Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Yarmulke Kerfuffle Leaves Fla. Panthers’ Fans Outraged

The latest egregious disappointment to hit the lowly Florida Panthers’ franchise has nothing to do with hockey. Panthers’ fans are (it baffles me to say) distraught and disappointed over a miscommunication surrounding a Tuesday night yarmulke giveaway, during what was billed as “the biggest Hanukkah party in South Florida.”

The original press release stated all ticket buyers for Tuesday’s game (against the Colorado Avalanche, which also celebrated the 1996 Stanly Cup championship between these two teams, but hockey, who’s talking about hockey?) would receive a black yarmulke with the Panthers’ logo stitched on top. At some point, however, the language was changed to make the prize available only to those who bought “discounted, single-game tickets for the Jewish Heritage Night,” Yahoo! Sports reported. Vanity kippot were ordered based on the number of people who bought a Jewish Heritage Night ticket, meaning season ticket holders were stiffed.

One fan, Caity Kauffman, was peeved she didn’t score a yarmulke — and she let the Twitterverse know about it. Here, she sets the scene: “At guest services hanging out with an actual Hebrew woman who is distraught about lack of yarmulkes.”

Bill Jempty, an Outside the Beltway blogger, noted that the Panthers obviously lack holiday spirit: “The Panthers don’t have a very good rep in South Florida and this sure isn’t to help it. It is Hanukkah after all and this region has one of the biggest Jewish populations in the nation.”

The team claims it posted advertisements about the promotion change in the BankAtlantic Center and online.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.