The Teddy Bear Toss is a time honored tradition in the sport of hockey. I’ve seen it in the USHL, the AHL and even the NHL. If you are unfamiliar with a teddy bear toss, hockey teams will designate one game, usually around the holidays, inviting fans to throw teddy bears and various other stuffed animals on to the ice after the home team scores their first goal. The stuffies are collected and then given to children thru a variety of charities.
The Hershey Bears of the AHL, the farm club for the NHL’s Washington Capitols, have a knack for epic teddy bear tosses. In 2018, they broke the word record by collecting 45,650 stuffed animals. This year, they shattered it.
The Bears’ game this past Saturday, January, 22nd, a first period goal sent the stuffed bears flying from all directions. I’ve seen several videos and angles of this toss and to say it’s impressive is selling it short. Fans at Saturday’s game flung bears from the rafters all the way down to the ice. If the bears didn’t sail far enough, wherever they landed, another fan would put the bear in flight until it reached the ice.
So how many bears rained down on the Hershey ice? 52,341. That’s right, over 52 THOUSAND!! Here’s the really crazy part: there was a sold out crowd of 10,514 fans. The math breaks down to 4.98 bears PER PERSON!! There’s even a couple of life size bears that made it into the epic pile of fluff.
This is the 20th year the Hershey Bears have participated in a Teddy Bear Toss and the team confirmed that more than 25 local organizations will be getting deliveries from them. That is going to make for a whole lot of very happy kids.
Hell, just watching all the footage makes this big kid happy.
By the way the Bears went on to defeat the Hartford Wolf Pack 5-0
