Born and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida, Brooks Koepka has been all about the local teams– From the NBA’s Miami Heat to the NHL’s Florida Panthers. And he has not been shy about his support either. Remember after winning the 2023 PGA Championship, he flew to watch his favorite NHL team clench their first berth to the Stanley Cup Finals less than 24 hours before LIV D.C began? He repped the team’s jersey as he raised his Wanamaker trophy. And his public support for them didn’t end just there with sightings of the LIV Golfer at the Stanley Cup Finals the same year and in 2024. And when he was away playing for the Saudi-backed team? He was still all-in for the Cats.

That happened in 2023. Against the Boston Bruins, Florida made an unimaginable shot in the dying minutes to send Game 7 into overtime. Adding to that, they won the game. And celebrating the win was Koepka, stuck on an airplane 32,000 feet in the sky, in front of a seatback TV while flying home from LIV Golf’s Far-East adventure. So when the Panthers were on the verge of winning back-to-back, of course Koepka had to be there. In fact, he did it while his wife, Jena Sims, was possibly back home taking care of their son, Crew, with another NHL-crazy couple– Dustin Johnson and his wife, daughter of NHL legend Wayne Gretzky, Paulina.

NUCLR GOLF tweeted, “🚨🏆🏒 LIV Golf stars Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson are in attendance for game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight. #StanleyCup” So, although Johnson himself missed the cut at Oakmont, he was in attendance at the Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise to experience the Panthers, who were already leading the series 3-2, raise the Stanley Cup for the consecutive time over the same opponents as last year in a flawless 1-5 dominant win.

Other big guns of the sporting world present at the event were NBA legend Charles Barkley, Panthers’ Matthew Tkachuk’s brother Brady and his father and more. However, Koepka did spend some good blissful time with his family right after his Oakmont event where Crew adorably watched his father wave at him. As for the LIV golfer’s connection to the team? Well, the relationship hasn’t come with no bad blood.

Last year, when Koepka attended a Florida Panthers game, the team’s defenseman, Aaron Ekblad, had his sweet revenge on Koepka when he called out the major champion during the Stanley Cup Parade. “F— you, Brooks Koepka,” was Ekblad’s slogan while he posed with a traffic cone, screaming at the golfer. But this was actually a response to what Koepka did in 2023.

He showed up to a Panthers’ game with a few buddies and held up a traffic cone while he screamed at Ekblad. He hinted at Ekblad’s performance being terrible in that game and used a traffic cone to imply that he was serving no purpose on the ice other than being in the way of other players. The two eventually cleared out their differences, and surely there shouldn’t be any issues between the two now.

While Sims missed the Stanley Cup finals this time, as she probably wanted to spend some time with her son, who is barely two years old, she has never failed to support her husband’s NHL passion in the past.

Jena Sims’ experiences with the Panthers in the past

In 2023, when Jena Sims was pregnant, she was there to support Koepka, alongside Dustin Johnson & Paulina Gretzky, while he watched the NHL game with his favorite team play against the Dallas Stars. This was the next day after Koepka had won his fifth major at the 2023 PGA Championship. While Jena Sims did come out in support of her husband’s favorite team, she also secretly hoped that the Dallas Stars won the game so she could get back to focusing on her work. “Secretly hoping Dallas hockey advances so we have an excuse to come see y’all soon,” Sims jokingly captioned a photo on her Instagram.

A few weeks before this, Koepka could not catch one of the Florida Panthers’ games against the Boston Bruins in person because he was away from home playing at LIV Golf’s Far East Adventure in May 2023. However, he managed to catch some moments from the game mid-flight, and his wife captured the hilarious scenes of Koepka’s changing expressions. She posted a series of stories, capturing Koepka’s desperate moments from hoping his favorite team wins, and captioned it— “Somebody is a happy man,” as the major champion continued to watch the game in peak anxiety.

Did you catch the Panthers play?