The Hershey Bears are a Pennsylvania-based American Hockey League (AHL) team – in fact, the oldest AHL team in the country still playing in their original hometown. Bears fans can trace their team’s history all the way back to the 1938-39 season! No wonder they’re such a loyal fan base.
Around Christmastime, many teams (not just in hockey!) participate in an annual tradition called the “Teddy Bear Toss,” which began in 1993. Most AHL teams and well as Canadian Hockey League (CHL) teams encourage fans to bring new teddy bears to the game and throw them on the ice when the home team scores its first goal.
Then the toys are gathered up and donated to hospitals and other charities for children in need.
(Note: The NHL doesn’t participate in this tradition because it discourages fans from throwing anything on the ice since the arenas are bigger and projectiles are more likely to hit other fans than the ice.)
Over the years the record for the most bears tossed on the ice has been a close race between the Calgary Hitmen (who held the record until 2018) and the Hershey Bears (whose name just screams “bring bears to the game”).
But if you think this is only about teddy bears in Hershey, Pennsylvania, you’re missing half the story. In the past, generous businesses and philanthropists have gotten in on the fun, promising to donate cash for every bear collected.
This gives fans an extra incentive to bring a bag of bears to the game.
According to The Hockey Writers:
“For the 2018 record-setting toss in Hershey, a partner promised to donate 50 cents per bear, while a season ticket holder upped the ante to $1. That means upwards of $50,000 were donated on top of all the animals that were collected.”
Simply awesome.
But nothing beat what happened on December 1, 2019. That’s when the Hershey Bears played the Binghamton Devils at the Giant Center and beat their own record for the most bears ever thrown on the ice for kids in need.
Just 8 minutes into the game, the Bears’ Christian Djoos scored the team’s first goal and down rained 45,650 teddy bears onto the ice!
It broke last year’s record by 10,000 bears.
And it provided an amazing scene as the cushy creatures went flying through the air landing in increasingly enormous piles on the ice.
Large items were even passed down carefully and hauled over the protective barrier so no one got hurt.
All in all, it took a whopping 40 minutes to clean up all the toys.
But no one complained about this delay of game. In fact, fans cheered as players cheerily jumped into piles of the stuffed animals.
The team said the bears will be distributed throughout 40 local charities in the area.
In a video aptly captioned “SWEET CUDDLY MAYHEM” the Bears Tweeted out footage from the game that’s now been watched by over 300,000 people. And we can add that to the hundreds of thousands who have seen it on various YouTube channels.
It was quite a sight to behold – and a generous one at that.
Be sure to scroll down below to see the wild and wonderful scene from this month’s game.
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