Charles Barkley Betrays America to Support Toronto After Counting Florida Out at Playoffs

Charles Barkley might just be trying to associate himself with the 51st state! Jokes aside, the former NBA star turned NHL super fan has made clear his feelings on Toronto ahead of the fated Game 6 between the Florida Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs, where for the second time in the 2025 playoffs, the Leafs face elimination—having already been one loss away from going home in Round 1 Game 6 against Ottawa. Tonight’s Game 6 in Florida is another win-or-go-home scenario.

In a recent episode of the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, Charles Barkley holds onto this belief against all odds, responding to a question from Paul Bisonnette, who says to Barkley, “You said it’s going to be a 4-1 or 4-0 final. What makes you believe that they’re going to bounce back like that and bring it back to Toronto?” Barkley replies with a somewhat confusing statement, “You know Toronto is my favorite city in the world.” Leaving some viewers questioning whether his predictions for game 6 (and then 7, apparently) between the Panthers and the Leafs might be based on favoritism more than fact.

In any case, Barkley goes on to add, “I’m not sure what happened the other night,” referencing game 5. “That was, uh, that was a bad, bad thing, but you’re going to find out a lot about your people. This ain’t got nothing to do with the game of hockey. Tonight is about you; this is the most important game, probably. In fairness, it’s probably the most.” Still Barkley refrains from mentioning any specifics when it comes to the game or how Matthews or Marner might show up but sticks to talking about Toronto, its people specifically. Finally he added, “We don’t have to win the game but we got to make this like a real game.”

Barkley’s take on things at this point is so abstract that it is, in fact, hard to tell whether Toronto is really his favorite city in the world or whether he just doesn’t want the Leafs to win and is working this manifestation angle to the bone!

Could Charles Barkley be predicting a Leafs win purely to favor his initial Florida Panthers prediction?

Why would Charles Barkley not want the Leafs to win? One might wonder. The man had previously been so in awe of Matthew Tkachuk that he’d said in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs when Tkachuk scored the series-winning goal to beat the Carolina Hurricanes, “We are not worthy, oh my goodness, Mr. Tkachuk, we are not worthy.” Yet he went back on that one real fast.

At the start of this year’s playoff series, Charles Barkley made some brave claims on an episode of the Bleacher Report. When asked for his Stanley Cup predictions, he was sure Florida, despite having both Tkachuk and Marchand on the team, Barkley was sure they wouldn’t even make it past the first round. “But is Tkachuk playing?” He asked rhetorically at the time, adding in a moment of deliberation, “They got Marchand at the trade deadline too.” Still, he eventually decided to go with Tampa Bay Lightning for his first round pick in the Battle of Ontario, “You know what? I’m going with the hot goalie, all right, my man Vasilevskiy. Yep, I’m going with him.”

Well, clearly Charles Barkley was wrong about that, with Florida winning that series 4-1, not even giving Tampa Bay a chance. Realistically, things aren’t looking too great for the Leafs now either, as they’ll be meeting the Panthers on their home turf after just losing 6-1 and still without their starting goaltender. So the only sensible explanation for Barkley’s vague pro-Toronto statements at this point is that he, for some reason, really despises the Panthers or has lost all belief in the stats.