Miami likes to call itself the “Magic City,” an epithet that arose in the 1890s when Henry Flagler, founder of the Florida East Coast Railway and developer of the state’s southeast region, assigned publicist E.V. Blackman to write a positive story for Flagler’s magazine, East Coast Homeseeker, and lure northerners to relocate here. In the puff piece Miami became the “Magic City,” and the nickname at least intermittently lives on.
Tuesday night, it was true again. The magic was real. South Florida sports fans have seldom had a more exhilarating night from three teams — Miami Heat, Hurricanes men’s basketball and Florida Panthers — concurrently all pulling off such big, dramatic, emotional, last-second wins.