The Stanley Cup celebrations aren’t over — Panthers fans are still on a high over the win and are looking forward to the championship parade on Sunday. NBC6’s Ari Odzer reports
With 2024 coming to a close it's time to look back on what we celebrated, what we booed and what had us scratching our heads during a South Florida sports year that saw some incredible highs and lows.
The Good
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The Stanley Cup, the Holy Grail of hockey, had never been won by the Florida Panthers since the team's inception in 1993 but that all changed this year.
After a heartbreaking loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, the Panthers fought their way back to the 2024 Final and faced Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers.
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Things were seemingly going to plan as the Panthers took a 3-0 lead and were thinking sweep before McDavid said not-so-fast and led the Oilers to three straight victories, setting up a winner-take-all Game 7.
Local
The game, played at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise on June 24, was a low-scoring affair but in the end the Panthers won 2-1 to claim their first championship.
Days of wild celebrations ensued as the players partied with friends and fans and even took the Cup for a swim in the ocean.
The celebration culminated with a rain-soaked championship parade and rally in Fort Lauderdale that'll be talked about for decades by those who were there.
Honorable mentions: After another average season in 2023 that saw them go 7-5 before a loss to Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl, the Miami Hurricanes seemingly returned to form in 2024. Led by quarterback Cam Ward, a Heisman finalist, the Hurricanes started 9-0 before tough losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse left them just outside the College Football playoffs.
Led by superstar Lionel Messi, Inter Miami won the 2024 MLS Supporters' Shield, the first time the club has won the award, which goes to the team with the best record/most points accumulated in the regular season. Unfortunately the club was upset by Atlanta United in the MLS playoffs last month.
The Bad
Hopes were riding high for the Miami Dolphins in 2024. Sure, they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the wild card round of the playoffs in January in one of the coldest NFL games ever, but with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and wide receiver Tyreek Hill back in the mix, the Dolphins were seeking to make a deeper playoff run this year.
But things got off to an odd start before the Dolphins even played a down when Hill was detained by police outside Hard Rock Stadium before the team's season opener. Hill was quickly released and helped lead the Dolphins to a win over the Jacksonville Jaguars the same day, but he's struggled to put up the same numbers as he did last year when he was one of the top offensive players in the NFL.
Things only got worse for the Dolphins in Week 2 when Tagovailoa suffered a concussion in a loss to the Buffalo Bills.
It was the third diagnosed concussion of his young NFL career and led to some questioning whether he should consider calling it quits.
With Tua out the Dolphins lost 3 out of 4 games until he returned in late October.
Honorable mentions: There's no sugarcoating how bad a year 2024 was for the Miami Marlins. With ace Sandy Alcantara missing the entire season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, the Marlins went out and lost 100 games just a year after they'd made the playoffs.
Along the way they traded away three-time batting champ Luis Arraez and star outfielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. then parted ways with 2023 NL Manager of the Year Skip Schumaker.
While not as bad as the Marlins, the Miami Heat had an off year in 2024. The Heat entered the 2023-2024 season as the NBA's Eastern Conference champs but reached the playoffs through the play-in tournament. The team was quickly bounced from the playoffs in five games in round 1 by the Boston Celtics.
The Ugly
The Copa America final at Hard Rock Stadium in July featured the highly-anticipated faceoff between Argentina and Colombia but before the game started things got chaotic.
More than two dozen people were arrested and the game was delayed for over an hour when out-of-control crowds breached security gates at the stadium in Miami Gardens.
Videos showed fans climbing through security railings and air vents to get in as facilities and barriers were damaged, and ticketed fans were boxed out from their seats by non-paying crowds.
As for the game, Argentina prevailed 1-0, but most of the discussion afterward centered around the ugly scenes at the stadium.
Honorable mention: They say art is subjective but try telling that to Heat fans who witnessed the unveiling of a statue honoring Dwyane Wade back in October.
Wade, who helped the Heat capture three championships en route to becoming the franchise's all-time leading scorer, became the first player in franchise history to receive a statue outside the team's arena, but when it was unveiled, many fans didn't think it looked a whole lot like Wade.
Images of the statue quickly went viral, leading one of the artists behind it to speak out in defense of the art piece.
