Need info on Heat and Panthers? What to know about games on TV, watch parties and merch

The Miami Heat and the Florida Panthers are in the finals — and you’re surrounded by sports talk at work, school and home.

But what if you aren’t a big fan? Or haven’t paid attention until this point?

This cheat sheet tells you what you need to know about the teams and how to watch the games:

How can you watch the Heat and Panthers in the finals on TV?

Miami Heat vs. Denver Nuggets:

Game 1: Thursday, June 1, Heat at Nuggets, 8:30 p.m., ABC (Games also streamed on ESPN+ app).

Game 2: Sunday, June 4, Heat at Nuggets, 8 p.m., ABC

Game 3: Wednesday, June 7, Nuggets at Heat, 8:30 p.m., ABC

Game 4: Friday, June 9, Nuggets at Heat, 8:30 p.m., ABC

Game 5: Monday, June 12, Heat at Nuggets, 8:30 p.m., ABC (if necessary)

Game 6: Thursday, June 15, Nuggets at Heat, 8:30 p.m., ABC (if necessary)

Game 7: Sunday, June 18, Heat at Nuggets, 8 p.m. ABC (if necessary)

Florida Panthers vs. Vegas Golden Knights:

Game 1: Saturday, June 3, Panthers at Golden Knights, 8 p.m., TNT (Games also streamed on Sling, the NHL’s streaming platform, or ESPN+)

Game 2: Monday, June 5, Panthers at Golden Knights, 8 p.m., TNT

Game 3: Thursday, June 8, Golden Knights at Panthers, 8 p.m., TNT

Game 4: Saturday, June 10, Golden Knights at Panthers, 8 p.m., TNT

Game 5: Tuesday, June 13, Panthers at Golden Knights, 8 p.m., TNT (if necessary)

Game 6: Friday, June 16, Golden Knights at Panthers, 8 p.m., TNT (if necessary)

Game 7: Monday, June 19, Panthers at Golden Knights, 8 p.m., TNT (if necessary)

KNOW MORE: 14 Finals games in 19 days? Check out the full schedule for 3 wild weeks in South Florida

Where are the official Heat and Panther watch parties?

Miami Heat: The Kaseya Center will open at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 1, and Sunday, June 4, so fans can watch the away games on the big screens. Tickets are $10 and parking is $10. Fans can buy food and drinks at the arena.

Florida Panthers: FLA Live Arena will open at 6:30 p.m. for Game 1 on Saturday, June 3, and Game 2 on Monday, June 5. Tickets are $10 and include parking. Proceeds go to the Florida Panthers Foundation. If sports bars are more your style, you can enjoy the Panthers games in the Quarterdeck Restaurant in Sunrise, just a few minutes from the arena, featuring a happy hour and half-off appetizers.

What to know about the Heat and the Panthers through the years

Miami Heat:

The Heat started playing in 1988. The team didn’t win often at the start. Then came Alonzo Mourning in the 1990s and the Heat started making the playoffs. Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal led the team to its first championship in 2006. The Big Three, Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Wade, led the Heat to the Finals in 2011 and to championship rings the next two years.

Florida Panthers:

The Florida Panthers began playing in the 1993 hockey season. Three years later, in 1996, they made the Stanley Cup Finals, losing to the Colorado Avalanche. The Cats played the first few years at the old Miami Arena, sharing it with the Heat. The Panthers’ current home, now known as FLA Live Arena, opened in 1998.

Where do the Panthers and Heat play their games?

Kaseya Center:

▪ Location: 601 Biscayne Blvd. in downtown Miami, next to Bayside Marketplace and Bayfront Park

▪ Opened: 2000 as AmericanAirlines Arena, with first event a Gloria Estefan concert.

▪ Capacity: 19,600 seats.

FLA Live Arena:

▪ Location: 1 Panther Pkway., next to Sawgrass Mills mall in Sunrise

▪ Opened: 1998 as National Car Rental Center.

▪ Capacity: 20,000 seats.

How do fans celebrate the Miami Heat and the Florida Panthers?

Miami Heat:

▪ Street beat: When the Heat wins in the playoffs or the Finals, fans take to the streets banging pots and pans.

▪ Colors: Fans in the stands wore white this year during the playoff run. The tradition started in 2004 when the Heat launched the color-theme campaign. Black shirts were put on the arena seats for fans to wear. The campaign continued with a red theme when the team made the playoffs the following year. For the 2006 playoffs, the theme became White Hot, and that’s been the theme since.

Florida Panthers:

Rats: Fans have tossed rubber rats on the ice through the years. It all started with a real rat in the locker room and one of the Panther players stopping it with his stick. In 1995, player Scott Mellanby saw a rat in the locker room at the old Miami Arena before that night’s game, and hit it into a wall with his stick. That was his warm-up for scoring two of the four goals that led the team to victory against Canada’s Calgary Flames. Since then, fans throw plastic rats on the ice rink after goals to celebrate. And if you catch a game in the arena, there’s a chance the unofficial-but-equally beloved rat mascot gives you a high five.

