Panthers to show Red Sox game in arena

The Panthers arena will be showing the Boston Red Sox game Thursday night.

You’re a Boston sports fanatic vacationing in Sunrise, Florida, and you are torn.

Do you hit up a local sports bar to catch Thursday night’s Game 5 of the American League Championship Series between your beloved Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers or do you scrounge up 14 bucks, head to the rink and see Florida Panthers goalie Tim Thomas — live — take on his former team, the Boston Bruins, for the first time.

Well, the marketing folks at the Florida Panthers are doing all they can to ease your decision.

Splashed right on the front page of the Panthers’ website in advance of puck drop is the promise that the “Red Sox vs Tigers game will be played on TV’s throughout the arena.”

The new ownership is taking this attendance thing shamelessly.

In practice, there is nothing wrong with playing other sporting events on the screens in the building. There is nothing more satisfying than catching updates on your beer run/restroom break. And, let’s face, it: There’s a reason the combination Taco Bell/Pizza Hut exists.

But to make baseball-on-TV a selling point for your hockey tickets? Your opponents’ baseball team, no less? Ugh.

Imagine the TD Garden bending over backwards to accommodate Miami Marlins fans.

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