I have a very unique 'photo-op' to offer on this first "Throwback Thursday" of February, 2017 (my latest 'sweeps month')...

Last Sunday (January 29th), the annual National Hockey League All-Star Game took place, as ice hockey players from all over the USA and Canada converged for one big blow-out! That game reminded me of the year my local NHL team - the Florida Panthers - made it all the way into the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time (in 1996). At that time, the team played in Miami (before relocating to Sunrise, where they now play at the BB&T Center)...

Back then, one of the players killed a rat that somehow got into the locker room. Word got out about it, and fans began a short-lived tradition of throwing rubber rats on the ice, whenever a Panther scored a goal; and when a single player scores three goals - known as a 'hat trick' - the rink would be covered with the synthetic rodents, as the fans would call our "Rat trick!" (Since then, NHL officials have banned fans from throwing anything onto the ice - including hats, rubber rats, and even calamari!)

But the 'rubber rat' incident didn't end there... Publix - a chain of Florida supermarkets - got on the bandwagon, at play-off time, by having their bakery department make 'rat cakes'! It's a vanilla cake in the shape of a semi-orb, covered in chocolate, with chocolate chip cookies for ears, gumdrops for eyes, and pretzels for whiskers. (BTW, Publix still makes specialty cakes; the semi-orb shape is the same one they use to make vanilla 'football cakes' for this Sunday's Super Bowl game!)

So, during the mid-1990s, I took the opportunity to snap a picture of a rack full of 'rat cakes' at the Publix across the street from my condo complex in Margate... and now, I'd like to share it with you! .