U.S. hockey fans do it, basketball and soccer fans do it, and even some Britons do — throw teddy bears onto the ice, court, or pitch during a game, to donate to hospitalized kids and others in need of comforting.
Especially in communities where minor and junior hockey are spectator favorites, the Teddy Toss has become a popular annual tradition. At some games, fans have flung hundreds, even thousands, of teddies.
Green Bay Gamblers cavort among bears thrown on ice during Teddy Bear Toss promotion.
Photo: Glenn Sanderson
The Teddy Toss is “by far, the marquee event of the year,” declared Jeff Mitchell, marketing and sales director of the Green Bay Gamblers junior hockey team, which held its eighth annual toss in March 2007. The number of teddies thrown has grown to 5,120 hurled by 6,237 fans, for pediatric care patients in local hospitals. ShopKo donated 1,300 additional teddies, and State Farm Insurance donated 500.
Some sponsors (ShopKo included) and teams in various leagues sell teddy bears for tossing for a moderate $2 to $5. Fans purchasing bears at the door sometimes get a reduced ticket price and, occasionally, early Teddy Toss arrivals get such perks as free parking or a voucher for free pizza, as Pizza Hut gave to the first 3,000 teddy-toting fans at the Gamblers’ toss night. (The Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association gave Santa bobblehead dolls to the first 3,000 fans.) “But it’s just people wanting to do something terrific,” Mitchell emphasized — collect toys around the
Christmas holiday for a good cause.
The Gamblers are one of at least five U.S. Hockey League teams (along with Cedar Rapids, Ohio, Omaha, and Tri-City) that ran a teddy toss last season.
When Tri-City Storm of Kearney, Nebraska, hosted the Gamblers on its own Toss night, fans showing their teddy gained free parking. That night, some bears were distributed courtesy of local State Farm agents, and could also be bought for $2 at participating agents’ offices. Thrown bears were given to the Kearney Volunteer Fire Department for area children.
The custom is for fans to toss teddies after the home team scores its first goal. But some teams have failed to score at all during an entire game — the Florida Everblades were shut out on two of three annual Tosses — so the bears are collected at game’s end.
While the rule is for tossing only after the first goal, a college hockey team — the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs — ended up losing its fourth annual Teddy Toss game in December 2006 after exuberant, unruly fans hurled teddies later in the contest, as well. Most bears were thrown after the first goal, inspiring players to spin and jump through them; one player even demonstrated intricate ice-skating maneuvers. When a second Bulldog goal six minutes later drew some additional teddies, a warning was announced that the team would be penalized if anything else was thrown onto the ice. A third Bulldogs goal drew two more bears, resulting in a two-minute penalty, during which the opposing team, Bemidji, scored its first goal, then later tied the score, eventually winning in overtime.
Although other stuffed animals are often hurled along with the teddy bears, one official speculated that Teddy Bear Toss “rolls off the tongue better than Stuffed Animal Toss.”
The number of teddies and friends heaved at a single game is sometimes staggering. When the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League played the Calgary Flames in December 2006, fans hurled more than 15,400 stuffed toys, a record. Players from both teams delivered them and signed autographs for patients at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. “Kids are pretty pumped when we come into the room. Just smiles, and everybody’s excited,” said Flames’ defenseman Andrew Ference. “It’s good.”
Some teams invite teddies in good condition along with new ones, as did the Kitchener (Ont.) Rangers playing the Mississauga Ice Dogs on its 12th Annual Teddy Bear Charity Night. The event was sponsored by Zellers stores in support of cystic fibrosis and other area charities. Brad Sparks, Kitchener director of marketing and sales, said 43,000 teddy bears have been collected over the past 11 years, and that each year the event gained more awareness and excitement.
