ALMOST TEDDY TIME: FUN FACTS FOR THE FUZZY FRENZY

By Mark Binetti, Senior Director of Communications & Team Services/Broadcaster

As a broadcaster of 12 years in hockey and college sports, I don’t shy away from telling fans and staff that I have the best seat in the house on a nightly basis for any of the events I’m at. For milestone moments for players, packed sellout crowds, specialty/promotional theme nights, and more, I watch everything unfold from up top and appreciate the view of fans all coming together for a variety of causes and rivalry clashes under one roof.

This view adds a perpetual appreciation for my absolute most favorite night of the promotional calendar: The Teddy Bear Toss. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a player score the “Teddy Bear Goal” and absolutely lose their mind as they celebrate amidst a fluffy frenzy of stuffed pandemonium. It’s the one goal out of the year where, no matter where the team is in the standings or what the score is at that point in the game, EVERYONE is overflowing with excitement. In all my years doing this, there’s nothing like it. When working for Spire Sports + Entertainment two years ago, I got the chance to be ice level for it and help clean up stuffed animals in the aftermath of the goal, the only time in my career. It was absolutely something I'll never forget, both watching the bears come flying from the crowd and also getting hit in the head with a few too (be careful if you're helping in the Teddy Bear cleanup!).

Our organization is excited to give back to the Greenville community, with stuffed animals from this game going to multiple organizations during this holiday season, including Carolina Family Services, Fire Pit Ranch, Salvation Army, Boys and Girls Club, Miracle Hill Ministries, Beauty Marks for Girls, Project Hope Foundation, Happy Wheels, LEO Santa, and YouthBASE. Our organization always prides itself on being a community partner and not just a hockey team, so its safe to say this game means more to all of us.

Much to the amusement tolerance of my co-workers, I tend to go down statistical and historical rabbit holes (see what I did there?) of random numbers and trends in a pursuit of knowledge to present on a nightly basis for my broadcasts and our games. With my favorite game of the season looming on Saturday, I researched the history of the Teddy Bear Toss over the previous 14 seasons of Swamp Rabbits/Road Warriors hockey and found some pretty wild numbers when it comes to the holiday favorite.

Before we dive into the fun numbers of this game in the Upstate, one question I’m constantly asked is “where did the Teddy Bear Toss originate?”. The answer is slightly vague, but no matter where I looked or what research I did, it seems that the consensus is the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League in the major-junior ranks are credited with the first Teddy Bear Toss game. Don Larson, the marketing director of the team, concocted the idea and brought it to life on December 5, 1993. Brad Lukowich, eventual two-time Stanley Cup Champion and 16-year professional, scored the very first “Teddy Bear Goal”, which prompted the tossing of roughly 2,400 bears as a result of his ignition of the goal lamp. Since then, the game has taken flight (and so have the stuffed animals) throughout the minor-professional, major-junior, collegiate, and even high school levels of hockey. The Hershey Bears dominate the headlines with almost 75,000 a season in the last few years in the American Hockey League, and even other sports have started to incorporate the fluffy madness into their spaces: there’s a soccer team in Poland, Jagiellonia Białystok, that claims to have had *109,407* bears donated during a match on October 1, 2023.

With that, let’s hop down the rabbit hole of our Teddy Bear Toss History:

YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR FIRST

The beginning of Swamp Rabbits Teddy Bear Toss history goes back to the return of hockey to Greenville when the team was previously named the Road Warriors. Even more of a throwback, their very first opponent in the game was the adversary they face in this year’s game, the Gladiators, but under their previous representation of Gwinnett and not Atlanta. 

December 17, 2010, will probably, in my estimation, go down as one of the more unique Teddy Bear Tosses in the existence of the game, strictly on the nature and the timing of the goal. Both teams failed to score throughout 60 minutes of regulation, prompting a then-five minute overtime period of four-on-four hockey (three-on-three wasn’t made the norm until 2015 and seven minute periods didn’t come around until 2019). Unique timing for the goal? Check.

