Behind the Rhymes: It's Time to Hunt

Nothing gets an arena rocking faster than a promotional video screened on the Jumbotron prior to puck drop. This year is special for a lot of reasons, especially as the hype around the team continues to build - but what makes this year's video truly unique is its roots in the local community.
Time To Hunt.

As the houselights at FLA Live Arena dimmed and the music cranked up ahead of the Opening Night matchup between the Florida Panthers and Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, fans were treated to a poem set to scenes of South Florida and their hometown Cats taking the ice.
From the stands, Gaby Martinez could see their artwork come to life.
Martinez, a Teaching Artist with The Omari Hardwick Bluapple Poetry Network - the largest program of the Jason Taylor Foundation (JTF) - is the title wordsmith behind the poem.
"My crew helped me," they said. "We sat down in a meeting and they kind of just threw ideas at me. At the end of that hour, I had the poem written."
"We call each other the 'Blu Crew,'" JTF program assistant coordinator Just John Persaud said. "It's me, Gaby, and Shawnteè Herring."
The poem that was born out of the Blu Crew's meeting and the subsequent video is a culmination of teamwork and the longstanding partnership between the JTF and the Florida Panthers.
Over the summer, JTF -
the recipient of a 2017 Community Champions grant
- and the Florida Panthers Foundation began collaborating on a hockey-centric poetry contest program within elementary and middle schools across South Florida.
The program, which is set to complement the existing "Louder than A Bomb Poetry Slam" annual competition, has been minted as the "Panthers Poetry Project."
The project is meant "…to start showcasing our poets, and in particular our middle school and elementary school [writers]," Sean Todd, the Vice President of Operations at JTF said.
To promote this new community-based scholastic program, the group came up with the idea to create a pump-up video to show schools the power of the written word.
"This video is a great way for our young people and some of our staff members to have their voices heard in different places from where you would typically hear poetry, which is super cool," JTF executive director Seth Levit commented. "We were thinking about making a video for the kids," Gaby said. "We go to the schools, and we do a whole pep rally."

When they learned of the Panthers marketing campaign theme - "Time To Hunt" - they were immediately inspired. "I was like 'WOW!," they exclaimed. "I can write so much with that."
"We were like, 'Whoa, okay. That's such a strong line,'" Shawnteè Herring, the Director of Programming and member of the aforementioned Blu Crew, agreed. "Then we just sort of thought about the team and we thought about the animal."
Armed with the Florida Panthers - both the NHL team, and the wild animals - as their muse, Martinez and their team put pen to paper to capture the excitement for the upcoming season.
"I wanted to encapsulate that this year is different…this year especially, we have a team that is really good."
"Gaby was writing down words as we were throwing them out - things that represented the panther or Florida or hockey - any type of terminology we would use in this space…Gaby was formulating a poem as they were writing down words," Persaud explained. "It became really seamless, and by the end of the meeting we had thrown out so many words and so many phrases that we had kind of a skeleton of the poem written."
"I'm really proud of our team and how they collectively came up with the concepts that led to where we are now," Levit added. "The fact that we have the opportunity to inspire and motivate the [Panthers] fanbase is spectacular."
"Gaby is a master of wordsmithing and delivery…it's just unbelievable what she can do," Sean said. "I think [the video] is going to get people fired up."
For Martinez, ultimately it's all about bringing the youth of the community together.
"I really love my job," they said. "I really believe in the work that we do. It's all for the kids."
"It's Time To Hunt"
By: Gaby Martinez, Just John Persaud, and Shawnteè Herring
they labelled us endangered species
didn't expect us to breed resilience
thought they could thin out our patience
by hating on us
but we know how to wait
we know how to make an enemy into prey
and this year we're ravenous
we're hungry for redemption
don't you know we were built for this
efficient in the way we kill the game
oh you thought you could poach us
try to coach us into complacency
you thought because panthers are solitary creatures
we don't know how to come together
you want to throw us to the wayside
but we stay poised to fight
you have to drop your gloves
but we leave it all on the ice
we are swamp, muck, murky water
we are the Florida panthers
and we don't falter
are you afraid of the dark
we think you should be
the way we stay crouched in the shadows
just waiting to pounce just waiting for the perfect shot
our vision is precision
and we're zeroed in
it's time to hunt