Happy National Teddy Bear Day!
It’s the perfect occasion to kick off our 2nd Annual Teddy Bear Toss Competition for the upcoming season. As teams reveal their promotional calendars, it’s important that we take a moment to highlight the Teddy Bear Toss, which holds a cherished significance for many fans.
Last season, Inside the Rink covered the history of the Teddy Bear Toss event in the AHL and ECHL hockey leagues. We later provided a comprehensive recap of the ECHL outcomes from this event and shared our selections for the ECHL’s Top Three Stars for the 2023-24 season. This year will mark our second season of covering the widely popular event.
The leading three ECHL teams proactively invited their fans to bring stuffed animals over the course of the weeks prior to the event, often through various social media platforms. Fans themselves also took to the challenge, posting about their team’s events and putting the call out for stuffed animals and encouraging friends and family to attend the event itself. The event’s success is not solely reliant on the teams’ overall attendance, however. It seems that supporters from all three teams frequently donated multiple items, underscoring the event’s popularity among their fanbase. The top two teams in the ECHL were a mere 525 stuffed animals apart from each other in our overall standings.
ECHL 2023-24 Results*:
- Jacksonville Icemen – 14,762 Stuffed Animals
- South Carolina Stingrays – 14,237 Stuffed Animals
- Atlanta Gladiators – 13,624 Stuffed Animals
*of teams that had reported their numbers online at the time of publication
AHL 2023-24 Results:
Although we did not monitor the overall league standings last season for the AHL in this event, the Hershey Bears have proudly secured their own title. The team established a new AHL record last season by collecting 74,599 stuffed toys during their event on January 11, 2024, surpassing their previous year’s record of 67,309. As the stuffed animals tumbled onto the ice, creating large piles of cuddly delight, several Bears players happily dove into the piles of soft toys. The team reported that over 130 volunteers worked tirelessly to count and bag the stuffed animals. we posted a link to their Facebook video below.
Hersey Bears FB Video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=387926203795123
Why Cover One Specific Event?
The Teddy Bear Toss not only draws a large crowd for many venues but also provides support to various local charities within the regions of the participating teams. A variety of stuffed animals were generously donated to several non-profit organizations, such as The Salvation Army, Lowcountry Orphan Relief, Jean’s Angels, Children’s Hospital of Atlanta, Ronald McDonald House, and Toys for Tots, with many of these donations being distributed prior to the holiday season or shorty thereafter. It is our hope that by shining a spotlight on this event, Inside the Rink can offer additional media coverage and support, while also fostering participation and a friendly competition across the leagues. This initiative blends our passion for hockey with the spirit of giving back to our community.
Make sure to check out your favorite team’s promotional schedule and get ready to toss those bears!
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