Cougars' Curtis already has the bear necessities

Josh Curtis is confident he and his Prince George Cougar teammates won't have to drop the gloves to bring out the bears.

All they have to do is score against the Victoria Royals in their Sunday matinee Teddy Bear Toss game at CN Centre (2 p.m. start). That's all it will take to get the fur flying from the near-capacity crowd expected.

"There's always pressure to score in the Teddy Bear Toss game and it doesn't usually happen in the first period," said Curtis. "The opposing team always wants to shut the home team out and on the other side of things, the home team wants to score. You just have to stick with it and have your A-game."

The 19-year-old right winger was the instigator last year when he scored the goal that gave Cougar fans a reason to litter the ice with stuffed critters, gloves, mitts and other winter wear in the annual Salvation Army charity event. Curtis's first of two goals in the game came 6:22 into the second period to break a scoreless deadlock in what turned out a 6-4 win over the Seattle Thunderbirds. It is a moment permanently etched in his mind as one of his most cherished hockey memories.

"I wasn't ever on the ice for more than five seconds before I scored it," said Curtis. "It was a good change by (Colby) McAuley and I jumped on the ice and (Justin) Almeida got the puck up to (Brogan) O'Brien and he took a shot and I got the rebound.

"After that I just remember going into the corner with the guys for a good celebration and all the teddy bears raining down. I'd been with the team almost exactly a year and looking back on last year it was one of the big memories I've had. It was something to look back on."

Back in 1996 in the building formerly known as the Prince George Multiplex, the Cougars played the Kamloops Blazers in the city's first Teddy Bear Toss game. That one did not go according to plan. The Cougars were trailing 3-0, 13 minutes into the second period, when Cats defenceman Zdeno Chara, all of six-foot-nine, 235 pounds, decided he'd had enough of Blazers heavyweight Rob Skrlac, then listed at six-foot-six, 235 pounds. They dropped their gloves and fought each other.

While Chara and Skrlac danced the tango, the fans must have had a premonition the game would eventually end in a 4-0 Kamloops win and heaved their stuffies over the glass. That was two years before Curtis was even born.

"Our equipment manager, Chico (Dhanjal) always talks about that one," said Curtis, the right-winger on a line with Aaron Boyd and Jared Bethune. "If it did come down to it I feel someone would do something like that. That's the last resort. Hopefully we can score and move on from there."

The Blazers had the misfortune of getting blanked 4-0 by the Kootenay Ice Saturday in Kamloops on Teddy Bear Toss night, just like they did four years ago in a 7-0 thrashing handed out by the Everett Silvertips. On Saturday, Blazers centre Nick Chyzowski thought he had the goal everyone was waiting for when he popped in a rebound 10:45 into the first period. The fans responded as expected but the goal was disallowed when it was ruled Brodi Stuart was guilty of goalie interference. Chyzowski, the 20-year-old Kamloops captain, is the only Blazer left who also played on that 2013-14 team.

Items collected from Sunday's game will be well-received by the people who lack some of the basic necessities needed to get through the cold-weather months.

"If we could get a full house for the game that would be great," said Bill Glasgow, business manager for the Salvation Army - Prince George. "There's always a shortage of winter clothing. We're looking for tuques, mitts, scarves, jackets, socks - something to keep people warm. Last year we had a considerable number of those (items) and this year we're hoping we'll see more of that along with the teddy bears, that's great."

Gift cards are always welcome, says Glasgow.

"One of the demographics that's missed is the 12-and-up," he said. "We get a lot for the younger kids but the older kids we have to go out and buy for and if somebody throws a gift card in a bag down on the ice that will go a long way to help some older kid have a good Christmas."

Cougars business manager Andy Beesley has rounded up a small army of volunteers to help gather up the bears on Sunday. Last year that was done in record time - a 17-minute operation.

"We have everything from firefighters up in the ceiling ready to pull the nets up (that extend up from the glass at either end of the rink) and that in itself is a choreographed thing that's fairly complicated," said Beesley. "It's a really interesting logistics exercise for us.

"The official rules are that (if the Cougars don't score) we have a certain spot in the third period where the P.A. announcer will make an announcement to toss tour bears at the next whistle."

The Cougars won their second straight Tuesday, beating the Kootenay Ice 3-1 at CN Centre after they'd ended a five-game slide in Saturday's 6-2 win over the Vancouver Giants. Winger Josh Maser scored two goals in the third period Tuesday, including the game-winner 8:43 into the period, and one into an empty net in the dying seconds. Pavel Azhgirei had the other Cougar goal.

Peyton Krebs, the Ice's exceptional 16-year-old-rookie, was the only Kootenay shooter to beat first-year netminder Taylor Gauthier, 16, who held his team in the game, making 40 saves for his fourth win of the season.

The Royals (18-1-3-0) will play the Cougars again Tuesday. They're just two points behind the Portland Winterhawks for first place in the WHL Western Conference. Victoria is clinging to a two-point lead atop the B.C. Division over the surging Kelowna Rockets. The Cougars (11-14-2-2) remain last in the 10-team Western Conference, three points out of a playoff position.