Activative’s favourite festive sports marketing event – hockey’s annual Teddy Bear Toss – broke all records this year
The treasured holiday tradition in many North American minor league and junior hockey markets, saw two of the event’s most enthusiastic participants – The Calgary Hitmen (of Western Hockey League) and The Hershey Bears (of the American Hockey League) – both aimed to break the stuffed toy toss record.
While the Bears, an affiliate of The Washington Capitals NHL franchise, collected 18,115 stuffed toys from the ice after their Teddy Bear Toss promotion, it was the Hitmen who filled the Saddledome Stadium (which they share with the NHL’s Calgary Flames) with a record breaking 28,815 cuddly toys in its 21st annual Petro-Canada Teddy Bear Toss.
Beating the record they set of 26,919 stuffed toys in 2007.
The goal of this 21-year-old annual good cause event is to get fans to come to the rink with a stuffed toy to donate to local children’s charities.
Many teams offer discounted tickets with the donation and most try and make the act of donation fun by asking fans, after the home team scores their first goal, to start hurling fluffy toys to the ice in an avalanche of flying fur.
On Sunday, when the Hitmen’s Jordy Stollard of the Hitmen scored to tie the score 1-1 in the second period the bear storm erupted.
The Hitmen went on to win the game against The Swift Current Broncos 2-1 (moving Calgary into a three-way tie for first in WHL’s Central Division).
But there is no time for the players to celebrate as the next morning the Hitmen players helped distribute the bears to more than 50 local charities who hand them out to less-fortunate families to give to their kids for Christmas.
Nevertheless, the players clearly love the event,
#WHLHitmen defenceman Keegan Kanzig having a blast at the @petrocanada #TeddyBearToss! #TeddyConfettiYYC pic.twitter.com/ny3iIT3uo7
— Calgary Hitmen (@WHLHitmen) December 7, 2015
as do the fans,
That's not a stuffed animal! That's Farley! @WHLHitmen #TeddyBearToss pic.twitter.com/19BHG0yQ0E
— Alicia Hope-Ross (@poor_choices) December 7, 2015
and the charities too.
It's the most wonderful time of the year! Well done @WHLHitmen! #TeddyBearToss pic.twitter.com/x9DCRdvKzc
— Kids Up FrontCalgary (@KidsUpFrontCalg) December 7, 2015
The Hershey-sponsored Bears also put on an amazing cuddly toy shower.
Indeed, many other teams host a wonderful Teddy Bear Toss game – from 9,678 bears at the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, to the Kingston Frontenacs of the OHL whose fans threw thousands of bears after the fans thought they had scored the first goal of the game only to find the officials reviewing the play and declaring no goal.
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And we at Activative love it too.
There’s something special about a fur storm of bears raining down on a rink during a live game that warms the soul.
The things sports teams and supporters will do for a good cause!
The Hitmen sold out their stadium for the Teddy Bear game – matching the Saddledome’s record crowd for the much bigger and richer Calgary Flames NHL team.
And you don’t have to have been their live to love the event.
The Hitmen’s official YouTube film of the event has racked up 270,499 views in 48 hours.
Links:
WHL Calgary Hitmen YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIOrXwGRZCDpTbpdEgBlntA
WHL Calgary Hitmen:
AHL Hershey Bears:
The Teddy Bear Toss Wikipedia:
