Blood, bias and the Battle of Florida: how the NHL’s dirtiest rivalry exposed hockey’s old-boy rot
A southern hockey feud has morphed into a clash of styles, politics and privilege that mirrors America itself and exposes how deeply the NHL’s power still skewsThe Florida Panthers–Tampa Bay Lightning rivalry was once a regional sideshow, a quirky matchup between two southern expansion teams playing to half-empty arenas and polite indifference. But in …