HERSHEY, Pa. — The chatter surrounding the Bears’ annual “Teddy Bear Toss” game is always loud. The anticipation grows as the date gets closer, and when doors open on that Sunday afternoon in January, it’s hard to avoid.

Any time Hershey gets into their offensive zone, the “ooh’s” from a crowd of 10,550 strong radiate through the building. In years past, the Bears have been shut out, forcing the sweet cuddly mayhem to wait until postgame.

But not this year.

During Sunday’s game, it took only 2:55 until Louie Belpedio found himself on the blue line, just trying to get a puck towards the net. That puck slipped through the guard of Laurent Brossoit and into the net, bringing the sweet cuddly mayhem to GIANT Center for another year.

“I’ve been here as a visitor and tried to get down the tunnel as quick as I could so I didn’t have to see it, but just seeing how passionate everyone is and the amount of bears thrown, I’ve never been a part of anything like that, so it was pretty cool,” said Belpedio.

This year, it was 81,796 stuffed animals making their way onto the ice, sparking an approximate 45 minute delay on the ice before continuing the remainder of the game.

The near sellout crowd was not particularly pleased with the next two goals, though, as Rockford got on the board and took the lead, late in the first, then early in the second.

Both the equalizer and go-ahead scores for the IceHogs came from Gavin Hayes. First, with 21.7 seconds to go in the first, off the rebound from a shot attempt that bounced off of Ryan Chesley’s stick, back to Hayes and past Clay Stevenson.

30 seconds into the middle period, Hayes found himself in front of Hershey’s goal, receiving a great pass from behind the net from Dominic Toniato on a bang-bang sequence that gave Rockford a lead.

Just over eight minutes later, with 7:43 remaining in period two, Graeme Clarke stamped his mark on the Sunday matinee. His first goal of the day was a wrister to the back-left side of the net, courtesy of a Cam Allen assist.

54 seconds later, before Clarke’s name was even announced on the public address system for the first goal, he was back in action. This time, it was Louie Belpedio with an assist, as well as Smallman with a third assist of the day. The second goal was also Clarke’s 200th professional point.

Clarke also netted an empty-netter with 3:25 remaining. As if there hadn’t been enough ice cleanup throughout Sunday’s elongated game at GIANT Center, hats were tossed onto the ice for Clarke’s first professional hat trick.

“It was kind of a crazy game where it’s record-breaking every year it seems like with the bears,” said Clarke. “But obviously a really cool game and the fans were going crazy, and I thought our line was really good tonight, helped out a lot, the first one on the power play, and then to kind of get a fortunate bounce in front, and then the empty-netter. Just a really good game all-around, and a good weekend for our team. I feel like the second half [of the season] we can keep building off this stuff, and it’s going to be good.”

It didn’t come before a fourth goal eight minutes earlier in the final period, though. The insurance goal came from Ryan Chesley, his fourth of the season. It was a perfect tap-in redirect from Chesley off an Ivan Miroshnichenko shot attempt, playing off a pass from Ilya Protas.

The win caps off a four-point weekend with two big wins for the Bears against Rockford, and completely turns the page from the four-game losing streak they entered the weekend with.

“Win or lose tonight, I think just scoring the first goal and seeing the teddy bear toss would’ve been a victory,” said Head Coach Derek King. “But, we’ll take the two points.”

The next set is another weekend back-to-back, as Hershey will meet with the Cleveland Monsters on January 10 and 11, a battle between two fifth place teams in their respective divisions.