While spending time at home here in south Florida, I was lucky to catch a couple great sporting events over the past week, game four of NHL hockey’s Stanley Cup Finals and a FIFA Club World Cup game between Argentina’s Boca Juniors and Portugal’s Benfica.

As a lifelong hockey fan, it was a thrill to attend my second-ever Stanley Cup Finals game on Thursday evening – the Edmonton Oilers at the Florida Panthers. When I moved to Florida 20 years ago, the Panthers were a terrible team, only making the playoffs a couple times and not winning a playoff round until 2022. They’ve managed to become a dynasty over the last three years – something I never thought possible. Three consecutive trips to the finals, now winning two of them.

On this night, I was rooting for the Oilers. Last season, the Panthers eliminated my New York Rangers in the semi-finals, and that is something I can never forgive lol. Also, it’s been over 30 years since a Canadian team last won a Stanley Cup, so I was hoping Edmonton could bring it back north. The crowd was electric in the pregame.

With the Panthers staking a 3-0 lead at the end of the first period, this looked like it was headed for a blowout. But the Oilers managed to score 3 in the second to tie it, take the lead 4-3 in the third period, only for the Panthers to dramatically tie it at 4 with less than 20 seconds left. 11 minutes into overtime, Leon Draisaitl scored the winning goal for the Oilers, tying the series at two games apiece.

I was sat next to a couple of Oilers fans from Ontario on one side and a Draisaitl fan from Germany on the other, so we all left happy…some of the only people who left that arena happy on this night. No bother, the Panthers would go on to win game 5 in Edmonton and game 6 back in Florida to win the series and their second Stanley Cup.

Four days later, it was time for global soccer and Fifa’s Club World Cup at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. This is a new tournament, involving many of the most popular clubs from around the world, such as Real Madrid, Manchester City, Paris St Germain, and teams from Asia, South America, North America and Africa. Something of a prelude to next year’s World Cup in North America, the tournament was created as something of a cash-and-prestige grab for Fifa’s fairly detestable chief executive Gianni Infantino. A man with a boundless ego, his name is printed on the trophy itself twice.

The game I chose was between Argentina’s Boca Juniors and Portugal’s Benfica. Two legendary clubs with two legendary fanbases, I didn’t know what to expect of the crowd as the game started at 6pm on a Monday. As I approached Hard Rock Stadium and saw blue and gold smoke from flares wafting over the parking lot, I had an inkling it might be an event.

And an event it was! My seats were in the upper deck in the thick of the Boca Juniors diehards. They are one of the best-supported clubs in the world, and the atmosphere at their stadium in Buenos Aires, La Bombonera, is legendary.

In the typical level of disorganization I expect from both Fifa and the city of Miami, my seats were marked “Press Seating” and had members of the press sitting in them. I moved a row down into an empty seat and realized that in this crowd, a ticket number was just a suggestion. Fans packed the aisles and even the rows, standing and singing before and during the game. It was a thrilling atmosphere, which I’ve tried to capture here:

The game was a good one, which was unexpected in this haphazardly thrown-together end-of-season tournament. Both sides fed off the crowd energy with Boca Juniors scoring twice in the first half and Benfica scoring twice in the second half, ending in a 2-2 draw.

Two thrilling sporting events in four days – lucky enough to be able to attend both a short drive from home.