Everyone loves the Teddy Bear Toss. The anticipation, the goal, the celebration on the ice as the bears flying over the glass and land on the ice, the ice crew scrambling to collect all the bears as quick as possible, the pile in the corner, and the sight of the volunteers loading them all into the truck afterward. All of which are spectacular moments, but none quite as special as where the bears go afterwards.

The bears are collected by the Salvation Army and then distributed to a number of different avenues.

"One of the things we do as part of our outreach is go to all the senior's homes in Estevan and out of town like Lampman, Carnduff, Oxbow, and Carievale," said Family Services Coordinator Rhonza Reynard. "We visit the seniors at Christmas time, we give them a teddy bear, a calendar, some reading material."

It's something that's been a tradition for a long time, and when the Salvation Army makes the visits to the seniors homes, there's still lots of people who still have their bears from before and cherish them.

That's not the only place they go. A large amount of them is donated to their summer camp.

"We have a mom's and kids camp, so when kids come to camp for that week, some of them need a little taste of home so we give them bears. If somebody comes into our office and are looking for a bear, they can get a bear from us. If someone has been through a tramatic situation like a house fire or some kind of domestic violence situation and they need something to help, we give kids bears for that too."

The bears that come from the Teddy Bear Toss supply the Salvation Army with the bears they need all year long, and with this year totalling somewhere around the 300 mark, it's set to hold them off for another year once again.

The atmosphere at the rink during the Teddy Bear Toss is the part that everyone gets to enjoy, and it's no different for those collecting bears.

"Everybody just supports it. It's a lot of fun. With (Wednesday) night's goal being scored 11 seconds in, some people weren't even in their seats yet and while we were collecting them, people were just dropping them off at our table and even when we were loading them up on the truck, people were dropping them off."

Reynard wanted to thank the Estevan Bruins and the Estevan Air Cadets for their partnership and time to make this such a succesful campaign once again.