from Andy Kent of the New York Times,

When the puck drops Sunday for the start of the first Stanley Cup playoff game ever played in Brooklyn, the Florida Panthers could feel more at home than the Islanders.

The Panthers’ owners, Vincent Viola and Doug Cifu, are as New York as New Yorkers come. Viola grew up in Brooklyn and went to high school at Brooklyn Tech, within walking distance of the site of what is now Barclays Center. Since buying the Panthers with Cifu in 2013 and becoming the team’s principal owner, Viola has arranged a team dinner at Bamonte’s, the classic Italian restaurant in Williamsburg. That was where Viola celebrated his first communion, his confirmation and his high school graduation.

“Everybody talks, everybody communicates, and it’s just kind of having people appreciate a little bit where Vinnie came from, the old neighborhood,” Cifu said. “He’s from pretty modest means, so he’s a pretty incredible American story. We don’t close the place, either, it’s open to the public, so, yeah, it’s 20-some-odd hockey players and then maybe another 20-odd staff, so we have a big, long table of 50 people and I’m an Italian-American like Vinnie, so it’s a little bit like our family dinners on Sunday.”

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