Brooks Koepka was a fan of the Florida Panthers long before their surprising run to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2023 but Aaron Eklbad is not going to let him off the hook. The 28-year-old defenseman took aim at the 34-year-old golfer at the team’s championship parade on Sunday.
It was a call back of more than 15 months!
Koepka was in Nashville for an LIV Golf tournament when his home-state NHL team won the Cup last week. His wife, Jena Sims, posted a pair of videos to TikTok that showed the celebration.
One week later, he caught a vicious stray from one of Florida’s most important players in front of a packed beach in Jupiter.
If anyone tries to tell you this crowd wasn’t gigantic, show them this video
— jeremy chandler taché (@jeremytache) June 30, 2024
The back of that crowd goes on and on and on and on… pic.twitter.com/GiSQqNVQAU
Ekblad — likely after a few libations because the Panthers have been on a bender — stepped up to the microphone, held a traffic cone over his head and cussed out Koepka.
It might seem strange that an active player on the team would call out one of the team’s most prominent fans, but there is a history there. They have beef. Koepka started it.
He infamously held up a traffic cone (pylon) to chirp Ekblad from a suite at a game last spring. The implication was that an inanimate object could play better defense.
There are two different stories behind Koepka’s chirp. The first has to do with the playoffs.
He gave up a bad goal. It was a bad pass in the third. I’m a die-hard P’s fan and he gave up a bad goal.
I just felt like if they didn’t win that game, they weren’t going to make the playoffs. Dedicated fan, man.
— Brooks Koepka, via GolfWRX
The second has to do with a large wager.
We tailgated and I can’t remember for the life of me who they were playing, but I had the team total under of the other team. And I can’t remember what it was, but Ekblad gave up a bad pass and the team total over just happened to hit after that goal was scored. Lot of alcohol. Lot of anger. Yeah, it wasn’t good. I let him have it.
— Brooks Koepka, via Pardon My Take
Florida defenseman Brandon Montour later revealed that Ekblad and the team initially decided that Koepka wasn’t going to be allowed around the team moving forward. However, they quickly put the incident in the past and shifted focus back to the Cup.
Koepka reached out to Ekblad with an apology. It was accepted.
He texted me after and apologized, and I’m coo; with it. That’s just part of being intense. Maybe he had some money on the game.
— Aaron Ekblad
Ekblad actually bet on Koepka to win The Masters in 2023. So the roles were later reversed because he did not win.
Even though Aaron Ekblad and Brooks Koepka cleared the air, Sunday presented an opportunity for the former to land one final kill shot on the latter. The jab landed in emphatic fashion!