SI

Monday’s Hot Clicks: Hershey Bears Shatter Teddy Bear Toss Record With 34,798

It was a literal sea of teddy bears. 

Dan Gartland

Monday’s Hot Clicks: Hershey Bears Shatter Teddy Bear Toss Record With 34,798
Monday’s Hot Clicks: Hershey Bears Shatter Teddy Bear Toss Record With 34,798 /

It was a literal sea of teddy bears

One of the finest traditions in minor league hockey is the teddy bear toss, when fans bring stuffed animals to donate to charity and wait until the home team’s first goal before raining them down onto the ice. Sunday night’s Hershey Bears game set a new record for donations with 34,798 stuffed animals hitting the ice after a first-period goal. 

The WHL’s Calgary Hitmen set the previous record with 28,815 toys on the ice as part of its annual teddy bear toss game. There were 19,289 fans at that game (the team’s first sellout ever) so fans threw about 1 1/2 stuffed animals on average. In Hershey, though, there were only 10,046 in attendance, which works out to nearly 3 1/2 teddy bears per fan.

(Bears blog Chocolate Hockey also has a great photo gallery of the players soaking in the moment.)

The Bears say the bears will be donated to 30 different local organizations for distribution to needy kids. In addition to the toys, the night also produced tens of thousands of dollars in monetary donations. Pennsylvania charity CommunityAid had pledged to donate 50 cents per stuffed animal thrown (up to $15,000) and an anonymous season ticket holder pledged $1 per stuffed animal. 

Alabama gets no respect (from Nick Saban)

Here’s what Nick Saban’s top 5 looked like in the final coaches’ poll of the season:

1. Clemson

2. Alabama

3. Notre Dame

4. Oklahoma

It’s fun to imagine Saban sitting in his office on Sunday morning, stewing over his team’s close win over Georgia and refusing to acknowledge his team’s previous 12 blowout wins. 

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Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.

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Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).

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