Then came the overtime period. With 2:13 left in overtime, Mark Voakes got hauled down from behind on a clear breakaway to the net and was awarded a penalty shot. Keep in mind at this part of the story that the bears hadn’t been tossed yet, which is a gutsy call. Nowadays, teams have contingency plans should the team not score throughout the game, like a third period media stoppage, or the end of regulation, but according to a past press release, bears weren’t thrown until this moment. Voakes, who had previously missed on a penalty shot earlier in the season, made no mistake and went back-hand five-hole on Billy Sauer to win it 1-0 for Greenville and trigger a shower of Teddy Bears from the fans packing the then-named BI-LO Center. Interesting nature of the goal? Check.

I sincerely doubt that scenario has been, or will ever be, recreated for the rest of existence. 

While we’re on the topic of the nature of the goal…

JUST LIKE THE STUFFED ANIMALS, THE GOALS COME IN DIFFERENT SIZES

Goals are scored in a variety of ways and situations, and this game is no different. Looking at the numbers, there’s a really good chance this goal is scored in five-on-five hockey. Over the last 13 goal scorers in 14 seasons of this game (I’ll explain the discrepancy later), 10 of them scored in even strength hockey. Only once was there a penalty shot (see above), as well as a power play goal (Marc-Olivier Vallerand on December 16, 2011 vs Florida) and a shorthanded tally (Shawn O’Donnell on December 5, 2014 vs Orlando). For what its worth too, none of the even strength goals were scored in four-on-four hockey. Twice has the goal been the game-winner: the Swamp Rabbits shut out their opposition in the first two editions of this game, blanking the Gladiators 1-0 in 2010 and the Florida Everblades 3-0 the next season.

THERE’S NO FLUFF IN THIS DOUBLY PADDED STAT

Has the goal been scored more than once by the same player? This is an awesome question, and yes, only one player has scored the goal more than once. Fittingly enough, it’s the franchise’s all-time leading scorer, Marc-Olivier Vallerand. 

I consider this feat incredibly impressive for a number of reasons. The first reason is very obvious to point out: you need to be on the team. Now that you’re finished facepalming reading the most basic fact, remember the ever-changing nature of the ECHL. You have to be retained by the team year after year in a league that operates on one-year contracts, or assigned by whatever AHL team or affiliate holds your rights, and, most importantly, you have to be healthy. With how rosters fluctuate with affiliates and how some coaches in this league live by the “wheel and deal” mentality of playing musical chairs with the roster amid trades and other transactions, there’s no guarantee you’re in the lineup the next year, let alone for this one specific game. Then you add in the fact that on the same specialty game in different seasons (in Vallerand’s case, he scored the “Teddy Bear Goal” twice in three seasons in 2011 against Florida and 2013 against Orlando), you have to score the first goal of the game? The probability of actually pulling this off seems astronomical. To add context to this, 190 different players have played in the Teddy Bear Toss all time since 2010 and only 11 have played in three or more. Of those 11, eight have appeared in consecutive years, with Vallerand, Chad Duchesne, and former Captain Sean Berkstresser playing in four consecutive years. 

One other note about multiples on the Teddy Bear Goal: only one player has ever factored in on the goal in two consecutive seasons. Travis Howe assisted Chris Izmirlian’s snuggly strike on December 14, 2018, then actually scored the goal itself the next season on December 15, 2019.

Chris Izmirlian, 2019

BLANK STARES WITH THE BEARS

Remember when I mentioned I’d address the scoring discrepancy of 13 goals in 14 previous seasons? That’s because the unthinkable happened in 2015.

The newly named Swamp Rabbits were shut out by the Norfolk Admirals on December 5^th, 3-0 the final score in a game where future Swamp Rabbits net-minder Ty Rimmer stoned all 30 shots he faced. 

Because this can unfortunately happen, team’s front offices have contingencies for a toss during the game during a specific media timeout, or after the game should the home side not get on the board. Personally, I’ve witnessed two shutouts in this game in my career, both during my tenure with our sister organization, the Rapid City Rush. One was in my first year in 2013 against the Quad City Mallards where a false alarm on a goal triggered the Teddy Bear shower prematurely (then karma set in and the team didn’t score at all after that), and the other one was in 2019 where we had to toss at the final timeout of the third period in a 3-0 defeat to the Utah Grizzlies, snapping a franchise record nine-game home winning streak.

