Vincent Viola, for at least one night, was living the exact same experience as thousands and thousands of other Florida Panthers fans across the state. He was holed up at home — in his “man cave,” to be exact — and stressing out about the heart-pounding Game 7 with the Bruins in Boston. The owner was trying to soak up all the stories he could find about the upset from those who were at TD Garden and, almost 24 hours later, he was still on a high.
“My feet still aren’t touching the floor,” Viola said Tuesday.
Panthers won’t downplay significance of historic Bruins upset. ‘It’s something unreal’
Right now, there might not be a single owner across sports who has it better.
His Panthers, the team he has owned since 2015 and suddenly turned into one of the most successful franchises in the NHL, just pulled off perhaps the greatest upset in the history of the Stanley Cup playoffs and now is in Round 2 for only the third time ever. Forte, a horse he owns, is favored to win Viola his second Kentucky Derby Trophy.
There’s only one problem: The 2023 Kentucky Derby is Saturday and Florida’s first home game of the second round might be, too.
Talk about first-world problems.
“I’m very lucky,” Viola said.
In Sunrise, luck is only part of it. The decade since Viola bought the Panthers, Florida has been to the Cup playoffs five times, is in the middle of a four-year postseason streak and is right now one of only three teams in the NHL to reach the second round of the playoffs in...
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