Rat trick
Fan tradition of throwing plastic rats onto ice after Panthers goals.
During the Florida Panthers' 1995–96 NHL season, fans celebrated goals by tossing plastic rats onto the ice, a ritual called the "rat trick." The name, a twist on "hat trick," came from goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck. It started after teammate Scott Mellanby killed a rat in the locker room before the home opener using his stick, then scored two goals with that same stick. By the 1996 playoffs, thousands of rats were thrown after every Panthers goal. This led the NHL to change its rules during the following offseason, allowing referees to penalize the home team if fans disrupted play by throwing objects onto the ice.
Quick Facts
- Known for
- Plastic rats thrown onto ice after Florida Panthers goals during 1995–96 season
Facts from the source article.
Origin
The Florida Panthers were in just their third NHL season during 1995-96, having joined the league as an expansion team in 1992. Their roster mixed seasoned veterans with rookies, anchored by all-star goalie John Vanbiesbrouck. Before their home opener on October 8, 1995, against the Calgary Flames, a rat scurried into the locker room and spooked several players. Scott Mellanby responded by hitting the rat with his stick, sending it across the room and killing it. Later that night, Mellanby scored two goals in a 4-3 win, the Panthers' first victory of the season. After the game, Vanbiesbrouck told reporters that while Mellanby hadn't notched a hat trick, he had pulled off a "rat trick." At the next home game, a fan tossed a plastic rat onto the ice after a Panthers goal. The game after that, a few more plastic rats appeared. By mid-November, as Florida rose to the top of the league standings, more than a hundred rats were being thrown onto the ice following each Panthers goal. The team finished the regular season third in the Atlantic Division and made the playoffs for the first time. That playoff run happened to fall during the Year of the Rat in the Chinese zodiac, which convinced fans that the Panthers were destined for extraordinary postseason luck.
1996 Stanley Cup playoffs
During the 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Florida Panthers first beat the Boston Bruins in five games, then the Philadelphia Flyers in six, making it to the Eastern Conference Finals. There, they took down the Pittsburgh Penguins in seven games to claim the Prince of Wales Trophy, and the rat-tossing phenomenon hit its high point as 3,000 plastic rats showered the ice after goals. The team publicly disapproved of the practice but still signed Orkin as a sponsor and had 40 rink workers dressed like exterminators clean up after each Florida score. South Florida’s “year of the rat” intensified as the Panthers reached the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time. Local grocery stores sold “rat cakes”—cupcakes decorated with rat icing—and the Florida Marlins baseball team showed the Panthers’ Game 7 win over Pittsburgh on their Jumbotron between innings on June 1, even bringing in the Panthers’ arena announcer to call out goals. The Panthers, who had sold out only 15 of 41 regular-season home games, sold out their first two playoff series against Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in seven minutes each. They were scheduled to face the Colorado Avalanche in the 1996 Finals. In Game 1, a 3-1 Colorado win, Avalanche fans in Denver responded by tossing rat traps onto the ice after their team’s goals. Colorado took Game 2 by an 8-1 score, leading the series 2-0 as the teams moved to Miami for Games 3 and 4. In the first period of Game 3, after Rob Niedermayer’s goal at 11:19 put Florida up 2-1, Colorado goalie Patrick Roy famously refused to duck under his net to avoid the rat barrage, as other goalies had done. During the intermission, Roy told his teammates there would be “no more rats.” He kept his word, allowing no further goals in the series. Colorado rallied to win Game 3, 3-2 in regulation, then shut out the Panthers 1-0 in triple overtime in Game 4, sweeping the series and earning the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.
Legacy
The NHL changed its rules before the next season because of the rat trick craze, which caused game delays. Under the new rule, if fans throw things onto the ice, the referee can have the announcer tell them to stop. If they keep doing it, the referee can give the home team a delay of game penalty. But the league made a special exception for items thrown during a "special occasion," specifically allowing the traditional hat toss after a hat trick without penalty. In 2007, the Panthers had a "Year of the Rat" alumni reunion to honor the 1996 team and raise money for their foundation. They sold plastic rats for fans to throw during an exhibition game, which included at least nineteen players from that 1996 squad. Scott Mellanby, who retired in 2007, was always remembered as the one who started the rat trick. He said, "It became the motto of our team that season. When I played in the all-star game, a kid came up to me and said, 'You're the rat guy.' He didn't even know my name; he just knew I killed the rat." When the Panthers did well in the 2011–12 season, fans started throwing plastic rats again after home wins. On April 15, 2012, after a 4–2 playoff win over the New Jersey Devils, fans threw plastic rats on the ice. That was the team's first playoff victory since 1997. In Game 5 of that series, hundreds of rats hit the ice, more than any time since the Cup run. After wins at the BankAtlantic Center, workers collected the rats and took them back to the Pantherland gift shop to sell again. The Panthers claimed that Devils fans bought rats at Pantherland and threw them early, hoping to get a penalty called on the home team. To avoid that risk, the team stopped selling toy rats at Pantherland. It is not known if they tried other ways to stop the rat throwing. In early 2013, the plastic rats went back on sale at Pantherland. As the Panthers got close to the playoffs in March 2016, rats started showing up on the ice again, sometimes after Panther goals and more often after home wins. Twenty years after that famous playoff run, several players from the 1995–96 team came back to South Florida to be honored on March 12, 2016, including John Vanbiesbrouck, Brian Skrudland, and Scott Mellanby.
More in Club History & Eras
Elsewhere in Florida Panthers
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced