Plush hits the ice for annual teddy bear toss

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

The clock ticked away, and the bears remained just as still and unmoving as the scoreboard.

In hockey, it’s never really a good thing to run into a hot goaltender at the other end of the ice, but that issue is exacerbated when there are approximately 5,200 fans in the building waiting to fill the ice with teddy bears once you’re finally able to find the back of the net.

However, on Dec. 10, the Oshawa Generals struggled to put the puck past Saginaw Spirit netminder Evan Cormier, each failed attempt followed up by a series of moans from the crowd, appearing to make the Gens grip their sticks tighter and tighter.

In the third, veteran Kenny Huether would break through, triggering the cheers and the onslaught of teddy bears, which coated in the ice in mere seconds. The annual event saw 5,605 plush toys fill the ice with each one of them being collected and donated to the Durham Children’s Aid Foundation.

Huether’s goal tied the game for Oshawa after Saginaw was able to beat Kyle Keyser with a bouncing puck in the first period.

Despite the energy gained from the broken stalemate, the Spirit came back strong and jumped ahead 2-1 halfway through the final frame when another puck found its way past Keyser off the skate of an Oshawa Generals defenceman.

The Gens would come close to evening the score once again as Allan McShane would ring one off the post with less than two minutes to go, but the Spirit would put one into the empty net to seal the victory.

The loss was Oshawa’s second in a row and followed on the heels of a 5-0 loss at the hands of the Colts in Barrie the night before. Oshawa defeated the Ottawa 67s 5-3 at the Tribute Communities Centre on Dec. 8.

The loss was a frustrating one for Keyser, who recently returned after missing 12 games with an injury.

“We have the team here, we have every capability of winning night in and night out, we feel that in the room too,” he says. “It’s just getting everyone going on the same page, getting all the pieces going, and when that happens, like I said, we’re going to be a dangerous team.”

The same was said by assistant coach Greg Nemisz.

“Nothing is going to happen until the team buys in to the way we have to play to be successful and right now we’re not doing it,” he said. “We’ve put a lot of work into it, it’s time to just start executing.”

The Oshawa Generals are back in action this weekend when they play a pair of games at the TCC, first against rival Peterborough on Dec. 15, followed by a game against the Guelph Storm on Dec. 17.