Former Florida Panthers forward Anthony Duclair’s dream of giving back to the South Florida community has manifested into reality.
On Wednesday morning from Lauderdale Lakes, the Anthony Duclair Foundation and the NHL Industry Growth Fund officially opened a brand new 50×100 foot synthetic ice surface at Boyd H. Anderson High School.
“The synthetic rink is designed to eliminate the need for expensive refrigeration and traditional ice maintenance,” the NHL said in a press release. “Making it a cost-effective and sustainable solution to address hockey access.”
Along with Duclair, present at the ribbon cutting ceremony were NHL executives, community officials, commissioners, mayors and principal of Boyd Anderson High School.
The event also had hundreds of students from the school standing behind the boards as the backdrop during Duclair’s introduction of the rink.
The school even brought out their marching band to celebrate a big step in growing the game in South Florida.
Before Duclair laced up the skates in the NHL, the Point-Claire, Quebec native began skating on synthetic ice.
“Hockey changed my life,” Duclair said. “And my goal with the Anthony Duclair Foundation is to open the same doors that was opened for me, and do it in South Florida.”
Duclair spent three seasons with the Panthers, and the impact from his time in South Florida has shown.
“As a proud resident of Fort Lauderdale, I’m going to be here in the summer time obviously when my season is finished,” Duclair said. “I’m going to try to be here as much as I can and try to lead the way and try to be here for the kids, and try to teach them what I was taught at an early age. I played for the Florida Panthers for three years, and you guys left a mark on me and my family so I decided to make it a home.”
Boyd Anderson High has a strong Haitian demographic, which gives the students a sense of being seen.
Duclair himself is of Haitian decent.
“I was them not too long ago,” Duclair told THN Florida. “I spoke to a couple of them, and whatever they go through in life, I think perseverance, leadership, and obviously hard work, they can accomplish anything. This is a very close to heart project of mine that I wanted to do, and I’m just so thankful for everyone that made this happen.”
It was truly a full circle moment from his start in hockey to the rink coming together.
The plan is to conduct development camps at the synthetic surface, adding to the ones Duclair has done over the last two summers at the Panthers IceDen in Coral Springs.
Combining the Panthers Stanley Cup championship and the first outdoor synthetic rink in the area, the possibilities of growing the talent pool from South Florida could only increase.
“This is something that’s outside the box,” former Panthers forward Peter Worrell, who works closely with youth hockey in South Florida, told THN Florida. “It’s giving them an opportunity to be different, not to conform to what society is telling you you’re supposed to do. That visibility is important for anybody, it gives people new avenues, new paths they can follow.”
There is also the generational aspect, where a person’s start on a synthetic surface could create more than just one fan.
“Hockey is a little bit of a cult,” Worrell said. “Once you get into it, you can’t get out. If we are creating two or three players in a family, we are creating five or six people who are going to like hockey going forward at the very least.”
Prior to the official cutting of the ribbon, Lauderdale Lakes Mayor Barrington Russell, city commissioners and community officials made the proclamation to officially name Wednesday Feb. 12, 2025 as Anthony Duclair Day.
After cutting the ribbon, Duclair decided to test the ice himself with a handful of volunteers present at the event.
Pittsburgh Penguins forward and Quebec Native Boko Imama, a close friend and colleague of Duclair, was also present at the event, feeding kids one-timers from the corner to the slot on one end of the ice.
Only time will tell on what the impact of the rink will have, but the seed has been planted and the game of hockey now has one more addition to the growth of the game in an already growing market.
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