{"id":31468,"date":"2025-12-16T12:04:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T17:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=31468"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T17:04:17","slug":"teddy-bear-toss-sees-3000-plus-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/16\/teddy-bear-toss-sees-3000-plus-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Teddy bear toss sees 3,000-plus collection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 3,250 Teddy Bears and assorted other stuffed critters hit the ice at the Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne Friday night as the Komets hockey team held its 12th&nbsp;annual Teddy Bear Toss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In what&#8217;s become a hugely popular event in Fort Wayne, new and gently used stuffed animals are thrown onto the ice after the Komets score their first goal of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"398\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Teddy-4-5-bags.jpg?resize=640%2C398&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31469\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Teddy-4-5-bags.jpg?w=853&amp;ssl=1 853w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Teddy-4-5-bags.jpg?resize=300%2C186&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Teddy-4-5-bags.jpg?resize=768%2C477&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It didn&#8217;t take long Friday for things to begin flying as Matthew Brown scored on a breakaway just 4:35 into the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A crowd of 7,467 people quickly responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Komets players assisted in rounding up the stuffed animals while the other team, the Kansas City Mavericks, went to the dressing room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"473\" height=\"802\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Teddy-3-flying.jpg?resize=473%2C802&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31470\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Teddy-3-flying.jpg?w=473&amp;ssl=1 473w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Teddy-3-flying.jpg?resize=177%2C300&amp;ssl=1 177w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 473px) 100vw, 473px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>White Teddy (at top) heads for ice. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The \u201cstuffies\u201d were collected by Goodwill and will be donated to those in need throughout the holiday season, including to Lutheran Children&#8217;s Hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The traditional event has become a staple with many hockey teams throughout the U.S. and Canada, having started well more than 10 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Others sports have since joined the charitable event, including basketball, with the tossing of the animals held at halftime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com More than 3,250 Teddy Bears and assorted other stuffed critters hit the ice at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31469,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-31468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-community"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Teddy-4-5-bags.jpg?fit=853%2C530&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31471,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31468\/revisions\/31471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}