False alarms in this game are killers, especially if a goal gets waved off for goalie interference or other circumstances, because the moment you wait for all year is lost and can’t be redone. That happened already in the ECHL this season to the Florida Everblades a week ago, so here’s hoping the Swamp Rabbits score early and make it count. Speaking of which…

FLYING WITH SPEED OF STUFFED FURY

What’s the fastest goal ever scored in our Teddy Bear Toss? Rewind the clock to last season, where fans were treated to the fastest “Teddy Bear Goal” in Road Warriors/Swamp Rabbits history with Anthony Beauchamp scoring a blistering 108 seconds into the game against South Carolina, assisted solely by Bobby Russell. Beauchamp’s 1:48 beat the previous record set by Travis Howe in 2019, who scored 2:05 into the game against the Orlando Solar Bears in what ended up being a 6-2 Swamp Rabbits win. (Fun fact about 2019: Bryce Brodzinski’s brother, Michael, scored for Orlando in that contest. He spent four seasons with our South Division rival as part of a seven-year career).

Anthony Beauchamp, 2023

While we’re talking about speed of the goal, make sure you’re in your seats for puck drop, because more often than not, the Swamp Rabbits score the goal EARLY. Eight of the 13 “Teddy Bear Goals” have come in the first 20 minutes of the game, with five of them scored in the first 10 minutes of action. Four have come in “El Segundo” (shoutout to my partner, Matt Caldwell for his nickname of the second period), and the very first goal came in overtime back in 2010. Not once have the Swamp Rabbits triggered the fluffy frenzy in the third period. The latest regulation score of the “Teddy Bear Goal” was 9:07 of the second period on December 14, 2018, when Chris Izmirlian tied the game at 1-1 against the Florida Everblades in a 4-2 defeat.

GOALS/POINTS BY POSITION

Anthony Beauchamp was the most recent forward to add his name to the list of “Teddy Bear Goal” scorers, totaling nine over the course of the last 13 players to do it, meaning the remaining four have come from blueliners. Corbin Baldwin (2021) and Justin Hamonic (2022) are the only defensemen to score the “Teddy Bear Goal” in back-to-back seasons. The first to ever do it, however, was T.J. Reynolds, who killed two birds with one stone (or one puck, really) by becoming both the first defenseman and the only Captain to score the coveted holiday marker.

Forwards factor HEAVILY on this goal all-time. In addition to nine forwards scoring the goal, 17 others have assisted the tally for 26 total points. Complimenting four blueliners scoring are another four that assisted for eight points off the back-end. All-in-all, 34 points have been collected (in addition to Teddy Bears) by 32 different players.

Justin Hamonic, 2022

HOW MUCH DOES THIS GOAL MEAN?

Almost any player that scores the “Teddy Bear Goal” will tell you that it’s an immense honor, not just for the moment of stuffed animals raining from all directions, but for what this goal means to the community in giving back to other during the holiday season. Statistically, there’s also a story to tell here.

For the longtime fans reading this, you know how hard it is to score ONE goal at all in professional hockey, let alone this one. This puts the accomplishment in perspective.

On four different occasions, the “Teddy Bear Goal” was the player’s first of the season (talk about a way to open your goalscoring ledger, eh?). For two of those four, it was the ONLY goal they scored that season. T.J. Reynolds (2012) and Justin Hamonic (2022) had more than one goal to their name in their respective campaigns, but Chad Duchesne (2016) and Corbin Baldwin (2021) notched their goals in that one shining moment during their respective years. Duchesne’s tally, however, will probably go down as the most special of his career for the main reason that it was his first goal as a professional hockey player. The Teddy Bear Toss on December 2, 2016, against South Carolina was just his sixth professional appearance, with that goal marking his first professional point to boot. 

HEAD-TO-HEAD

Over the last 14 seasons, the Swamp Rabbits have played seven different opponents in the Teddy Bear Toss. Three teams have only been their Teddy Bear Toss adversary once: the Toledo Walleye (2021, 3-2 OTL), the former Manchester Monarchs (2017, 4-3 W), and the Norfolk Admirals (2015, 3-0 L) are the only one-off matchups thus far. The Swamp Rabbits have played the Stingrays four times, the Solar Bears three, and the Gladiators and Everblades twice each. Saturday’s showdown against Atlanta is their first meeting since December 7, 2012, which was a 5-4 shootout loss. The Swamp Rabbits sport a 7-5-1-1 record in their previous 14 editions of this holiday favorite.

