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pc28����fans get to see games at Scotiabank Arena in the heart of a busy downtown metropolis, while the Panthers’ Amerant Bank Arena is surrounded by parking lots, a slog to get to, and across the street from a literal swamp.

Amerant is located in Sunrise, a suburb created in 1961 as a “golf village” on the far western edge of the Miami metropolitan area where sprawling development finally stopped draining Everglades swampland. About 60 kilometres from Miami Beach, Hamilton and Oshawa are equivalents from downtown Toronto, both a little more than 60 kilometres away. It’s far.

Amerant is the kind of arena most people must drive to, where the stands will start to empty out well before the end of a game so people can “beat the traffic.” You can imagine the gridlock as everyone tries to exit from the same few lots, or the chaos at the rideshare pickup point. The Amerant website doesn’t even mention public transit on its how-to-get-there page (though it can be reached by bus) focusing mostly on expensive, paid parking. Pedestrians only get a brief mention, directed to one particular gate, along one particular sidewalk and up some stairs, while noting that another gate is “no longer open for pedestrians.” Sounds about as hostile as trying to walk to Pearson airport.

Leafs fans can walk to their arena from any direction, and if it’s raining or snowing they can take some of the 30 kilometres of pedestrian PATH tunnels connecting Scotiabank to buildings around downtown. They can also take buses, streetcars, subways and GO Trains too, all stopping at Union Station next door, making Scotiabank one of the most connected venues in North America, if not the world. People in Hamilton and Oshawa can hop on a train and never worry about parking and never have to leave the game early to avoid being stuck in traffic.

The remarkable thing about exiting a big event at Scotiabank is after about a block, indications that nearly 20,000 people just exited at the same time are hard to find, as if the city simply absorbs everyone. The crowds become part of the city, part of the usual downtown bustle. That’s a great advantage of an urban location versus one farther flung.

Today Scotiabank is surrounded by both residential and commercial buildings so there are always people around. It’s a neighbourhood rather than a parking lot. Maple Leaf Square on the west side fills with fans during big games, but it’s telling how car-centric most arenas and stadiums are as the party there is still sometimes referred to as a “tailgate.”

An urban location means people can go to bars or restaurants before and after the game, creating spinoff economic benefits. At Amerant, fans might be able to find a bar open at the large mall across the street, but there’s little else to do there but leave.

It’s always a bit of nerdy fun during playoff runs to compare arena or stadium locations, a sort of urban rivalry to match the sports being played. There are some legendarily remote venues in North America, but also a trend to move downtown. The Cavaliers once played in Richfield Coliseum located in a rural area halfway between Cleveland and Akron, but now play in downtown Cleveland. The Detroit Pistons left the remote Palace of Auburn Hills and moved 50 kilometres south, joining the Red Wings downtown at Little Caesars Arena.

In the previous playoff round, the Leafs beat the Senators, a team whose Canadian Tire Centre arena is in suburban Kanata. However there are plans to build a new arena in the LeBreton Flats, close to the city centre, making the Senators fan experience a city experience too. Should the Leafs and Sens meet in the playoffs after that, the only rivalry that matters will be on the ice.

Amerant is also the Florida arena’s dizzying sixth corporate name, making it as hard to remember as it is to get to. pc28����entertainment and sports venues suffer from the same naming rights roulette (two theatres here are even confusingly named after the same credit union, Meridian) but Scotiabank has otherwise only been known as the Air Canada Centre.

So, let’s not jinx it, but everyone born after 1967 has a lifetime of evidence that disappointment is easy with this team, so being smug about arena location is all we have. For now, anyway. Should they actually win the cup, the downtown streets are right there, waiting to celebrate in.