Miami is home to the Florida Panthers, a professional ice hockey team. They are part of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). Their home rink is at Bank Atlantic Center.
On the 10th of December 1992, the Florida Panthers team was born by an expansion draft. H. Wayne Huizenga, the infamous Blockbuster Video magnate, owned the team after having lobbied for a Miami based ice hockey team for several years. The name of the team was chosen as homage to the Florida Panther, a species endemic to southern Florida. The team’s colors are gold, red, black and blue.
The Panthers began their history positively, having the most successful first season of any expansion team. Despite the success, they missed out on the final playoff spot by just one point. The team and coaching staff all gave credit for their excellent first season to the trap-defence technique of play. In a game as rough and tumble as ice hockey, this conservative style was criticized by the rest of the league with some even saying it was ruining the flow of the game.
On the night of the home opening game of the Florida Panthers third season, the team was in their locker room during an intermission. A rat scampered across the floor and Scott Mellanby took the opportunity to ‘one-time’ it against the wall, killing the rat. Later that night, he scored two goals which his teammate, John Vanbiesbrouck teased him as being a ‘rat trick’. The story got out to the public and two nights later, fans began throwing rubber rats on the ice whenever a Florida goal was scored. During the regular season, the rubber rats numbered in the teens, however during the playoffs, the numbers shot up to 2000.
The 1995/1996 NHL season is, to date, the most successful season the Panthers have had in their history. They reached the 1996 playoff season as the fourth seed and went on the win the first round against Boston in five games. Their second round against the Philadelphia Flyers was successful, as was the third round against the second seed team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Stanley Cup Final series was a big accomplishment for such a new team. Their opponents were the hefty Colorado Avalanche, who swept them in four games.
Their next season began very well, with a 17 game unchallenged streak. But during the second half of the season, the team choked. Their streak racked up enough points to get them into the playoffs, but they lost the first round in only five games. Unfortunately, the Panthers have not been able to repeat their early success, despite high profile trades involving many hockey superstars. Pavel Bure was brought to Florida to play with his brother, Valeri. It did not seem to make a difference.
A number of bad trade decisions were to follow the managing staff of the Florida Panthers. In 2002, their decision to send Jay Bouwmeester to Columbus led the head coach at the time (Mike Keenan) to express his regret at the decision. In 2006, the Panthers traded Roberto Luongo, Lukas Krajicek and Sergei Shirokov to the Vancouver Canucks, in exchange for Todd Bertuzzi, Alex Auld and Bryan Allen. Some critics in the hockey world have called this the worst trade in professional sports history. Bertuzzi was trying to recover from highly publicized on-ice incident, Alex Auld left the team a year later and Bryan Allen, having peaked that season, was riddled with knee problems. The Panthers ended up giving away the leagues best goaltender (Luongo) who would end up assisting the Canadian Olympic team win gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
The Florida Panthers have seen their share of bad seasons and bad trades. After missing the playoffs in the 2009/2010 season, they are the first team in NHL history to miss the playoffs nine times in a row while still based in the same city. If they miss the 2010/2011 season, they will hold the record for most consecutive instances of not qualifying for the playoffs.
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