A few members of the Brian Joseph Studios team enjoyed an evening at Germain arena last night attending a Florida Everblades game. Apart from the hockey, there was another special event planned for the evening.
The Florida Everblades organization teamed up with “Toys for Tots” and asked everyone coming to the game to bring a stuffed toy animal to donate to the “Toys for Tots” charity. The plan was for everyone to throw their toy animals onto the ice when the Everblades scored their first goal. Unfortunately, as the end of the 2nd period was nearing, the Everblades were still without a goal, even though they came very close several times.
With about just over a minute left in the second period, it looked like the Everblades had scored, but the puck hit the post and flew across the goal mouth. Several fans in the crowd thought a goal was scored, and started to throw their toys onto the ice. The announcer amusingly instructed everyone “Do not throw your toys yet! They did not score a goal” as hundreds of stuffed toys began to flood the ice. The crowd didn’t take his request to heart, and the onslaught of flying stuffed animals continued, and lasted for at least 20 minutes.
Here is a short video we captured of the flying stuffed toys
The Florida Everblades players helped volunteers on the ice to collect all of the toys, and play resumed once the ice was clear. It was quite a wonderful sight to see so many people in the Southwest Florida community helping out “Toys for Tots” and the number of stuffed animals donated by the crowd was incredible.