SUNRISE, Fla. – It was October of 1995.
Inside a cramped and humid locker room at the old Miami Arena, as the Florida Panthers were getting ready to take the ice against the Calgary Flames, a giant rat scurried across the floor.
Scott Mellanby, wielding his hockey stick, whacked it into a wall, killing it.
“Needless to say, I was pretty scared and I just reacted,” Mellanby said.
Mellanby went on to score a pair of goals that night as the Panthers beat the Flames, and afterwards, Florida goalie John Vanbiesbrouck dubbed it a ‘rat trick.’
Ever since, fans have been hurling rubber rodents on the ice in act of celebration.
It came with so much fervor during the Panthers’ 1996 run to the Stanley Cup Final, the NHL briefly outlawed rat-throwing, spawning smuggling operations.
Diehard fan Pam Bloom-Pugliese found herself at the center of the rat frenzy.
“When people started throwing the rats after the game, I was trying to find a way to make them...a little cuter,” she said.
Back in ‘96, Local 10 News interviewed her for her work beautifying the creatures.
“I was looking at them thinking how awful they looked and how we needed to make them prettier, so I came home and gave them a feminine touch,” she said.
Soon, all the players that season had a painted rat, as did anyone who asked her.
Bloom-Pugliese’s rats even ended up in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Now, 30 years later, the rat throwing tradition won’t die.
You can find the beloved rodent memorialized in jewelry, toys and as Viktor E. Rat, the sidekick to the team’s mascot, Stanley C. Panther.
As for Bloom-Pugliese, her love of painting keeps on, too.
Like back then, her dining table is her art studio.
The season Mellanby started it all was the year of the rat in the Chinese calendar.
Now, in their third visit to the Stanley Cup Final, perhaps the third time will be the charm.