Teddy toss fever: Black Bears win their first game of the season

The Ottawa Black Bears beat the Saskatchewan Rush in an 11-8 lacrosse thriller at the Canadian Tire Centre on Dec. 12 during the Black Bears’ annual teddy bear toss game.

The Black Bears came into the game winless after losing their home opener and first game of the season 16-13 to the San Diego Seals on Nov. 29.

The Saskatchewan Rush started the season off hot with a win against the Calgary Roughnecks 16-13 and looked to continue that momentum in the nation’s capital.

Last year, the Black Bears lost in their only matchup against the Rush.

Ottawa-born-and-raised Sam Firth opened the scoring for the Black Bears from a great behind-the-back feed from Jeff Teat. Balls were not falling in Ottawa’s favour, but the offence was running at high speed and cutting through the middle, leading to opportunities across the floor.

On the defensive end, Zach “Teddy Bear” Higgins was a brick wall, stopping all 12 shots in the quarter, and the defence in front of him was staying structurally sound, playing a wall system.

“To start that first quarter like that, definitely gave everybody some confidence, and we kind of carried that throughout the game,” said Higgins.

Connor Kearnan scored the second goal of the game for the Black Bears and the first goal of the second quarter, which led to fans throwing a rain of teddy bears being onto the floor. The annual teddy bear toss game supports the Salvation Army’s Toy Mountain campaign.

The stuffed animals boosted the Black Bears into scoring their third goal of the game and almost their fourth after Black Bears head coach Dan MacRae challenged the referee’s crease violation call on Firth’s “air gait” attempt for his second goal of the game to put Ottawa ahead by four.

Saskatchewan forward Will Manns decided that he had had enough of seeing the zero on the scoreboard and netted two unanswered goals and an assist to tie the game at three heading into halftime.

The National Lacrosse League originally made a pit stop in Ottawa back in 2001 with the Ottawa Rebels until 2003. After a period of being inactive, the club relocated to Edmonton in 2005. Fast forward to 2025 — that team has now moved around cities and ended up in Saskatchewan.

That sparked a flame in the lacrosse community in Ottawa, which led to Julien Belair, Thomas Kiazyk and Mathias Houlahan dreaming of becoming NLL players. Now the three play in the NLL and play in Canada’s premier university field lacrosse league, the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association. Kiazyk plays for the Carleton Ravens, while Belair and Houlahan play for the Ottawa Gee-Gees.

While it’s Houlahan and Belair’s first appearance in Ottawa for the Rush, they did not suit up for the Rush after the first warm-ups. Kiazyk made his second appearance while manning the door and backing up Frank Scigliano.

The third quarter began with four straight from the Rush jumping out 7-3 lead in just the first five minutes of play. But the Black Bears kept clawing away. Rob Helleyer buried a goal midway through the quarter and Larson Sundown followed with another two and a half minutes later. Manns decided that the run for Ottawa ended there, burying his third goal of the game to extend the Rush’s lead to three goals.

Going into the fourth quarter, the score was 8-5 for the Rush.

The fourth quarter opened with the Black Bears on the power play and Teat capitalized on the man-up opportunity. Three minutes later, Teat added another goal to the stat sheet, cutting the lead to just one goal. Teat wasn’t done there, scoring his third straight goal in five minutes to tie the game up at eight.

A great passing play finished by Larson Sundown boosted the lead by one for the Black Bears with just eight minutes remaining. Helleyer tried to extend the lead by two, but after a challenge flag was thrown by Rush head coach Jimmy Quinlan, the goal was overturned.

Teat went on to score his fourth and final goal of the game, to achieve his 500th point in the NLL. He finished the game with four goals and five assists, tallying nine points on the night. Helleyer sealed the deal for the Black Bears scoring the 11th goal of the game to secure his hat-trick, making the score 11-8 which ended up being the final score of the ball game.

“I’ll get a lot of credit for it, but I’ve been playing with a good chunk of these guys for five years now,” said Teat, talking about how he gets the credit but his offensive line mates like Sundown, Helleyer and Reilley O’Connor do all the dirty work for him.

With the game out of reach for the Rush, they decided that fighting was their way of leaving a mark on Ottawa. In the final two minutes of play, there were 50 minutes of penalty minutes assessed, with 38 of those minutes going to the Rush.

“We want to be smart number one, but protect ourselves and protect our teammates. We’re not trying to go out there and jump anybody and if that happens to one of our guys, I just want to make sure that everybody’s sticking up for the guy that’s on the ground. And I thought that that’s exactly what happened,” said MacRae.

The Black Bears hit the road for their next game on Dec. 20 against the Las Vegas Desert Dogs.