Les Schwab Teddy Bear Toss 2018

The annual Les Schwab Teddy Bear Toss is this Saturday at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Doors will open at 4:30pm.

Limited tickets remain for one of the most popular promotions of the year, Saturday’s Les Schwab Teddy Bear Toss game. Fans bring teddy bears and other stuffed animals to the game and throw them onto the ice when the Winterhawks score their first goal. Players will use some teddy bears while on visits to children’s organizations while others are part of the Les Schwab KPTV Toy Drive, and the remaining bears are given away to local charitable organizations just in time for the holidays.

Tickets can be purchased at winterhawks.com, the Winterhawks’ ticket office inside Veterans Memorial Coliseum, or by calling 503.236.4295. 

Every year, at the team’s Teddy Bear Toss game, fans bring teddy bears or other stuffed animals and after the Hawks’ first goal, throw them onto the ice. That opening goal triggers a flood of fur, with over 10,000 animals getting pitched, tossed and hurled onto the ice.

The reason for this odd event? To brighten the holidays for those in need. All the animals are donated to children’s hospitals and charities, to help bring cheer to families facing difficult circumstances.

The Winterhawks are one of the pioneers of this unique tradition, the first of which in Portland took place in 1998. Now virtually every junior team does it, but the lengthy history of it here in the Rose City gives it a special cachet for Hawks fans.

The goals have come from a wide variety of players in a wide variety of fashions.

The first Teddy Bear goal in 1998 came off the stick of fan favorite Marty Standish. In 2003 current Columbus Blue Jackets forward Brandon Dubinsky got the coveted goal, and two years later did it again to become the first player to do it twice.

Here is a video from last year’s Les Schwab Teddy Bear Toss: https://pdxhwk.us/2FPvqr1