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ESPN Daily

The Rat Trick: The Legend of the Florida Panthers’ Rodent Tradition

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.63.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Florida Panthers are at home tonight for Game 2 of their 2nd round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning. And while the Panthers are down 1-0 in the series…Florida’s league-leading offense has reinvigorated their fans for the first time in a generation. They are so excited, in fact, that they have begun throwing rats onto the ice. It’s a hair-raising tradition that dates back to the ‘95-’96 season, when a Cinderella Panthers team made the Stanley Cup Final in just their third year of existence. Emily Kaplan is here to explain how the Panthers rat tradition started, if it may or may not have contributed to the team’s long misfortunes…and the ways in which this generation’s Panthers are trying to write a new ending to their own tale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Emily Kaplan, do you have a hockey nickname? What do they call you?

0:04.0

So, Cloud Look, you're going to go up the formula. I guess I'd be capper. I've heard that at the

0:07.5

rank before. Capsi, that could be it as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ZY is a very classic surname here in

0:16.0

hockey. Yeah. All right. Capsi. So I'm here to talk to you about a reporting trip that you recently

0:23.2

made to a guy that I had no idea about. His guy named Scott Melon B. He's a former NHL player.

0:30.4

The former star of a team that is super relevant now. The Florida Panthers, but he was

0:36.5

relevant in like 96. So why were you there? What did you find? Thank you for telling

0:41.8

yourself that you were not paying attention to hockey in 1996. Less. Yeah. You know,

0:46.3

how to see you wasn't really paying attention. Yeah. Torzy. Torzy. Come on. Let's get

0:49.9

it. Torzy. Yeah. Yeah. Do you share it? So Scott is somebody who has played in the league

0:58.0

for 21 years. He went on to become a hockey executive after that. 95, 96, Florida Panthers,

1:04.9

Stanley Cup finals. Those were really important years to me and my career, and personally.

1:11.4

He's had an incredible career with a ton of accolades, but he's not somebody who keeps a lot

1:16.3

of memorabilia. So we show up in his house and Hudson was constant.

1:22.8

It's a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. And he pretty much has like two

1:28.6

pieces of memorabilia in his entire home. One is this big heavy silver stick that he was awarded

1:33.6

for playing in 1000 NHL games. And the other thing he has is this painting that the NHLPA gave

1:39.7

to him. It's like this mural. And that's it. But then he says I have something else. And it's

1:44.4

hidden deep into his closet. So we go up to his attic in his office. He gets into this closet.

1:50.2

I don't keep a lot of memorabilia to be honest, but this is kind of a neat piece.

1:54.2

You gotta be remembered for something. And I guess this is my place in history, you know.

2:00.4

It's hanging on this top shelf. It's just like kind of just sitting there. And it's this box

...

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