Is this the moment where history and reality become strange bedfellows? Or should that be rat-fellows?
The story of the good luck rat and the Florida Panthers is one of the touchstones for a franchise quite short on anything resembling "historic" moments.
Early in the 1995-96 season Scott Mellanby famously dispatched a rat that had the temerity to try to traverse the Panthers locker room before a game. He scored twice that night, and Mellanby's feat was described by netminder John Vanbiesbrouck as a "rat trick". By the time the playoffs rolled around, thousands of plastic and rubber rats were finding their way onto the ice in celebration of the upstart franchise.