Plastic rats and playoff beards: Superstitious behaviours in hockey fans and players increase during the playoffs

By Terry Eddy, Associate Professor, Sport Management, University of Windsor

As the Toronto Maple Leafs recently limped to a third straight defeat to the Florida Panthers, Leafs fans experienced the dreaded rat trick. In this ritual, Panthers fans throw plastic rats onto the ice to summon the energy of past, unexpected successes.

A group of extraterrestrials watching this event might be puzzled to see hundreds of otherwise normal people hurling mass-produced rodents at a few dozen tired men with unkempt facial hair. If, as sport fans,…

Read complete article

~	Indonesia’s BRICS agenda: 2 reasons Prabowo’s foreign policy contrasts with Jokowi’s

~	Rising Voices: Listening to the world on its own terms

~	Moldova has introduced a state of emergency in the energy sector

~	Syria: Rights investigators call for protection of evidence, including mass grave sites

~	Brazil Bans X from Using Children to Power Its AI

~	El Salvador: A thousand days into the state of emergency. “Security” at the expense of human rights.

~	Prince Andrew and the British establishment’s ‘target-rich environment’ for spies

~	Times journalists deemed ‘legitimate military targets’ – how Russia muzzles criticism at home and abroad

~	Climate, migration and conflict mix to create ‘deadly’ intense tropical storms like Chido

~	What the colour of your snot says about your immune health