Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Logo for 25th anniversary puts emphasis on S. Florida
‘Legacy Saturdays’ will celebrate team’s heroes, highlights
FORT LAUDERDALE — To commemorate their 25th anniversary, the Florida Panthers unveiled a logo that didn’t feature a Florida panther at all. Instead, the team concentrated more on the franchise’s location than the mascot during the logo reveal at Esplanade Park in Fort Lauderdale.
The Panthers — who began play in 1993 — centered their 25th anniversary logo on the old secondary logo that featured a crossed palm tree and hockey stick. It sat on top of a large white “25” in front of the red cross on Florida’s state flag. The logo was enclosed by a navy circle that read “Florida Panthers hockey club” and a horizontal stripe that said “Est. 1993.”
Panthers president and CEO Matt Caldwell said the team wanted to emphasize the team’s commitment to South Florida five seasons into the ownership of Vinnie Viola.
“For us, when Vinnie first bought the team, there were all these rumors that we were relocating,” Caldwell said. “Pick your city, whether it was Ottawa or Las Vegas or Seattle. Vinnie said from day one, we’re staying in Florida. We just thought there was no better way to prove that to the public than to put it on our uniform.”
The team also said the navy circle was an ode to the Panthers’ 2009-12 logo and that the “Florida Panthers hockey club” wording was a nod to the original logo.
But where was the leaping cat, the motif made famous across the first 22 seasons of the franchise? Caldwell said the team wanted to deviate from the 20th anniversary logo, which pictured the leaping cat splitting a pair of X’s, roman numerals for 20.
“We wanted to evolve from that,” Caldwell said. “It’s a big part of our history, but we have changed the cat itself in the primary logo. We wanted to contribute to the other aspects that people have given us good feedback on.”
The team will wear the patches on the right chest of their home and road jerseys, with a white background blending in with the road uniforms and a red backdrop matching with the home reds. The logo will also be featured at center ice of the BB&T Center in Sunrise. “We wanted to talk about what these past 25 years have meant and what the next 25 years will mean to our franchise and to our community, so you can see we’re really proud of the state flag of Florida,” said John Viola, who represented Panthers ownership Friday morning. “We worked very hard to incorporate it into our jersey a few years ago and our new look. We wanted to speak to our heritage.”
Caldwell said the team would introduce “Legacy Saturdays” this season to help celebrate the team’s 25th anniversary, welcoming back former Panthers during Saturday home games to meet and greet fans. Caldwell also said the team would honor the late Bill Torrey with a tribute early next season.
The Panthers are coming off their third-best regular season in franchise history, racking up 96 points but still missing the playoffs by one point. They became the second team in NHL history to miss the postseason with as many points.
The team should return its nucleus, headed by Aleksander Barkov, Vincent Trocheck, Jonathan Huberdeau and Aaron Ekblad.
Florida opens the preseason with a doubleheader against Nashville on Sept. 17. The full regular-season schedule will be released Thursday at 5 p.m.