KNOW MORE: What’s the story behind the rats at Florida Panther games? Here’s how it all started

How the two teams got to this point and what they need to win

Milestone: This is the seventh time the Heat is in the finals, and the second time for the Panthers. If they both win, they’ll make history as the first NBA and NHL teams from the same market to win championships in the same season.

Miami Heat basics:

▪ The NBA has two divisions of teams, the Eastern and Western Conferences. The season began last October with a series of inter-conference and same-conference games. As they take place, teams are ranked by “seeds;” the best team is Seed 1 and the worst is Seed 10.

▪ To qualify for finals, a team must first win their conference finals. But to even qualify for conference finals, the team has to be in the top 8 Seeds. Here’s where it gets tricky. Seeds 1 through 6 automatically qualify for conference championships, but 7 and 8 are earned through a series of play-in games.

▪ The Miami Heat did not make the top 6 Seeds, so they went to play-ins and won the Seed 8 spot. They won the Eastern Conference Championship, so now they will face the Denver Nuggets in a best-of-seven game series (whoever wins four games is the champion) to win the NBA Finals and be awarded the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy.

Florida Panthers basics:

▪ The hockey season started in October. Teams are divided into four groups: The East, West, Central and Scotia (Canada) Divisions. From there, they operate under a point system to determine the 16 teams that qualify for playoffs, eight in the Eastern Conference and eight in the Western Conference.

▪ The top three teams with the most points in each of the four divisions are automatically in the playoffs. The remaining four are chosen as wildcards. These spots are filled based on total points accumulated throughout the regular season, which means that it’s possible that the fourth and fifth spots come from the same division.

▪ After they are split into two brackets based on seeding and division, teams face three rounds before Eastern Conference winners meet the Western Conference winners in the best-of-seven-game series for the Stanley Cup Finals.

▪ The Panthers, who are in the Central division, entered the conference as a wildcard. They beat the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Finals and advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Vegas Golden Knights, who, like the Panthers, have also never won a championship.

Each team needs to win four of the seven games in their respective series.

Who are the most important players for the Heat and Panthers?

Must-know Miami Heat players:

▪ Jimmy Butler: He has been with the Heat since 2019 and has proved himself indispensable this season. He averages 24.7 points in the current playoffs. He won the MVP award in the Eastern Conference Finals. Butler’s nicknames are “Jimmy Buckets” and “Playoff Jimmy” and he wears No. 22.

▪ Caleb Martin: Runner-up for the MVP award, Martin excelled in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics. He is the first Heat player to score 100 points in a single playoff season. His jersey number is 16.

▪ Bam Adebayo: He was named one of the best defensive players in the regular season when he was named to the NBA All-Defensive Team in early May. His jersey number is 13.

Must-know Florida Panthers players:

▪ Matthew Tkachuk: The 25-year-old is the reason the Panthers are going to finals. In the last four seconds of the last Eastern Conference game, Tkachuk (pronounced ‘kuh-chuck,’ the T is silent) scored the winning goal against the Carolina Hurricanes. His victory shtick is to point to the door on the ice rink as if to say, “I’ll show my way out.” His jersey number is 19.

▪ Sergei Bobrovsky: Bobrovsky’s goal-keeping changed the tide for the team. He has twice been awarded the Vezina trophy for best goalie, and speculation is building that he’ll receive the Conn Smythe Stanley Cup Playoffs MVP award if the Panthers win. His jersey number is 72.

▪ Aleksander Barkov: Every team needs a captain they can depend on, and that’s Barkov. He doesn’t take praise for himself, rather redirects it toward his teammates. If the Panthers win, he’ll be the first Finnish captain to win a Stanley Cup. His jersey number is 16.

Where to get Heat and Panthers merchandise

Miami Heat fashion: The Miami Heat Store has several locations outside of Kaseya Center in downtown Miami, including Dadeland Mall in Kendall, Pembroke Lakes Mall in Pembroke Pines and Dolphin Mall in Sweetwater. Hours of operations vary by location and prices depend on the item. A Nike White-Hot 2023 Playoffs T-shirt for men, for example, costs $35.

Florida Panthers fashion: Pantherland at the FLA Live Arena in Sunrise has special hours ahead of the finals: Thursday from 2 to 7 p.m., Friday from noon to 7 p.m., Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m., and reopens for a Game 1 watch party and Sunday noon to 4 p.m. At the Florida Panthers IceDen in Coral Springs, the Panthers Pro Shop has the same inventory and sometimes more. It’s open Monday through Friday from 1 to 8 p.m., and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.