Panthers to accommodate BoSox fans

The Florida Panthers host the Boston Bruins Thursday night in goaltender Tim Thomas’ first game against his former team. The Boston Red Sox are also playing Thursday, in Detroit, looking to take a 3-2 lead in the ALCS before heading back home for Game 6.

The Panthers seem to realize that this could present a problem for attendance at their game, so they’re going out of their way to let the countless northeastern transplants living in South Florida know that they can still watch baseball even if they come to the arena to see hockey.

From the splash page at the FloridaPanthers.com website (as of 5:30 p.m. ET, two hours before the puck drops):

So there you have it, the Panthers catering to the enemy while also devaluing their own sport and on-ice product and questioning the intelligence of their customers. (Why watch baseball for free at home when you could pay to watch it here?!?) It’s not necessarily how I’d want to do business but there’s probably a reason I’m not in that field.

I don’t know, maybe the Panthers just figure that they’d rather have an empty arena because everyone is watching baseball in the concourse than an empty arena because no one showed up in the first place.