When it comes to big time sports, Miami is primarily a football team thanks to the long and proud histories of the Miami Dolphins and Hurricanes. Oddly, our football teams are stuck in sucksville at the moment, and just about every other major sports team in the region is giving us a reason to get excited.
Yet, perhaps most oddly of all, the lowly Florida Panthers have finally broken the longest standing playoff rut in the National Hockey League and are headed to the postseason for the first time since 2000. Fire up the bandwagon, baby, because we are jumping on! Or is it a bandzamboni in hockey? We're not really sure.
Of course, our excitement can only be so verbose. The Panthers kind of sucked their way into the playoffs. They lost last night to the Washington Capitals 4-2 after all. However, the Buffalo Sabres were officially eliminated from playoff contention last night, which guaranteed the Cats a spot in the playoffs. They'll now enter as either the third, seventh or eighth seed.
The Panthers have lost eight of their last nine games, which takes a little bit of gas out of bandwagon. Though, they still have a chance to seal their first ever divisional championship. All they need is for the Capitols to lose their next game. The Panthers can also be proactive about it and win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday to secure the title.
Of course, we know that Hockey is a strange and mystical sport to most South Floridians. That's OK. The people running our pro football team don't actually know that much about football, so why let ignorance stop you from cheering?
Just pretend its a weird version of soccer involving sticks, pucks and skates instead of balls and feet. We've all done a pretty good job of learning to be basketball fans ever since LeBron came to town, and last night we did our best MLB fan impression. We know we can bandwagon cheer our hockey team on to victory! Lets do it! It's not like anyone else is going to do it.
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