22-06-2025
Panthers fans make early preparations for this year's championship parade
Fans showed up before the sun in Fort Lauderdale Beach to stake out spots. Marty Kareff of Coral Springs booked a room at the B Ocean hotel on A1A Saturday night to ensure a good spot.
He was saving spots for late arriving family and friends. 'It was easy at 5 o'clock,' he said. 'We missed the parade last year because we had a vacation planned. No more summer vacation until July.'
'Got a nice crowd out here,' Everett said, adding that they sell coconuts on the beach most weekends. 'We're out here on the regular.'
There were no takers early in, he said, but he was confident the heat would increase the popularity of his product. 'They're gonna come '
Brian and Christina Doogue of Davie arrived early too, around 6:15 with an entourage of about 35. They set up a big tent along the route — an excellent way to hide from the sun, at least for a while.
Doogue who coaches a 10-and-under team at Ice End in Coral Springs, said the group was named Bennett this year, after Panther Sam Bennett, the Conn Smythe winner.
'We'd love him to come by and give us an autograph,' he said. 'Our team has won the championship two years in a row, too'
The crowd, perhaps buoyed by the fact it wasn't storming like it was a year ago, was friendly and boisterous, sharing water and chanting together. Shouts of 'Bobby! BOBBY!' [for Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky] echoed through the streets near the Elbo Room [the first place the Cup made an appearance this year], a long with the requisite chants of 'Skinner, Skinner.' Skinner, the Edmonton goalie shelled by the Cats in the final game, may want to forget how many pucks got by him, but the Panthers fans haven't.
Despite the heat, fans showed up in the jerseys of their favorites, from Aleksander Barkov to Carter Verhaege to Brad Marchand. One fan in a Marchand jersey and what had to be a very hot rat mask, led the cheer of 'Let's go, Panthers.'
Along the extremely noisy parade route, which got louder as noon grew closer, Rhiannon Langley and Carmen Ellis were lying stomachs down on the pavement, reading. Or at least trying to read.
Langley was reading Ghosts of Honolulu by Leon Carroll Jr and Mark Harmon, while Ellis was absorbed in Suzanne Collins ' Hunger Games prequel, 'Sunrise on the Reaping.'
The clamor did not faze Langley, who says she reads 10 to 15 books a month.
'I just block it out,' she said.
Ellis, who gives two thumbs up to Sunrise on the Reaping, admitted the reading might not last much longer.
'We're just reading till the action starts,' she said.