I appreciate the indulgence of the research, and, on behalf of our entire staff with the Swamp Rabbits, cannot wait to share this game with all of you on Saturday. We have a lofty goal of 10,000 bears to hit, and we need you all to come to Bon Secours Wellness Arena armed with holiday cheer and your stuffed animal. Thank you, Greenville, for your generosity during this holiday season, past present, and years to come.

ALL-TIME TEDDY BEAR GOAL SCORERS

• December 17, 2010, vs Gwinnett Gladiators: Mark Voakes (Penalty Shot at 2:47 OT; 1-0 W)
  • Only goal to be scored both in OT and on a penalty shot
• December 16, 2011, vs Florida Everblades: Marc-Olivier Vallerand (PPG at 12:46 1^st; 3-0 W)
  • Assisted by Tim Crowder, Justin Bowers
• December 7, 2012, vs Gwinnett Gladiators: T.J. Reynolds (7:31 2^nd, 5-4 SOL)
  • Assisted by Jeremie Gouchie, Jason Wilson
  • First defenseman and only Captain to score the goal
• December 13, 2013, vs Orlando Solar Bears: Marc-Olivier Vallerand (4:19 1^st; 5-4 L)
  • Assisted by Jordie Johnston
  • Only player to score the goal twice
• December 5, 2014, vs Orlando Solar Bears: Shawn O’Donnell (SHG at 5:02 1^st; 7-2 W)
  • Assisted by Tyler Brown, Andrew Himelson (1^st Point of Season)
• December 5, 2015, vs Norfolk Admirals: No Scorer (3-0 L)
• December 2, 2016, vs South Carolina Stingrays: Chad Duchesne (6:03 2^nd; 5-4 W)
  • Assisted by Angelo Miceli, Bretton Cameron
  • First professional goal and only goal of season
• December 15, 2017, vs Manchester Monarchs: Allan McPherson (5:14 2^nd; 4-3 W)
  • Assisted by Branden Troock
• December 14, 2018, vs Florida Everblades: Chris Izmirlian (9:07 2^nd; 4-2 L)
  • Assisted by Travis Howe, Stephen Pierog
• December 15, 2019 vs Orlando Solar Bears: Travis Howe (2:05 1^st; 6-1 W)
  • Assisted by Adam Rockwood, Brien Diffley
  • Only player to factor on the goal in back-to-back seasons
• April 3, 2021, vs South Carolina: Anthony Rinaldi (3:04 1^st; 4-3 L)
  • Assisted by Jake Massie, Max Zimmer
  • Referred to as “Bunny Toss”; only game played outside of December due to Covid-19
• December 18, 2021, vs Toledo Walleye: Corbin Baldwin (14:22 1^st; 3-2 OTL)
  • Assisted by Frédéric Létourneau, Liam Pecoraro
  • Only goal of season
• December 10, 2022, vs South Carolina Stingrays: Justin Hamonic (15:20 1^st; 3-1 W)
  • Assisted by Brannon McManus, Alex Ierullo
• December 2, 2023, vs South Carolina Stingrays: Anthony Beauchamp (1:48 1^st; 8-5 L)
  • Assisted by Bobby Russell
  • Fastest goal in Swamp Rabbits/Road Warriors Teddy Bear Toss history

###

About the Greenville Swamp Rabbits …
Acquired by Spire Sports + Entertainment (SS+E) in 2020, the Greenville Swamp Rabbits hockey team have been providing family friendly, live entertainment at Bon Secours Wellness Arena since 2010. Formerly the Greenville Road Warriors, the Swamp Rabbits are the highest-level professional minor league franchise in South Carolina. The Swamp Rabbits are the proud ECHL affiliate of the NHL's LA Kings and the AHL's Ontario Reign. Greenville is a member of the ECHL, Premier ‘AA’ Hockey League.