Teddy bear toss facts for kids
The teddy bear toss is a really fun event that happens during ice hockey games, especially around the Christmas season. It's most common at games for younger players (called junior ice hockey) and smaller professional teams (called minor league hockey). Fans are asked to bring teddy bears or other stuffed toys to the game. When the home team scores its very first goal, everyone throws their toys onto the ice! All these toys are then collected. They are given as presents to children in hospitals and to different charities. Sometimes, the hockey players themselves even visit hospitals to give the bears to kids. The Hershey Bears hockey team holds the world record for collecting the most toys in one game: 52,341 stuffed toys!
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How the Teddy Bear Toss Started
The idea for the teddy bear toss came from the Kamloops Blazers hockey team in 1993. Their marketing director, Don Larson, thought of it. The very first teddy bear toss happened on December 5, 1993. When a player named Brad Lukowich scored a goal, fans threw over 2,400 bears onto the ice! This cool tradition quickly became popular. It spread through the Canadian Hockey League and then all around the world. The main professional league, the National Hockey League, doesn't do it because they don't like things thrown on the ice.
Amazing Teddy Bear Toss Games
In North America
The Calgary Hitmen team in Canada once held a record. On December 6, 2015, they collected 28,815 stuffed toys in one game. Then, on December 3, 2018, they broke their own record with 29,935 toys! By late 2018, this yearly event in Calgary had collected almost 350,000 bears in total.
The Hershey Bears team in the United States has set many records. On December 3, 2017, they collected 25,017 stuffed animals. The next year, on December 2, 2018, they collected even more: 34,798 toys! People in Hershey were so inspired that they even promised to donate money for each toy collected. On December 1, 2019, the Hershey Bears set a new record with 45,650 stuffed toys. Throwing and collecting all those toys stopped the game for 40 minutes! These toys were given to 40 different charities in Pennsylvania. The Hershey Bears then set a new world record on January 22, 2022, by collecting an amazing 52,341 stuffed animals! They didn't have teddy bear toss games in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Around the World
The teddy bear toss also spread to Australia. It happened on June 28, 2014, at the Medibank Icehouse in Melbourne. The Melbourne Ice team collected 306 toys as part of their Canada Day celebrations.
On December 27, 2017, the Luleå HF team brought this tradition to Sweden. They won their game 3–1 against Mora IK. The bears were donated to a hospital in Södra Sunderbyn, a women's charity in Lulea, and other good causes.
Several teams in the Elite Ice Hockey League in the United Kingdom also have an annual "Air the Bear" night. They do this before Christmas to collect toys for local charities and hospitals.
Teddy Bear Toss in Other Sports
The teddy bear toss idea also spread to other sports. It made its first appearance in Italian basketball in 2014.
The Australian soccer team Newcastle Jets had their first teddy bear toss in December 2019.
