Tons of Teddy Bears Hit the Ice At Hockey Game

If you are a hockey fan then you are aware of some of the tradition that goes with throwing things onto the ice. For instance, when a player scores three goals in a game it is called a "hat trick" and the crowd responds by throwing their hats onto the ice. Here is a new tradition started by the Calgary Hitman that is much more cuddly.

For almost 20 years the tradition in Calgary in this WHL francise, has been to throw teddy bears onto the ice when the team scores their first goal of the year. The teddy bears are then given to needy children.

What a surprise it was for Paylo Padakin to see the barrage of bears. He happened to score the first goal that instigated the teddy bear toss.

"I didn’t think it was like this ... not emotional, I thought maybe a couple bears, but when they started to fall down, I said, ‘Oh my god, what do I need to do?’ I couldn’t skate to the bench because all the ice was (covered) in bears."

More than 21,000 bears hit the ice on opening night and more than 200,000 have been collected since the inception of the promotion. .