Rink Spotlight: Panthers IceDen
We opened this series at the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale — the shiny new practice home of the back-to-back Cup champs. This week we’re going 30 miles northwest, to the building the Panthers left behind.
Here’s the thing nobody expected: it didn’t die. It got busier.
Three sheets of NHL-regulation ice under one roof in Coral Springs, still owned and operated by the Panthers, still stuffed with beer leaguers, junior teams, figure skaters, curlers, and eight-year-olds in borrowed gear. If you play hockey in Broward County, odds are decent you’ve laced up here. Here’s what to know about the Panthers IceDen.
The Basics
- Where: 3299 Sportsplex Drive, Coral Springs, FL 33065
- Phone: (954) 341-9956
- Web: panthersiceden.com
- Sheets: Three indoor NHL-regulation rinks, roughly 125,000 sq ft
- On site: Pro shop, off-ice training center, party rooms, concessions, Panthers Point Bar & Grill upstairs
- Heads up: You need a DaySmart account to register for any on-ice session — set it up before you show up
1. The Panthers Still Own It
This gets confused a lot. Yes, the team moved its hockey operations to Fort Lauderdale in December 2023. No, they didn’t sell the IceDen. They’ve owned the building since 1997, back when it was a two-sheet rink called IncredibleICE, and they still run it today.
Walk in and you’d barely know anything changed. The logo is on the walls, the doors, the stanchions. The championship banners are still hanging. The NHL-quality locker room the team vacated didn’t sit empty long either — top junior programs moved into that space, including Florida Alliance teams and, more recently, USPHL junior hockey in the building.
Translation: this is still a Panthers rink. It just belongs to the rest of us now.
2. Three Sheets Means You Can Actually Get Ice
This is the practical reason the IceDen matters so much in South Florida. Most rinks down here are fighting over one or two sheets between learn-to-skate, figure skating, youth travel, high school, and adult league. Three sheets means the schedule breathes.
More adult league slots. More clinics. More drop-in sessions that don’t get bumped when a tournament rolls in. If you’ve ever had your beer league game scheduled for 11:15 p.m. on a Tuesday because there was no other ice in the county, you understand why this is a big deal.
3. The Adult League Is Legit
The IceDen adult league runs 14-game seasons with USA Hockey certified officials and standings and stats kept up all year — which sounds like a small thing until you’ve played in a league that tracks none of it and forfeits half its games.
Each team also gets a bar tab for food and drinks upstairs, which is either a nice perk or a strategic error depending on your team.
Don’t have a team? There’s a free agent list. Contact the adult hockey manager and get your name on it — this is genuinely the most common way people get into beer league down here, and captains are always short a body. One note: USA Hockey registration is mandatory for all players, so get that done online before the season starts rather than the night of your first game.
4. Adult Clinics and Drop-In If You’re Not League-Ready
Not everyone’s ready to jump into a game, and there’s no shame in that. The IceDen runs adult clinics that work the basics — skating, stickhandling, passing, shooting — plus camps and pickup sessions throughout the year.
If you’re coming back after a decade off, or you’re a Panthers fan who got hooked during the Cup runs and wants to actually try this, the clinic is the on-ramp. Drop-in sessions are the next step after that. Check the calendar, because clinic sessions fill up and pickup times move around seasonally.
5. It’s a Full-Family Building
Beyond hockey: Learn to Skate USA, a competitive figure skating club, adaptive skating, curling, and public skate sessions on weekend afternoons and Friday and Saturday nights. Skate rentals go down to youth size 8, so you’re not buying gear to find out if your kid likes it.
Buy public skate admission online in advance and you’ll pay a few dollars less than walking up. Backpacks aren’t allowed in during the Friday and Saturday night sessions, and outside food isn’t permitted — there’s a concession stand on the first level and the bar and grill on the second. Bring a hoodie. Every review of this place mentions that people underestimate how cold a triple-sheet building runs.
6. Who Plays Here
Everybody. That’s the honest answer. Broward beer leaguers, Coral Springs and Parkland youth travel families, junior players chasing college hockey, figure skaters who’ve been in this building since they were four, and a steady stream of transplants from Michigan and Massachusetts and Long Island who found the rink in their first month down here and never left.
It’s the closest thing South Florida has to a hockey town square.
7. The Bottom Line
The IcePlex got the headlines and the Cup banners. The IceDen has the ice time — three sheets, a real adult league, clinics for beginners, and a pro shop for when your skate blade finally gives out mid-season.
If you live anywhere from Coconut Creek to Parkland to Boca and you play ice, this is your rink. And if you’re in the north Broward / south Palm Beach corridor looking for something to do while the ice schedule sorts itself out this fall — we’re running an adult roller league at Sugar Sand Park in Boca, 18+, divisions by skill level. Sign up here. Takes less than a minute.
Schedules, prices, and program offerings change seasonally — always check the IceDen’s calendar before you make the drive.