![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/thunderdome.jpeg\")
The Thunderdome served as the home rink for the Tampa Bay Lightning for three seasons from 1993 to 1996. Photo courtesy of NitroCircus399 on Redditt<\/p>\nTampa Bay\u2019s Tim Taylor and Florida\u2019s Sean Hill clash against the boards during a 1993 meeting between the two teams. <\/p>\n
Photo courtesy of\u00a0Dan McDuffie | St. Petersburg Times (now known as Tampa Bay Times) (1993)<\/p>\n
By Irena Mesa<\/p>\n
To say the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers hate each other is an understatement of the Shakespearean-level feud between the hockey teams.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That feud started well before the teams even took to the ice, as Tampa\u2019s fans already despised Wayne Huizenga, the Miami-based businessman and Panthers founder who was blamed for the Bay Area\u2019s struggle to receive an MLB franchise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1991, Huizenga bought the naming rights originally used by Frank Morsani, who was a leader in the effort to bring baseball to Tampa. In 1992, Huizenga received an NHL expansion franchise for Miami, and in 1993, he announced that the team would be using those same name rights bought two years prior\u2014 the Florida Panthers. \u00a0<\/p>\n
A few miles north in Tampa, the Lightning were ready to face off against their neighbors. After receiving a franchise in 1990, Lightning founder Phil Esposito was fanning the flames of a potential rivalry between the teams.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be great for us bringing a team to Miami because now we\u2019re getting somebody our fans can really hate,\u201d Esposito said in a Sun Sentinel article from 1995 after the South Florida expansion team was announced. \u201cI can\u2019t wait for them to get started.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lightning coach Terry Crisp also had a few choice words for the Panthers, calling them \u201ckittycats.\u201d Esposito also allegedly said he couldn\u2019t wait to \u201cbeat the hell out of [the Panthers].\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Bob Clarke, Florida\u2019s general manager, didn\u2019t take kindly to those comments and turned Esposito\u2019s own words against him by calling him a kittycat. Later, he also called out Esposito\u2019s own style of play during his time in the NHL.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response, Esposito went up to Clarke and kissed him on the cheek during a televised interview with a quick, \u201cLove you, Clarkie.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The players, on the other hand, didn\u2019t seem as interested in the rivalry between the management of their respective teams.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve heard a few things about there being a rivalry between us and the Panthers, but we aren\u2019t really looking at it like that,\u201d Lightning player John Tucker said in a Tampa Tribune article from 1993. \u201cWe want to beat them, sure. But it\u2019s no different than if we were playing some other team.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
All such comments were made before their first-ever meeting in the preseason, which was played in September of 1993 in Lakeland in front of a crowd of 3,876 people. The Lightning won that meeting 4-3, and there was only one anti-Panthers poster in sight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their first regular-season meeting was played a month later at the Thunderdome, which was the temporary home of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and is now known as Tropicana Field. 27,227 fans filled the stands for the 2-0 loss to the Panthers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Thunderdome served as the home rink for the Tampa Bay Lightning for three seasons from 1993 to 1996. Photo courtesy of NitroCircus399 on Redditt<\/p>\n
Roger Neilson, the first coach of the Florida Panthers, felt that the vitriol was one-sided.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Tampons, or whatever you call them, that they dislike Miami a lot more than Miami dislikes them,\u201d he said in a Sun Sentinel article from 1995. \u201cIt may be a big rivalry, but it hasn\u2019t built up for us yet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
And it sure did build up.\u00a0 The rivalry between the teams is regarded as one of the fiercest in the entire league.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The relationship between them simmered down as both teams fluctuated between periods of success and struggle.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some years the Lightning won the regular season series, while other years the Panthers had it on lock. However, the Lightning beat the Panthers to the NHL\u2019s highest honor \u2014winning the Stanley Cup \u2014 in 2004.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In more recent history, things truly turned sour after they faced off in the playoffs for the first time in 2021.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That first-round series was the ignition to what the rivalry is today, characterized by plenty of hard hits and close-scoring affairs. The Lightning won the series four games to two and went on to win their third Stanley Cup, making it back-to-back years as champions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following year, they met again, but this time in the second round. The Lightning stormed past the Panthers in a four-game sweep, which made them the first team since the New York Islanders of the early 1980s to win 10 straight playoff series.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2024, the Panthers were out for revenge, taking the first-round series against the Bolts four games to one. That year, the Panthers went on to win their first Stanley Cup.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Panthers kept their playoff success against the Lightning going in 2025, where they took the first-round series four games to one, and went on to win their second Stanley Cup.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the lopsided final, it wasn\u2019t without its controversies.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In game 2, Lightning forward Brandon Hagel handed out a heavy hit to Florida captain Aleksander Barkov, who left the game. After reviewing the hit, Hagel was given a five-minute penalty and no further punishment.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following game, Hagel was hit by Florida forward Aaron Ekblad, and Hagel left the game with a concussion. No penalties were assessed on the play, but both teams kept the lack of retribution in mind when they met in September for their first preseason game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both teams took the preseason matches as an opportunity for retribution for the hits given and received in the playoff series.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Oct. 2, there was a grand total of 49 penalties, which factored out to 186 penalty minutes, which is just six minutes longer than the usual 180 minutes for an entire hockey game. The Lightning won the game 5-2.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just two days later, both teams built upon the numbers tallied in the game prior, with 36 penalties and 182 penalty minutes for the Lightning, and 29 penalties and 140 penalty minutes for the Panthers. The score was irrelevant \u2014 and even had to be corrected after a Florida Panther who didn\u2019t realize he had been ejected had scored late in the game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a result, the NHL suspended Lightning forward Scott Sabourin for four games and Lightning defenseman J.J. Moser for two games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t all, as the team received a $100,000 fine, and head coach Jon Cooper was given one for $25,000.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the heavy-handed punishments in the preseason, the Lightning and Panthers kept things civil when they met on Nov. 15 for a game the Lightning took 3-1.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then, eyes were on Benchmark International Arena for the next chapter in this storied rivalry, and after the Lightning\u2019s Monday loss to the Panthers, the season series is split 1-1. They meet again in Sunrise on Dec. 27\u00a0
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Written by: Irena Mesa<\/a> on December 17, 2025.
Last revised by: Julia Ferrara<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay\u2019s Tim Taylor and Florida\u2019s Sean Hill clash against the boards during a 1993 meeting between the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-87388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}