Florida the underdog

 You can blame the Florida Atlantic Owls for what happened last night in the Sunshine State. As every sibling has always said about every other sibling, they started it.

The Owls get to the Final Four, see, and pretty soon every sports entity in Florida is infected with the We Believe virus. You could say it's gone viral, but that would be redundant.

In any case, last night in a hockey arena west of Fort Lauderdale, the Spirit of the Owl was with the Florida Panthers. They beat Carolina on Matthew Tkachuk's goal with 4.3 seconds left to complete a 4-0 sweep of the Hurricanes in the NHL Eastern Conference final, and now are off to the Stanley Cup Final for only the second time in franchise history. 

They're also the living embodiment of an old, old Stanley maxim: A hot goalie and a hot forward will take you deep when playoff time rolls around.

The hot forward is Tkachuk, who of course scored the series winner because he's scored every winning goal for the Panthers in the playoffs, or so it seems. The hot goalie is Sergei Bobrovsky, who shut out the 'Canes in Game 3, won Game 2 in overtime 2-1 and won 3-2 in four overtimes in Game 1.

This means he surrendered just three goals in almost 12 periods of hockey in Games 1 and 2. That's a day's work and then some.

It also means the Panthers swept their presumed betters for the second time in the playoffs. Carolina won its division with the second-best record (52-21-9) in the NHL. This after the Panthers gave the boot in the first round to the Boston Bruins, who merely had the best regular season in league history at 65-12-5.

The Panthers, meanwhile, finished fourth in the Atlantic Division, at 42-32-8. That put them 43 points behind the Bruins and 21 behind the 'Canes. 

But, wait there's more!

Let's jump to the NBA Eastern Conference finals, where Playoff Jimmy Butler, Playoff Erik Spoelstra and the Miami Heat are about to erase a Boston Celtics team that needed a win in Game 4 to avoid a sweep. The Heat, who were a beige 44-38 in the regular season, knocked out the team with the NBA's best record (Milwaukee) in five games in the first round; now they're poised to eliminate the team with the second-best record.

Oh, yeah. And those dependably sorry Miami Marlins?

The Spirit of the Owl kinda-sorta moves in them, too.

After finishing 24 games under .500 and 32 out of first in the NL East last year, they're playing .500 baseball and are tied for second in the division with the Mets, five-and-a-half games adrift of Atlanta. 

And so Florida, a southern state run by a ham-fisted bully who likes to pick on underdogs, is suddenly Underdog Central. Oh, the irony.

Hat tip now from the Spirit of the Owl.

"Any time," he says.