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.
The best of SI
Mike McCarthy’s firing was a long time coming in Green Bay. ... The Orange Bowl between Alabama and Oklahoma pits the two top Heisman contenders against each other. ... Celtics guard Terry Rozier got himself in hot water by selling merch featuring the Scream mask.
Around the sports world
Notre Dame is somehow the first non-Nike school to make the College Football Playoff. ... A columnist for the New York Daily Newsvoted for Placido Polanco on his Hall of Fame ballot! ... I agree with this piece about how the CFP dropped the ball on the other two New Year’s Six bowls. ... Shocker: LaVar Ball says he and LeBron don’t talk much.
This is maybe the most emotion Bill Belichick has ever shown
Tom Brady knows what his stats are
One of these plays is the highlight of the season for the Giants
You’ll never see a pass better than this
Perhaps not surprising, considering he’s the guy who did this:
Pure insanity in one of England’s biggest rivalries
Jalen Ramsey walks the walk
The best marching band in the country does it again
Mario Hezonja really did the AI stepover on Giannis after his only bucket of the game
Not sports
The president of Nigeria has been forced to deny that he’s been replaced by a clone. ... The NYPD found a couple’s engagement ring after it fell down through a grate during the proposal. ... Jose Canseco’s daughter, Josie, is now a Victoria’s Secret model. ... A man named Luke Sky Walker was arrested in Tennessee.
One step closer to an Office reunion
Yes, there are commercials for legal weed
A massive undiscovered cave found in Canada
Researchers believe this cave in British Columbia has never before been seen by human eyes, because it was previously covered by snow all year round.
A good song
I was here on Saturday and it was unreal.
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.
