Hockey is rough, aggressive, competitive, and strenuous sport. Teddy bears are soft warm, cozy, and sweet stuffed animals.
If you tried to list the similarities between hockey and teddy bears, you probably wouldn’t come up with much at all.
However, hockey and teddy bears have been making the perfect pair for decades.
Many minor and junior hockey teams in United States and Canada have made teddy bears a focus of their team during winter months.
Many hockey teams hold a “teddy bear toss” at one of their games during the holiday season.
Minor and junior hockey teams typically select one game where they encourage anyone attending to bring a teddy bear with them to the game. When the hockey game is finished, win or lose, the fans are encouraged to throw all of the teddy bears over the boards and onto the ice. The teddy bears are collected by the players and coaches and given to a good cause.
The teddy bears collected are donated to children at hospitals, local shelters, or charities in honor of the holiday season.
The teddy bear toss tradition has been going since the early nineties and it is still going throughout North America. Teams manage to collect hundreds to thousands of teddy bears during this event.
Below is a video of the Calgary Hitmen, a major junior ice hockey team out of Canada, receiving 17,601 teddy bears after a win at home.
The teddy bears collected during this even were able to be donate to 60 different local charities.
If you’re going to a teddy bear toss sometime soon, make sure you get your teddy bear from The Zoo Factory.