The penalty for Doug Cifu, the Florida Panthers’ minority owner and vice chairman from Jupiter, has extended beyond his being suspended by the NHL during the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Cifu’s name is not among the 53 from the organization engraved on the Stanley Cup after the Panthers won their second consecutive title. A year ago, after Florida’s first Stanley Cup, Cifu’s name was the first name after five members of the family of owner Vincent Viola.
The names were engraved in early July.
A text to Cifu for comment went unanswered.
The team replaced a handful of front office personnel with names from the support staff this year, but the man listed by the team as its vice chairman, partner and alternate governor certainly would have made a second appearance had he not been disciplined during Florida’s Stanley Cup run.
Cifu was suspended in May after a profane social-media exchange echoing President Donald Trump’s call for Canada to become the 51st state, and making politically charged statements about the Israel-Palestine War.
A longtime Palm Beach County resident, Cifu posted his comments to a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs about an hour after the Panthers defeated the Toronto, May 11, in Game 4 of in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It also came two weeks after Canada elected a new prime minister, who has vowed to fight Trump’s plans to annex the nation.
“Eat s*** 51st state anti-semite loser. Israel now and forever. Until ever (sic) last Hamas rat is eliminated,” read a post on the now-deleted X account that belonged to Cifu.
The comment followed a taunt by the fan accusing Israel of “using starvation as a weapon to win a war” in Gaza against the Palestinian state.
The suspension bared Cifu, a multimillionaire and the CEO of Virtu Financial, from being around the Panthers. He was not permitted to attend games for the remainder of the playoffs.
Cifu has held an ownership stake in the Panthers since buying the team with Viola in 2013
The Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers in six games last month, becoming the third franchise since 2000 to win back-to-back Stanley Cups.
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Panthers minority owner Doug Cifu not on Stanley Cup after NHL suspension