Brandon Montour spoke about the Ekblad-Koepka-parking cone drama on the Cam and Strick Podcast
One of the more amusing storylines of the past Florida Panthers season involved a professional athlete from a sport that is far from ice hockey.
Pro golf star and South Florida native Brooks Koepka has been going to Panthers games for years.
As his star has risen in his profession, Koepka's appearances in Sunrise have become increasingly apparent as more and more fans recognize him.
Last season, on a Saturday night in late March, Koepka was there when the Panthers hosted the New York Rangers.
There were ten games left, including that one, on Florida's schedule, and they entered play one point behind Pittsburgh for the final Wild Card Spot.
The Panthers surrendered a 2-0 lead and lost to the Rangers 4-3, their third in what would be a string of four straight defeats.
Everything would end up okay as the losses were immediately followed by the six-game winning streak that got Florida into the playoffs, but at the time, things were far from warm and cuddly.
That became apparent when Koepka was filmed standing at the front of his suite, holding an orange parking cone in the air, and yelling at Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad.
The videos went viral, as did the story itself.
In the days and weeks that followed, both Ekblad and Koepka spoke about what happened and said they had been in touch and that things were all good.
Koepka was even there to bang the pregame drum at FLA Live Arena before Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.
During a recent interview on the Cam and Strick Podcast, Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour was asked about the whole Ekblad-Koepka saga and what it was like from the perspective of the locker room.
"We laughed about it," Montour said. "In the same sense, it's like, we'll put you in a pair of our skates and let you f-ing get on the ice and do it. All jokes aside, obviously he's a fan of the game and he wants us to win."
Montour said that it was basically viewed as a big joke among the players and nothing more, and it certainly didn't impact anybody's game on or off the ice.
"We all laughed about it, laughed at Aaron, Aaron laughed about it, obviously he doesn't care about it at all," Montour said. "Arron is a hell of a player, and it didn't faze any of us, didn't faze him at all. We just got a quick laugh about it."
Montour said Koepka had actually been a visitor inside the Panthers locker room a couple times during the previous season.
After the parking cone video went out, though, one might wonder how welcome Koepka might have felt if he were to ask for another visit.
"We were just joking after that incident with Aaron and we said, 'This guy's not coming around us anymore,'" Montour said with a laugh. "No, it's all fun."
Montour said there are a lot of Koepka fans in the Florida locker room and that there is plenty of mutual respect between all the pro athletes.
"He's a fan of us, and all of us are all huge fans of what he does as well," he said. "To get that exposure was hilarious, but both are talented athletes so nobody cared."