Panthers’ Sunrise Arena Keeps NHL Identity in Broward

The Florida Panthers may not own the South Florida sports conversation every week, but their Sunrise home keeps Broward County on the NHL map.

The Office Depot Center remains the Panthers’ primary arena this season, according to Hockey-Reference’s 2003-04 team schedule. The record lists the Panthers playing out of the Sunrise building while finishing with a 28-35-15-4 mark, good for 75 points in the Southeast Division. That may not sound like a championship chase, but it is still major-league hockey taking place in west Broward, night after night, within a short drive of Piper High.

For students, the Panthers’ presence is partly about access. Miami gets the Heat, the Marlins and the Dolphins’ broader regional spotlight, but Broward has the NHL arena. Sunrise is where the hockey traffic gathers, where Panthers jerseys appear in parking lots, and where families can see a professional team without driving east into Fort Lauderdale or south into Miami-Dade.

The arena also does more than hockey. It is the same building local students associate with concerts, family shows and the kinds of events that pull crowds from across the county. That makes the Office Depot Center one of the few places in west Broward that can be both a sports venue and a pop-culture stop, depending on the night.

The Panthers’ season record gives the hard sports frame. The daily meaning is more local. When an NHL schedule says the primary arena is in Sunrise, it means Broward students have a professional team woven into the geography of their own school years. Even students who are casual fans know the building, the traffic and the shorthand of saying something is “by the arena.”

In February 2004, the Panthers are still trying to build momentum on the ice. Off it, their arena has already done something important: it has made Sunrise part of the professional sports map.

For Piper students, that is enough to make the building a landmark before the puck ever drops.