Let’s talk about the success of the Panthers’ ongoing “Vamos Gatos” campaign

One thing that Vinnie Viola pushed for when he took ownership of this franchise is the aggressive outreach towards more Spanish-speaking fans. Approximately 60% of the market speaks Spanish as their first language, and I’m certain Viola was curious why this demographic wasn’t courted more

I’m a Spanish-speaking Panthers fan, and have been a fan since the team’s inception. However, I’m an outlier. When my family emigrated to the United States from Colombia, one of our first loves of American culture was ice hockey. It was novel, it was something we never seen before, and it was love at first sight. We come from a tradition of soccer and baseball, so having hockey as our reference point into American culture was a big deal

However, for most Spanish-speaking immigrants and their descendants in the Greater Miami area, there is no reference point for ice hockey. The old regimes of Cohen and Viner made no attempt to attract this demographic. Wayne did, ever so briefly, but there was an attempt. Vinnie went all out aggressive to bring mi gente into the building

Hockey is admittedly a tough sell in this market, we don’t have the tradition like many other big cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago do. Many “die-hard” Panthers fans are northern transplants. Spanish-speaking Americans, having no reference to hockey, are the perfect people to sell the game to

The Panthers introduced the sport of ice hockey to mi gente, and I’ve been seeing Panthers gear worn by Spanish-speaking fans more increasingly over the years, and going to games I see a lot more Spanish-speaking fans than I’ve ever seen in my 20+ years of going to games in Sunrise. Because the Panthers are their entryway into the sport, they are loyal to the Panthers and the Panthers only, as the team has become an emblem of the community as a whole

I’ve seen the Panthers fan truck out in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods with street hockey, bounce houses, and Stanley C introducing the game to mi gente, encouraging others to come out to a game. I’ve never seen the team do this before the Viola era, and I’m glad they’re doing it

The LATAM tournament, which is held annually at Coral Springs, puts Latin American teams and beyond for the Latin American Cup. The Panthers have supported this tournament for over five years and continue to do so. The first ever Latin American hockey game on NHL ice was at Amerant, and that’s a milestone that I am extremely proud of

I saw plenty of mi gente at the games, at watch parties, at the parade, at skating rinks around town…and I like to think it’s because of the “Vamos Gatos” campaign and the hard work of the marketing team to sell this game to Greater Miami’s largest demographic, an unlikely but successful combo: mi gente and hockey

La locura that took place on Bird Road after the Cup win, with a chorus of pots and pans ringing through the night…that would have happened anyway, but I’d like to think that the people behind “Vamos Gatos” had a large part making that happen