The program is the brainchild of Panthers hockey operations president and general manager Bill Zito and his wife Julie Zito.
“'Panthers on the Prowl' is a creative and really cool and uplifting way to demonstrate and show our support for those people that are suffering, so we can generate the much-needed funding to keep this fight going," Buble said. "Cancer touches all of us, my family, friends, yours, neighbors, everyone. I joined my buddy Bill Zito and the Florida Panthers and all of our NHL hockey community because I want to be part of the solution.”
The issue is clearly one of deep personal significance to Buble. His son Noah, now 11, was diagnosed with a form of liver cancer in 2016 and was declared to be in remission about 18 months later. "The worst possible thing that you could hear as a parent, and as maybe a human being,” Buble said years later.
The Panthers' program formally launched in March and has been backed by famed artist Romero Britto along with NFL players — and South Florida natives — Nick Bosa and Joey Bosa, among others.
Julie Zito is a cancer survivor, Bill Zito lost his mother and sister to cancer, and the Zito family recently lost a close friend to cancer as well. The couple got the inspiration for the artwork element of the initiative from the Cows on Parade public art project in Chicago; donors to the Panthers' project can decorate their panther statuette in any way they'd like.
The team is hoping to raise at least $1 million.
“It’s in all of our families and all of our friendships," said Zito, who joined the Panthers in 2020. "It makes me more determined not to achieve a goal for the goal’s sake, but to achieve a goal to bring people together.”
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl