I’m sure you have a lot of questions.
Let’s answer the first one: Why do the Florida Panthers have a rat mascot? Valid question, and one that actually has a rather fun answer. “Viktor E. Rat” is not the main mascot of the South Florida hockey team. He’s just a co-worker of sorts to the main mascot, “Stanley C. Panther.”
And the origin of the rat mascot is entertaining to say the least. As the story goes, when the Florida Panthers were added to the NHL, they had two consecutive losing seasons to start. They were only able to turn things around in their third season, after one of the players spotted a rat in their locker room and used his hockey stick to slap it against the wall, killing it instantly.
That story got around, and after the team started winning games, fans of the Panthers started throwing plastic rats on the ice after wins, and the rest is history. The hockey team ended up embracing the “rally rat,” and added a second mascot comically named “Viktor E. Rat” during the 2014 season.
Sharing the middle initial of another famous rat (Chuck E. Cheese), Viktor likes to keep things loose and fun during Panthers games. By the looks of this video, which is now going viral, he was having a really good time as a fan… let’s just say “danced” close to him.
Mascots are supposed to stay family friendly, but I think Viktor E. Rat “lost sight of the cheese,” if only for a moment before he got back into hyping up the Florida Panthers fans in the arena.
The way he told her to turn back around… gonna have to start calling him Viktor E. DAWG pretty soon. Just an absolute menace.
Absolutely hilarious.
Like the caption for the video stated, there were a lot of Panther and NHL fans that were unfamiliar with Viktor E. Rat’s game. They made sure to “recognize real” and drop some memes in the replies of the provocative video from the South Florida hockey game:
I got to get to another game
— King Sinco 🤴🏿🇯🇲 (@supersinco1_) April 12, 2024
Excuse Me Viktok, I wasn’t familiar with your game sir Lol 😂🤣
— Kevlar Lombax 🔜FWA (@KevlarLombax) April 12, 2024
— x – Cody Llamas (@XxTeam48LowesXx) April 12, 2024
Just a normal day in South Florida 😂
— PANTHERLAND11 (@Pantherland11) April 12, 2024
— Jimmy Herro Buckets (@DanG239) April 12, 2024
The Florida Panthers are most fun team in all of hockey… can’t tell me otherwise:
