Thousands of teddy bears flew onto the ice at The Aud on Tuesday night after Cameron Mercer notched the Kitchener Rangers’ first goal in a 5-2 win over the Guelph Storm.
The Rangers held the 28th annual Teddy Bear Toss, an event that sees fans throw new stuffed animals onto the rink after the team scores its first goal of the night.
On Tuesday night, more than 10,000 stuffies were collected, and they will soon be distributed to children in need across the region ahead of the holidays.
Mercer was not actually the game’s first scorer, though, as Max Namestnikov opened the scoring for the visitors just 1:11 into the opening period.
It would be about 11 minutes before Mercer evened the score in front of a sellout crowd of 7,278 fans.
From there, it was pretty much all Kitchener as OHL scoring leader Carson Rehkopf gave the team the advantage with about two-and-a-half minutes to play in the opening frame.
Kyle Morey and Luke Ellinas scored 17 seconds apart early in the second period to blow the game open for the Rangers.
And just a minute later, Mercer netted his second of the game, expanding the Rangers’ lead to 5-1.
Leo Serlin got one back for Guelph with about 11 minutes to play in the third period but that was as close as the Storm would get.
Rangers netminder Jackson Parsons turned aside 23 of the 25 shots he faced to record his OHL-leading 15th win of the season.
At the other end, Brayden Gillespie allowed the first four Rangers goals on 13 shots before being pulled for Damian Slavik.
The latter Guelph goalie let in the final Kitchener goal but also turned aside 12 shots.
The Rangers will return to action on Friday when they play host to the Brantford Bulldogs.
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