We may state how lengthy its been because the Panthers final received a playoff collection — virtually 26 years on the calendar, 25 NHL seasons performed plus one misplaced to the 2004-05 lockout by NHL house owners.

However, let’s present you by skating by among the adjustments in South Florida life since June 1, 1996, the evening of the Panthers’ 1996 Jap Convention Remaining’s Sport 7 victory over Pittsburgh, and Friday evening.

Names and locations

The Panthers performed in Miami, however not in Miami-Dade County. You learn that appropriately.

Miami-Dade County was simply “Dade County” till November 1997. Individuals in unincorporated Dade County referred to as “Metro-Dade” police or hearth rescue.

And unincorporated Dade County coated extra land than unincorporated Miami-Dade County does now. Municipalities which have integrated because the Panthers received the correct to go to the 1996 Stanley Cup Remaining: Cutler Bay (2005), Doral (2003), Miami Gardens (2003), Miami Lakes (2000), Palmetto Bay (2002), Sunny Isles Seaside (1997).

Unincorporated Broward included the present cities of Southwest Ranches (2000), West Park(2005) and Weston (September 1996).

READ MORE: The Sunshine State rematch within the NHL playoffs between the Panthers and Tampa Bay.

Excessive Colleges

We’re speaking not together with non-public colleges, charters or colleges that require you apply for admission. We’re speaking about you-live-in-the-area, walk-in-and-learn-something-for-free public colleges that weren’t open when Tom Fitzgerald’s blue line, line change slapshot nicked off defenseman Neil Wilkinson and beat Pittsburgh goalie Tom Barrasso for the Sport 7 game-winning objective.

Added to Miami-Dade excessive colleges lineup since then have been Cutler Bay (2012); Ferguson (2003); Varela (2000); Hialeah Gardens (2008); Krop (1998); Mourning (2009); Doral Reagan (2006); Hialeah Westland (2008);

In Broward, Pembroke Pines Flanagan was two months from opening. Since then, Coral Springs Coral Glades (2004), Weston Cypress Bay (2002), Miramar Everglades (2003), Coconut Creek Monarch (2003) and Pembroke Pines West Broward (2008) have opened.

Sports activities arenas, stadiums, groups

Between the second Johan Garpenlov’s 2-on-1 shot plopped behind Barrasso to clinch the Panthers 3-1 Sport 7 win on June 1, 1996 and Carter Verhaeghe’s time beyond regulation objective Friday evening, buildings and stadiums have appeared, disappeared and so have franchises.

Main League Soccer’s first attempt in South Florida that performed in Broward, the Miami Fusion (1998-2001) and the WNBA’s Miami Sol (2000-2002) got here and went. Critical puckheads keep in mind the one season of the East Coast Hockey League’s Miami Matadors (1998).

As for dwelling venues, the Panthers, Warmth and College of Miami males’s basketball performed at Miami Enviornment, the Dolphins and Marlins at what was referred to as Professional Participant Stadium, UM soccer on the Orange Bowl and FIU males’s and girls’s basketball at Golden Panther Enviornment.

The Dolphins and the FIU basketballs are in the identical locations, albeit with completely different names and a few renovation carried out.

In any other case, the groundbreaking for FLA Stay Enviornment was nonetheless 4 months into the longer term, the day of the Panthers 1996-97 season dwelling opener, and the Panthers moved there in September 1998. The Warmth moved just a few blocks east to what’s now FTX Enviornment in January 2000. UM males’s and girls’s basketball obtained their on-campus dwelling in January 2003.

The place stood the Orange Bowl till 2008 now stands Marlins Park, the place the Marlins moved in 2012.

FIU soccer didn’t play wherever besides the goals of some FIU college students and alumni. FIU’s soccer program didn’t exist. Neither did Florida Atlantic’s soccer program. Nor, for that matter, did the College of South Florida’s, up in Tampa. UCF was months away from its debut as a Division 1-A program after years as a 1-AA program.

The Panthers received that Sport 7 in Pittsburgh Civic Enviornment, “The Igloo,” considered one of 5 arenas wherein the Panthers performed in these 1996 playoffs. Solely Boston’s TD Backyard, then referred to as the FleetCenter, stays and it was in its first season of operation as the house of the Bruins.

The opposite arenas, Miami Enviornment (2008), Philadelphia’s The Spectrum (2010-2011), The Igloo (2011-2012) and Denver’s McNichols Enviornment (2000) aren’t solely out of use, however out of existence, demolished within the years above.

Within the NHL, three franchises have moved, two with roots within the World Hockey Affiliation, the identical because the Colorado Avalanche nee Quebec Nordiques. The Winnipeg Jets moved to Arizona and renamed themselves the Coyotes (maybe a nod to the “Roadrunners” nickname carried for many years by Phoenix groups within the WHA and minor leagues). And, the Hartford Whalers moved to Carolina, the place they had been renamed the “Hurricanes.”

The third franchise that’s modified addresses is among the many six that had but to drop their first puck the final time the Panthers received a playoff collection. The present Winnipeg Jets started life in 1999 because the Atlanta Thrashers.

The 12 months earlier than, 1998, the Panthers beat the Nashville Predators, 1-0, within the Preds’ franchise premiere. The Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets joined the NHL in 2000. After the longest stretch with out growth because the Authentic Six period, the league added the Las Vegas Golden Knights in 2017 (and so they broke all the Panthers’ first season success information) and the Seattle Kraken this season.

This story was initially revealed Might 15, 2022 1:38 PM.