Donald Trump almost bought the Florida Panthers

With Donald Trump’s impeachment and pending hearing with the U.S. Senate stealing all the headlines these days, we figured why not get in on the action?

Which brings us to this story from 2017 in which Greg Wyshynski, then of Yahoo Sports and now of ESPN, reported on a story shared by Florida Panthers insider George Richards about the time Trump inquired about purchasing the Panthers organization.

It was the late 90s and the Panthers were a playoff-caliber team with a brand new 20,000-seat arena, but original owner Wayne Huizenga and Boca Resorts wanted to sell them. According to Panthers executive Bill Torrey, among the interested parties was one Donald J. Trump.

Check it out:

A member of Trump’s organization contacted Torrey to talk about the Panthers, who, at that time were arguably South Florida’s No. 2 professional sports team behind the Dolphins. “Amongst the interested parties was the Trump organization,” Torrey said.

“Donald had owned the football team in the USFL and his brother Bob was one of our first season ticket holders on Long Island when we started. I don’t think they had much interest in the Panthers, but they did inquire.”

Although Torrey was directed to unload the Panthers under orders from the Boca Resorts board of directors — the hockey team was part of a publicly traded company whose stock was slipping — Huizenga told him to keep ownership local.

“I did the interviewing with the interested parties,” Torrey said, “and Wayne wasn’t going to sell to anyone outside of South Florida. The Trump folks inquired, but they knew we were trying to keep it local.”

Could you imagine Trump owning an NHL hockey team? We can only begin to imagine just how different the Panthers’ timeline might be under owner Trump.