Florida Panthers

The Florida Panthers are a National Hockey League (NHL) team, based in Miami, Florida and playing in the suburb of Sunrise.

The Rat Story

It was 1995, the Year of the Rat on the Chinese calendar. Specifically it was October 8, 1995, at approximately 6:30pm in the locker room. With an hour to go before face-off in the home opener against the Calgary Flames, a live rat dashed about the Panthers' locker room.

Related Topics:
1995 - October 8

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Scott Mellanby, the future captain, remembers, "Guys were jumping out of the way and screaming. It made a beeline right towards me." So, Mellanby, armed with his stick let his fine-tuned instincts take over. He one-timed the rat with a slap of his stick against the locker room wall. "I one-timed it," said Scott, "and it was dead."

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Soon, a tradition would be born. That night Mellanby scored two goals in a 4-3 win. Goalie John Vanbiesbrouck called it a "rat trick." Later that night in the locker room, an unidentified team member marked the spot on the wall with a circle and inscription "R.I.P. Rat 1." Two games later, on 13 October 1995, the team's third home game which was a 6-2 win against Ottawa, two rubber rats hit the ice after a Panther goal. This was the first recorded rat throwing. The next game the total was 16 and the game after that it was 50. By the time the playoffs began, the per-game rat count exceeded 2,000.

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