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It was raining bears.
It never rains bears in Latvia.
?It feels great,? said Edgars Kulda, the 18-year-old rookie Edmonton Oil Kings who made it rain.
?That was one of the best things I?ve felt in my life,? added the kid who scored the first goal of the game to bring on 10,835 bears from above at the sixth annual Teddy Bear Toss at 2:00 of the first period before 12,575 fans, the largest crowd of the season and the most to ever watch a major junior game against Calgary in the building.
?I?m sure nothing like that has ever happened in Latvia. Some of the bears bounced off my head. That felt great, too. I?ve never seen anything like that. It was a great, great experience for me,? raved the left winger from Riga.
Can you imagine a kid from Latvia not only seeing that, not only experiencing that on the ice, but being responsible for that?
Talk about something being totally foreign.
Heck, it was totally foreign to your correspondent.
Along with 13-year-old grandson James, we arranged to have the worst seats in the house for the hockey game between the Calgary Hitmen and the Oil Kings.
Section 119. Row 3. Seats 21-22.
That?s on the glass right behind the Calgary bench.
More bears bounced off my head than bounced off Kulda?s noggin. And he had a helmet.
It might have been a lousy seat to watch a hockey game. But it was the best seat in the house to experience a Teddy Bear Toss.
It was also a foreign experience for most of the fans in the stands who gave the Oil Kings their largest crowd of the season and their largest ever crowd for a game against Calgary.
The fur finally flew in Edmonton!
Brett Breitkreuz, Michael Burns, Lane Webowski and Mitch Moroz had scored the first goal of games in the first five editions (you?re right, that?s four ? in 2010 the last place Kings were shutout in the game). But even those guys hadn?t experienced something like Kulda did as the bears rained down.
Edmonton finally became part of it this year with a little help from sponsors Dodge, Shaw and Global, who seeded some of the seats with a few donated bears of their own to give everyone extra ammunition.
The fuzzy, furry bears and other stuffed animals made the trip from Rexall Place to Santa?s Anonymous. The others will be bound for hospitals around Northern Alberta between now and the next time the relatively young Christmas tradition, which has totally taken off in the Western Hockey League, comes to town.
It wasn?t the 21,463 bears 16,921 Calgary fans tossed on the ice last Sunday or the world-record 26,919 bears a Calgary crowd of 18,105 produced in 2008.
No matter how you score it, the bear facts are that there were 10,835 bears in the air and 12,575 fans in the stands and that makes Edmonton a Teddy Bear Toss player of some stature, finally.
In the first five years the Oil Kings have been doing this there had been a mere 15,764. Total! That?s an average of 3,149 per bear toss.
Going into the game the Oil Kings had averaged 6,283 fans per game through 17 games. (They drew 5,273 on the 18th last year.) That represented an increase of 1,277 fans per game. That was good for the league?s largest jump in attendance at 25.5% with Kamloops second at 20% and Saskatoon as Memorial Cup host city sitting third up 16%.
This night all those fans were introduced to young Mr. Kulda, who is a pretty good story without having launched the first great bear flyover here.
?I didn?t think twice about coming to Edmonton. I know Kristians Pelss,? he said of the Latvian trailblazer to the team who is an Oilers draft choice, former Oil King and now an Oklahoma City Baron.
?I came because the WHL is the best junior league in the world and it?s a great team that picked me,? he said.
He could have had a better bear celebration, but it?s hard to do one with so many bears covering the ice.
?The other guys on the team were talking about what kind of celebration they?d do if they scored the goal,? said Kulda.
?I didn?t say anything. I wasn?t thinking it would be me who scored it. All I could think of doing when I did was twirling my stick around.
?I just tried to get my best shot away,? he said of the picking up a loose puck in the slot, waiting out Calgary netminder Chris Driedger and roofing it.
?All these teddy bears! What a great Christmas present!? said Kulda as I conducted an interview in the walkway behind the bench while an entire fleet of red Dodge trucks was loaded with the crash-landing bruins from above.
Indeed, the bears Kulda brought on will make great Christmas presents for so many.
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