Sports bars to the rescue: Heat-loving Miami spots have room for Panthers fans, too

The NHL may have forsaken South Florida sports fans, but Miami sports bars will not.

Fans of Miami Heat basketball and Florida Panthers hockey are thrilled their teams are surging deeper into the playoffs, with the Heat in the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics and the Panthers taking on their in-state nemesis, the Tampa Bay Lightning, in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

But some fans are less thrilled that most of the games — six out of a potential seven — will be played on the same nights. Both teams start their series on Tuesday.

With the Panthers chasing puck in the northern kingdom of Sunrise and the Heat commanding a Biscayne Bay view in the 305, the fan bases don’t fully overlap. The NBA is more popular nationally and internationally, and Miami has developed into a Heat-first town (thanks to the miracle of Dwyane Wade and those other guys who made up the Big 3). The city did flirt heavily with Panthermania in 1996, when a team of unlikely underdogs played at the raucous old Miami Arena and gloriously sailed into the Stanley Cup Finals on a cloud of rubber rats and the sublime power of a jaw-dropping Bill Lindsay goal.

Now, it’s all “Pepas” all the time. But while the Heat may come first, local bars won’t ignore the Panthers, because happily this is not 1977 and sports bars tend to have a lot of screens. This development is helpful at a time when many of us are too cheap to pay for cable.

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Joe Webb, president of Duffy’s Sports Grill, which has locations in Kendall and North Miami Beach as well as Broward and Palm Beach counties, says that despite the fact that Duffy’s is known for hosting Heat watch parties, hockey fans can always find a spot to watch the game. The restaurants have more than 80 TVs per location, with more than 100 in North Miami Beach.

“This is exactly why we’re built,” he says. “We have big restaurants with a lot of seats. We’ve got plenty of room for everyone. We’re flexible. If a group comes in and wants to watch hockey, we’ll set them up. They can watch both games at the same time if they want.”

Jimmy Flanigan, president and CEO of South Florida’s beloved Flanigan’s, had hoped the games would be staggered because playoffs mean higher sales. In previous years, when the Heat played a playoff game, he estimates that his Miami-Dade restaurants collectively took in around $55,000 more per night.

He confesses that in his Miami-area restaurants, you should expect most TVs to be tuned to the Heat games. In Broward, where fervor for the Panthers runs deeper, the attention will be spread a little more evenly across the screens.

“Competing against the Heat in Miami is a losing proposition,” he says. But even in Hialeah, “there will be at least one TV that will be on hockey if some crazy Panthers fan makes sure it happens.”

Eddie Fuentes, owner and operator of Grails Miami, a sports bar and restaurant in Wynwood with 70 TVs, says as a businessman and a Miami Heat fan he plans to show the games of both teams — as long as Panthers fans show up.

“I gotta go with the masses,” he says, adding that sometimes during the NFL season he’ll even turn on Patriots games if fans ask, even though the Patriots are thoroughly loathed by Miami Dolphins die-hards. “So if the Panthers fans show up, it’s going to be a battle for the TVs. I like that! I like Miami standing up for itself.”

He’s also hoping for Game 7s in both series, not only for financial reasons but also because the NHL will have to be more accommodating to South Florida: “If we start winning championships, we can move the needle and demand changes to the schedule.”

With more than 30 TVs, Bottled Blonde in Wynwood plans to split its attention, too. Owner Les Corieri said that since the Panthers games start earlier at 7 p.m., TVs will tune in to those games first. At 8:30, when the Heat hits the court, half will switch to basketball, and the game sound broadcast throughout the bar will switch to the Heat game as well.

Even restaurants with small bars won’t shun the Panthers. Whiskey Joe’s Bar & Grill in Key Biscayne plans to split the four screens at its tiki bars between the games.

There’s another important supporter of the Panthers in Miami-Dade, too: the Miami Heat itself. Fans at FTX Arena on Tuesday watching Miami and Boston will hear Panther updates during the game.