I for one am pretty cool with the Cats being in Broward, but not everyone shares the sentiment, obviously. Via the Sun-Sentinel:
“From my standpoint of somebody who is in Miami sports, that was a bad day when the Panthers went north. It has an impact politically. It impacted [the Marlins] for 10 years trying to get a ballpark. It’s still going on right now.”
– Miami Marlins president David Samson, presumably “missing” the presence of yet another professional franchise within his own club’s city – or county – limits. No, I’m not getting it either. Oh wait…this clarifies it:
“Let’s put it out there: What really hurt this year […] is what happened with what the Panthers did at the Dolphins’ practice facility a few months ago. That’s not what you do when you’re in a market when you’re working together with teams. It’s just not appropriate.”
After nearly two decades of verbal abuse by anyone with a bullhorn or keyboard authoritatively declaring that the Panthers don’t matter to anyone, suddenly the Marlins – yes those Marlins, with their spiffy new retractable roof and epic re-branding campaign – cry foul over a couple of over-eager interns within the sales department of South Florida’s only pro hockey club handing out tickets or business cards or fresh grouper or whatever to protesters at the practice facility of another local team during that club’s off-season, whose efforts completely subjugated the annual Me-Me-Me campaigns of the Dolphins (!), Heat (!!), and yes, Marlins (?).
Okay, so the Fish somehow suffered – at their shiny new gate? – during not only the opening few weeks of the 2012 season but evidently beyond…and it has to do with what they consider a loosely-coordinated yet bad-faith attack by a hockey team caught in the completely unexpected madness of its own first postseason run since 2000? Why not; we’ve heard it all before. At least now the locals are being honest about their hatred.
Not to be ignored: this may come as a surprise to a few of you out there but waaaaay bad move on the part of the Panthers to leave head honcho Michael Yormark as the only team rep available to appear – and he didn’t, due to a scheduling conflict – in a roundtable which demanded a Cats presence. Not a single other person within the organization could have been trusted with such a chore? Not one? Thoroughly embarrassing, yet easily avoidable in the future.