FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The puck hasn’t even dropped on Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final in Edmonton, and already you are acutely aware that Florida Panthers fans have you surrounded.

As soon as the televisions blinking from the walls of the Elbo Room transition from the TNT pregame panel to a live feed of the American anthem, the upstairs DJ cuts Ludacris off mid-verse and cranks the broadcast sound.

A handful of sunburnt fellas doff their trucker hats and place them over their hearts. A few girls sing along to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The bartender reaches up and rings a rusty bell dangling from the ceiling as Oilers anthem singer Robert Clark brings their song home.

Once poor Clark begins ‘O Canada’ however, the DJ cuts the TV sound and re-blasts his throwback Luda (‘What’s Your Fantasy,’ for those scoring at home). Some fans laugh. Some cheer or chant “U-S-A!” A handful dance.

And all those gathered on the same upper deck from which Matthew Tkachuk hoisted the Stanley Cup and poured beer from the railing and down onto the folks below last June, they turn their focus to the game.

Sound on. It’s game night.

The bartender in the Panthers mesh-back cracking Coors and Millers open with an overused official Panthers 2024 championship bottle opener; the guys overdressed in sweltering TKACHUK and BARKOV and VERHAEGHE and EKBLAD and DUCLAIR sweaters; the other dude smartly wearing a Panthers basketball jersey (sun’s out, guns out); and the bare-chested gentleman sporting a towel around his waist and you hope something else underneath… they’re all glued to the screens.

Of the 10 medium-sized TVs banking the upper floor and the seven downstairs, where a cover band rocks out on stage no higher than Niko Mikkola’s shinpads, only one is not tuned in to Game 5. (Tucked in the southeast corner, one renegade TV in locked in on The Wall, the trivia-based gameshow. You know, for the 0.6 per cent of patrons who came to sharpen their brains.)

Distracted by Connor Brown’s early break at the Sergei Bobrovsky’s net, and the ensuing “Bob-by! Bob-by!” chants, the bartender in the Cats cap makes change for his $20 bill twice.

And when Brad Marchand scores his first of two en route to a 5-2 romp, the upper deck erupts in a mess of high-fives, sweaty hugs, and sloppy screams.

A guy wearing a tank top with an unprintable all-caps slogan takes a run at the vacant floor-to-ceiling brass pole on the dancefloor. He leaps up, grabs hold and executes a perfect 720-degree spin down the thing. You’re certain that the pole is clean and that it was installed for hockey cellies only.

Another vigorous ringing of the rusty bell. 

A second bartender gabs a bubble gun and sprays poppable orbs of soap into the crowd.

Another round of “Let’s! Go! Panthers!” is ordered.

A third bartender, wearing a red “Get Tkachuk’d Up” staff T-shirt, keeps on pouring.

The band on street level rips into a cover of The Black-Eyed Peas’ ‘I Got a Feeling.’

While disappointment brews 2,994 miles northwest, here, at Elbo Room, tonight is gonna be a good, good night.

To reach the Elbo Room from along Fort Lauderdale’s sandy shores, first you must walk past three beach bars serving multicoloured margaritas in glasses large enough to humanely raise goldfish.

But there are no such gimmick beverages served at the iconic, two-storey beach bar, which has been standing proudly at the corner of Las Olas Boulevard and the Vanilla Ice’s beloved A1A — Beachfront Avenue! — since 1938.

Metaphorically, Elbo Room stands at the corner of Rejoice and Regret.

Domestic bottles, sudsy mainstream draught and well pours in clear plastic cups fill the hands of the patrons. You learn that the bikini-and-boardshorts dive bar — a favourite of locals and tourists and hockey players alike — hosted a slew of surfing and boogie boarding championships in the ’80s and ’90s. Which makes sense a ton of sense, once you wrap your head around the idea that boogie boarding might require a champion.

Famously, Elbo Room was featured in the 1960 George Wells film Where the Boys Are. 

Multiple Hall of Famers, actors and Tkachuks have been spotted on these floors. You are told O.J. Simpson was a regular customer in his later years.

It’s the type of place that, at first blush, needs a makeover but would only be ruined by one.

Elbo Room is cash only, but it’s not a place you want traceable with a paper trail anyway. 

The owners recently installed live web cams, so you can peer in from the safety of home to see how deep the party’s going, the way ansty skiers peep the snow cams of their local mountain.

And watching dive-bar footage feels akin to a hockey dad rewatching his men’s league games on LiveBarn. Unflattering at best.

The problem with wearing pants to Elbo Room is the heat. As comedian Lachlan Patterson once put it, the climate of Florida is great… if you want to know how it feels to live in your own mouth.

The problem with wearing shorts to Elbo Room is that when something wet hits your leg, you’re not sure if it’s ocean spray wafting in, condensation dripping from the ceiling, a stranger’s sweat or a bobbled highball.

On a busy night like this, the floor gets sticky enough that you need to clench your toes before you walk so you don’t leave one flip-flop behind.

The Panthers fans are too invested to nitpick, though. The guy to your right grips your arm when Connor McDavid scores and the Oilers’ late 6-on-5 push begins.

“Dude this is so (bleeping) stressful right now,” he whispers to a man he doesn’t know.

Another Cats fan makes an announcement: “If they win again, I’m getting a tattoo of the Stanley Cup. Another one.”

Word to DJ Khaled, a noted Panthers fan.

When Marchand scores again, a young woman wearing a rat fastened on top of a large bejeweled DQ Blizzard cup, in turn fastened on top of an Elbo Room cap, rejoices.

So impressed are you by the homemade outfit — the double wink at Marchand’s rep — that you ask for a photo. She’s happy to pose, happier for you to post. You think her name’s Cicily, but that’s the best guess because Juicy J is now blaring so loud.

Apropos of nothing, a different woman peels her shirt a bit to show the difference between a burn and a tan.

No one pulls away their clothing to show a gun or a Bible or a shark bite. But the whole scene is still unmistakably Florida.

Just ask the fellow wearing the “Gulf of America” T-shirt, featuring a cartoon drawing of his President happily floating in an innertube. 

The Elbo Room is a fitting home for a Panthers parade stop as it suits the identity of the team: gritty, in your face, loud, fun and a smidge dangerous. Tax-free too.

As the clock ticks down on Game 5, and the whole bar realizes their favourite team has a chance to repeat Tuesday at home in Game 6, you spot a couple of brave Oilers supporters.

He’s wearing a Hyman shirsey, she a McDavid. 

The Edmontonians are having a blast despite the result. Heck, they’ll stick around for Game 6. 

“But these guys have a good team, too,” Hyman Fan smiles.

“That’s OK. We’re flying home to catch Game 7.”