A young Florida Panthers fan wrote the club an adorable fan letter that the team posted to their Instagram account Friday evening.
The letter was posted, after a picstitch edit, and includes some writing and a hapless, childish attempt at drawing the Panthers logo (which is such a hard logo to draw - probably the hardest in the league - and really should be traced for best results).
You can't quite make it out from the above photo unfortunately, but in the letter the young fan writes: "My dad told me about fans throwing rats on the ice."
The fan is referencing the glorious habit that Panthers fans had of littering the ice with plastic rats after the home-side's goals during Florida's Cinderella run to the 1996 Stanley Cup Final:
The "rat trick" fad was inspired by former Panthers forward Scott Mellanby, who - according to lore - killed a rat in the dressing room and thus earned the nickname 'the rat king.' Rats were hurled on the ice in earnest again when the Panthers last made the playoffs in 2012.
Current Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo believes that the club - which has only made the postseason once since the 1999-2000 NHL season - has the talent to contend for the Stanley Cup playoffs this upcoming campaign, so the plastic rat projectiles may have a chance to return in the near future.
Here's hoping.
[H/T /r/hockey]