No one does the Teddy Bear Toss like the Washington Capitals' AHL-affiliate Hershey Bears.

The Bears took to the ice for an afternoon match against the Rockford Ice Hogs on Sunday. Less than three minutes into the game, Hershey defenseman Louie Belpedio threw a seeing-eye puck past Rockford goalie Laurent Brossoit, giving the Bears an early lead and triggering a blizzard of stuffed animals to fall to the ice.

After the players were done enjoying the mayhem, diving into giant piles of stuffed toys, and taking pictures with some of the toys that fans threw to the ice, volunteers and staff cleaned up the 81,796 stuffed animals and carted them from the ice so that the game could resume.

While the nearly 82,000 toys does not match the record set at last year's toss (102,343), it adds to the monstrous 648,246 toys that the organization has collected since their first event back in 2001. All of the toys are donated to a variety of charities through the Hershey Bears Cares program. 

As the game resumed, stuffed animals would not be the only thing to fly onto the ice, as Graeme Clarke notched a hat trick (plus an assist), and Spencer Smallman recorded three assists in a 5-2 Hershey victory. This win came less than 24 hours after Hershey defeated the Ice Hogs by a score of 5-4. 

Starting the new year off on a winning note pushed Hershey to a 16-14-1 record with 33 points- good for 5th place in the Atlantic Division, and improved their record to 4-6-0 in their last 10 games. 

Hershey is a team in a transition period after the departure and call-up of numerous key players from the past couple of seasons, as well as new arrivals (including Head Coach Derek King). 

The Bears continue their 2025-26 season on January 10th, starting a weekend set with the Cleveland Monsters.