Fans, sounds and smells from the Panthers in Miami for the NHL Winter Classic
Burning marijuana scent blown away by the old-school cool of the cigars, Ferraris and Miami Vice threads of the Florida Panthers arriving at loanDepot Park. Tailgaters blasting the Panthers’ goal song and Pitbull. Faux snow.
What else would you expect from the Little Havana version of the National Hockey League’s annual Winter Classic, the Friday night post-holiday no roof hockey party that the Rangers won 5-1?
READ MORE: Winter Classic in Miami a spectacle, but Panthers fall to Rangers
If you’re going to bring a Jan. 2 sporting event to this neighborhood, you better bring as much production, food and fuss as some nearby homes put into holiday decorations and Nochebuena parties.
The Orange Bowl used to do that when the Orange Bowl Stadium sat where the current loanDepot park now sits, and the official NHL pregame area smoked with lechon and another foods where unofficial street food vendors once fed sports fans in the area’s January football days.
Speaking of the Orange Bowl, Friday was exactly 44 years since the Dolphins’ hook-and-lateral touchdown in “The Miracle that Died” in the AFC title game against San Diego and 42 years after the University of Miami upset No. 1 Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl to win the Hurricanes’ first national title. Friday’s first tailgate tent at loanDepot Park boasted UM football national championship years and Panthers’ Winter Classic special Winter Classic jerseys hanging at each tent pole.
This belonged to Fort Lauderdale’s David Lindo, a UM-clad Panthers season ticket holder who felt he was tailgating “on hallowed ground.” Lindo moved to South Florida in the mid-1980s from Edmonton, when the Oilers used to win Stanley Cup Finals and you got weird looks as a club hockey player in South Florida.
“I played hockey in Homestead,” Lindo said. “We were one of the clubs that was invited to test the ice at Miami Arena back when the Panthers were being thought of,” Lindo said. “We were like the guinea pigs. It was bad. They didn’t know how to maintain it. It was rough.”
Asked which he would have found more unbelievable 10 years ago, a pair of Panthers Stanley Cups or an outdoor game, Lindo said, “The outdoor game. I never would’ve thought the outdoor game would’ve been here. Never.”
In the parking space next to Lindo, reggaeton music rapidly thumped from a black pickup truck with “SoBe Builders” on the side, a hat trick of Panthers flags and a Panthers’ license plate. To this soundtrack, Davie’s Antonio Deligio, a contractor from Chicago, his family and Halifax, Nova Scotia native Dave Coldwell did their solid and liquid pregame prep all in Winter Classic jerseys.
What are you wearing?
Jerseys often say something about the wearer.
Those draped in the special Panthers or Rangers Winter Classic jerseys clearly can afford to drop $200 to $300 on a single jersey or are liked by someone who can. Some current Panthers jerseys had “Panthers” in Hebrew. Original Panthers jersey? Rangers’ home whites or classic blues with “Messier” or even “Kypreos” on the back? Long timers. They know Stanley Cup joy and playoff-less pain.
Then again, Joey Cross of Selden, Long Island, was born in 1996, 18 years after the Rangers last wore the Rangers logo-centered jersey associated with two disappointing seasons from 1976-78.
“I’m an aficionado of vintage Rangers memorabilia,” said Cross, who joins his Pompano Beach-based family each winter for Rangers-Panthers games in Sunrise.
Cross’ sister, Brooke Cross, came double jerseyed — Rangers’ road blues over a Panthers’ Brad Marchand jersey, an arrangement reflecting the order of her devotion.
Soon after, the Rangers stepped off the team bus on Northwest Sixth Street sporting white pants and short sleeve shirts, looking ready for less a dominos game than an oceanfront bar business meeting.
A half-hour later, the Panthers arrived on Miami time and Miami style, rolling up in a parade of Ferraris and other high-end performance cars, clad in Crockett-and-Tubbs jackets, slacks and pastel pink shirts. Injured stars Matthew Tkachuk and captain Sasha Barkov emerged from the lead car sporting smiles and cigars.
First on the scene
Before the NHL pregame fences blocked off Northeast 16th Avenue, popular with the area’s walkers, runners and baby strollers, the first two fans in Panthers jerseys sat on a bench watching the setup for the Friday night fuss.
The Buchkos of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, actually are Pittsburgh Penguins fans, as Megan Buchko’s hat proclaimed. But, she and husband LesPaul (his family are guitarists) are general puckheads who like physical players.
“She’s a huge Tkachuk fan, I’m a huge Sam Bennett fan,” LesPaul Buchko said. “We watch a bunch of NHL games and we have different players we love from different teams. And, we said, ‘It’s January, we have a foot of snow at home. Might as well go to Miami and watch some hockey. Make a whole vacation out of it.’”
They wanted to swim in a part of the ocean where they could see the bottom, as well as swim in Miami’s cultures. As trend trackers say about Gen Z, they collect experiences more than things.
“We have 80 or so good years on this Earth,” LesPaul said. “We want to do as much with that as we can.”
This story was originally published January 3, 2026 at 2:31 PM.
