losses, the championships and the difficult times all get romanticized in a way that lives on for decades, if not longer, much like a classic novel.
Unless that franchise is in South Florida.
It's not that fandom doesn't exist in South Florida. It's just different from other markets, in that the majority of teams haven't been around long enough to develop generational fandom. The Dolphins are the market's oldest professional franchise at 59 years old -- and they're still the 24th youngest in the NFL.
The Heat started in 1988 while the Panthers and Miami Marlins both started playing games in 1993. And while the University of Miami first started playing football in 1926, they didn't win a national title until 1983, while largely playing as an independent program before joining the Big East in 1991.
"As much as this is a Dolphins town, there hasn't been a lot of success for the Dolphins since Dan Marino was drafted, and that was the last time they went to the Super Bowl," said Roy Bellamy, a senior producer for "The Dan Le Batard Show" who grew up in South Florida. "The last time they went to the AFC Championship was 1992. Hope is a hell of a drug, but if you're a winner they will get behind you and with the Panthers, they're the only consistent winner in this region."
Optimism was high during the 1995-96 season when the Panthers reached the Stanley Cup Final in just their third season. From there, they would have only four playoff appearances from 1996 through 2019. In that time, the Panthers went through a number of rebuilds while trying to figure out how they could boost attendance numbers. They believed they could still draw fans from Miami despite moving from the city to Broward County in 1998.
Panthers CEO and president Matt Caldwell said the franchise started gaining stability when Vincent and Teresa Viola purchased the team in 2013. Caldwell said the organization went through a shift when it came to how it would engrain itself in the community.
"We embraced that we had to start building this one fan at a time," Caldwell said. "That was our internal rally cry and we've gotten our staff to be motivated behind it in a way where we felt this could be the greatest turnaround in sports history."
Caldwell said the team knew they had to win. But they also had to do more than just winning games in order to build something sustainable.
It started with community outreach. The Panthers made an impression on the area's youth by having programs such as Learn To Play while also sending their players out into the schools so they could create a connection point that hadn't previously existed. They were also active when it came to hurricane relief. Caldwell said the Panthers have made their arena accessible so it could house thousands of emergency response workers that came to the area to assist.
They even applied that approach to how they handle parking at their arena. Amerant Bank Arena has sizable parking lots and the Panthers have attendants who drive around on golf carts to provide rides to fans that need them. Caldwell said the Panthers decided to not outsource their parking lot operations to a third party so if a fan had an issue, they could go directly to the team rather than a faceless entity.
Another philosophical shift came when the club decided that it was going to stop fixating on trying to get more fans from Miami. One of the challenges the Panthers faced when they left was how they could get fans to travel to Broward County knowing it would take about an hour to get there on a good day.
Caldwell said the team looked at its internal numbers and saw that 60% of their fans were in Broward County. That's when they decided as an organization that while they wanted fans from Miami, Palm Beach County and even as far away as Naples, they wanted to concentrate on strengthening their presence in Broward.
"There's not that pressure to win Miami because I think we won them over with our performance and how we treat them when they come to games," Caldwell said.
At the same time, the franchise was also working on trying to be accessible. Caldwell said the pandemic created a population surge in South Florida that saw young families move to the area. That led to the Panthers rethinking how they could find ways to attract those families and the preexisting ones in the market.
One of the ways they did that was by having the team play on local television while also having a streaming app that makes it accessible for anyone with an antenna or a phone to watch the games.
"As we started winning and packing the arena, all our revenue items were hitting record levels, but cable ratings were about flat," Caldwell said. "That was eye-opening to us because if everything else is going up, we're just coming off a Stanley Cup, how is it that the folks that aren't coming to the arena, the casual fans who are staying at home, how is that not growing?"
Caldwell said switching their TV distribution model has led to the Panthers tripling their ratings from where they were last season, while their streaming numbers have seen a 40% increase.
All the background work that was being done to change the Panthers' public perception was coming as the team hired general manager Bill Zito in 2020. Zito and his front office staff revitalized the roster in a way that saw them build an instant winner with how they operated in free agency, used the waiver wire and were willing to make big trades such as the one that landed Tkachuk. That was further fortified when they hired a proven winner in Paul Maurice to take over as head coach.
It resulted in the Panthers reaching five straight playoffs, with two Stanley Cup Final appearances and the franchise winning its first championship in 2024. As Caldwell pointed out, instead of the players leaving to go celebrate in Las Vegas, they celebrated in South Florida at different bars and restaurants (and in the Atlantic Ocean) while also having a parade in Broward County.
Bellamy said that's the sort of work that lets fans know that the Panthers are stable in a way that feels as if they're not going away any time soon.
"The NHL has now seen that this is a marquee franchise," Bellamy said. "This is not a place where you come to play golf, play a game and leave. They have players now. The players actually want to stay, get paid and play hockey."