It's hard to run a hockey team in a beach town. The locals did not grow up playing hockey on frozen ponds in the winter, so most of them are more interested in baseball, football, or basketball. And when the local basketball team becomes the most exciting sports franchise in America while your team struggles to catch the attention of locals, well, sometimes you have to take them down a peg or two.

This is exactly what Florida Panthers President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Yormark tried last night, when he fired off this tweet while attending last night's Heat loss to the New York Knicks: "At heat game now. Panthers game experience is so much better. More kids. More families. More excitement. More passion. More energy."

Like most South Floridians, we haven't attended a Panthers game in at least a decade, but unless the Panthers are inserting actual panthers into the lineup, it seems far-fetched to assert that their games will be more exciting than any game featuring the Heat's Three Kings.

Also, accentuating the lack of celebrities at Panthers games seems like an odd way to attract more fans. Is he trying to tap into a vast secret society of Jimmy Buffett haters that we don't know about?

Of course, if Yormark really wanted to to convince fans to attend Panthers games instead of Heat games, he could have simply mentioned how much less expensive Panthers tickets cost compared to Heat tickets. The Heat make a handful of $10 seats in the far reaches of the nosebleed section available each game, but if you actually want to see a Heat game without the aid of a telescope, you would end up paying at least $40 a ticket, depending on the opponent.

But yeah, go ahead and talk about how the absence of celebrities at Panthers games is actually a good thing, you'll at least win the sympathies of the anti-Jimmy Buffett crowd.

David Hill is a Miami native who has not watched a Panthers game in at least ten years (and almost feels guilty about it).