(The Teddy Toss tradition reportedly started at Kitchener Ranger games, and has enjoyed great popularity in Western Hockey League cities of Calgary, Alberta, and Portland, Oregon, as well as in cities of other leagues. In 2005, the Portland Winter Hawks sent 21,067 teddies, including corporate donations, to charity. Whether the Teddy Toss idea was an outgrowth of the custom of hurling octopuses — for good luck — by Detroit Red Wings fans is only speculation.)
In its November 2006 contest against the Alaska Aces, fans of the Bakersfield Condors of the East Coast Hockey League threw 5,475 stuffed animals onto the ice, bringing the all-time total to 37,829. It was the eighth annual Teddy Bear Toss, sponsored by 29 Eyewitness News, KERN 1410 AM, and Wells Fargo Bank, and more than 40 volunteers needed 15 minutes to clear the ice. “It’s incredible to see all the bears flying through the air in support of something special,” said Matthew Riley, Condors president. “Every year, the Toss is one of the most anticipated events on the Condors schedule, and the fans are always there for the less-fortunate.” Thirty-two organizations, via United Way, gave the teddies to local youngsters.
Sometimes the teddy-tossers have extra treats. In January 2006, when the Stockton Thunder hosted — and lost to — the Long Beach Ice Dogs, in Stockton’s first Teddy Bear Toss, fans were able to see the actual Stanley Cup, professional hockey’s coveted main trophy, on tour. They threw so many teddies of every description that it required two full-sized pickup trucks to carry the animals away. Among bears heaved onto the ice was an attention-getting four-footer from Andy Coronado, 19, and Leo Agbulos, 17. “I won it last summer at Great America, and I figured I’d bring it here and give it to some kid,” Andy said.
At the Thunders’ second annual Toss in January 2007, in a game against the Condors, thousands of bears were thrown and distributed by the United Way of San Joaquin County.
An extra spin was given a Toss promotion in February 2007, when at a North vs. West boys’ varsity basketball game in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, fans bringing new or “gently used” teddies for tossing had an added incentive: prizes for throwing their stuffed animals closest to center court at halftime. Hosted by the O’Neil National Honor Society, the promotion benefited children in Oshkosh area and other hospitals. Anna Schettle, O’Neil treasurer, said, “Who doesn’t want to put a smile on a child’s face?”
A motorcade, part of the 15th annual Law Enforcement Teddy Bear Drive, transported stuffed toys collected at the sixth annual Teddy Bear Toss of the San Diego Gulls (Western Hockey League) in January 2006. They were given to patients at Children’s Hospital (with a main campus in Kearny Mesa, California, and 15 neighborhood centers).
In December 2006, the University of Vermont men’s hockey team delivered more than 300 teddy bears from the fourth annual Teddy Bear Toss to local charities in Burlington. The Catamounts handed out teddies tossed onto the ice during the second intermission of their game against the USA U-18 team to the children’s hospital at Fletcher Allen Health Care, the Burlington Rehabilitation Center, and the Starr Farm Nursing Home. The event was sponsored by the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, which also donated one bear for each of Vermont’s seven goals that night. Vermont head coach Kevin Sneddon commented that student-athletes visiting members of the community was “a great way to put a smile on a face of someone who may need it.”
The tradition has engaged soccer enthusiasts, too. In September 2006, when the United Soccer Leagues’ Portland Timbers took on the Charleston Battery, fans were invited to throw new teddies onto the pitch at PGE Park after the Timbers’ first goal of the match (or, if Portland didn’t score, after the final whistle) for the patients of Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.
The Toss has even crossed the Atlantic to England. Last March 17, at a hockey game against Coventry Blaze, the Sheffield Steelers had fans throw teddies that were then given to Amy’s House, a specialist nursery for disabled youngsters in Handsworth, and to Sheffield Children’s Hospital.
The list of teams conducting Teddy Tosses for charity goes on and on — many more than space allows.
The bottom line is that these events touch everyone involved, from the sponsoring teams to the teddy-tossers to the grateful recipients ... yet another public service teddies gladly perform.
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Photo courtesy David and Shelly Byerly
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