SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Panthers have signed Canadian singer Michael Buble — for a good cause.
Buble, a five-time Grammy-winning pop icon, has signed on to be part of the team's fundraising efforts for the American Cancer Society. The “Panthers on the Prowl” initiative combines art and philanthropy to support cancer research and patient services, and donors get the chance to sponsor life-sized panther sculptures that will be placed around South Florida.
The program is the brainchild of Panthers hockey operations president and general manager Bill Zito and his wife Julie Zito.
“'Panthers on the Prowl' is a creative and really cool and uplifting way to demonstrate and show our support for those people that are suffering, so we can generate the much-needed funding to keep this fight going," Buble said. "Cancer touches all of us, my family, friends, yours, neighbors, everyone. I joined my buddy Bill Zito and the Florida Panthers and all of our NHL hockey community because I want to be part of the solution.”
The issue is clearly one of deep personal significance to Buble. His son Noah, now 11, was diagnosed with a form of liver cancer in 2016 and was declared to be in remission about 18 months later. "The worst possible thing that you could hear as a parent, and as maybe a human being,” Buble said years later.
The Panthers' program formally launched in March and has been backed by famed artist Romero Britto along with NFL players — and South Florida natives — Nick Bosa and Joey Bosa, among others.
Julie Zito is a cancer survivor, Bill Zito lost his mother and sister to cancer, and the Zito family recently lost a close friend to cancer as well. The couple got the inspiration for the artwork element of the initiative from the Cows on Parade public art project in Chicago; donors to the Panthers' project can decorate their panther statuette in any way they'd like.
The team is hoping to raise at least $1 million.
“It’s in all of our families and all of our friendships," said Zito, who joined the Panthers in 2020. "It makes me more determined not to achieve a goal for the goal’s sake, but to achieve a goal to bring people together.”
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
FILE - Michael Buble performs on stage at the O2 Arena in London, Sunday, Mar. 26, 2022. (Photo by Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP, file)
