It’s the most wonderful time of the year, gang.

For some, the start of December means making snowmen, hanging stockings, trimming trees, and general holiday merriment. But for hockey fans in the Calgary area, it means something even more fun: the Calgary Hitmen’s annual Teddy Bear Toss game. This year’s game takes place on Sunday at 4 p.m. when they host the Wenatchee Wild.

For the uninitiated, the Teddy Bear Toss is an annual event, held by the Hitmen every year since 1995 (except for 2020) where fans throw stuffed animals onto the ice after the first Hitmen goal that are subsequently collected and distributed to local charities. This year’s edition will be the 30th Teddy Bear Toss hosted by the Hitmen. Through the previous 29 games, roughly 481,000 bears have been thrown by 413,000 fans, with the hockey club having a goal of 30,000 bears donated this season – which would push them comfortably over the half-million mark for stuffed animals cumulatively donated by Calgary fans.

The first toss was on Dec. 16, 1995, a 5-3 win over Saskatoon before 7,905 fans during the Hitmen’s first season. Boris Protsenko scored 18:25 into the first period to tie the game 1-1 and sent 1,323 stuffed animals onto Saddledome ice. The initial event wasn’t heavily promoted and was more of a grassroots event, as several junior teams began holding their own Teddy Bear Tosses following Kamloops originating the concept in 1993.

Tales soon spread of the event’s fun and zany nature and it eventually became “a thing” in the mid-2000s. Over 10,000 bears were donated in 2004, and then they reached 20,000 in 2007. The event has maintained a bear-to-fan ratio north of 1-to-1 since 2007, and they’ve averaged about 1.3 bears per fan during that period. (Pro tip: if you’re attending in a group, bring one more stuffed animal than you have people in your group.)

The fastest Teddy Bear goal in Hitmen history came in 2002, when Rob Smith scored 1:05 into the game. The latest goal came in 2011, when Calder Brooks scored 18:21 into the second period. In theory if the Hitmen don’t score before the end of the second period bears would be thrown during the second intermission, but through 29 games this hasn’t been an issue so far.

Calgary’s biggest Teddy Bear Toss was on Dec. 9, 2018, a 6-3 win over Kamloops before 18,015 fans, with a record-setting 29,635 stuffed animals being chucked. The Hitmen have been embroiled in a Teddy Bear War with the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears since the mid 2010s. We’ll note that Hershey does things a little differently than the Hitmen do – they allow donations in the hours prior to the game by fans that might not necessarily be attending the game, which arguably boosts their numbers somewhat – but they’ve been posting some strong numbers, with a record-setting 102,343 stuffed animals being donated by fans this past January.

The Hitmen are vying to both break their own Teddy Bear Toss record this year and cross the 500,000 mark for cumulative stuffed animals donated and distributed by the event. It should be a fun Sunday at the Saddledome, with many positive impacts for the Calgary community.

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