The London Knights defeated the North Bay Battalion 3-2 in overtime in front of 9036 at Budweiser Gardens on Teddy Bear toss night.
After Brett McKenzie scored 3:34 in the 1st for North Bay, Cliff Pu made the teddy bears rain on a power play goal.
It's raining teddy bears. Cliff Pu scores on the PP to tie it 1-1 #OHL pic.twitter.com/GRpUnnXww2
— XFM Sports (@SportsXFM) December 3, 2017
“It was fun seeing all the teddy bears come out. It’s my 3rd teddy bear toss, every year it seems like theres more and more,” said Pu on scoring London’s first goal.
The Battalion scored late in the 1st on Kyle Potts’ 5th goal of the season to take a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes of play.
No goals were scored in the 2nd, and with 6:08 into the 3rd period, Alex Formenton scored his 9th of the year on the man advantage to even the game at 2, which forced the teams to overtime.
Robert Thomas scored his 17th on the year with 33 seconds left, to not only give the Knights the win, but Dale Hunter picked up his 700th career coaching win.
” 700 wins is a pretty huge accomplishment, to have a crazy game like that where it is back and forth and a crazy game makes it even more special,” said the Knights captain talking about his head coaches milestone.
Congratulations Dale on win #700! pic.twitter.com/vwWJhOoD65
— London Knights (@GoLondonKnights) December 3, 2017
9431 stuffed bears were thrown on the ice surpassing last year’s record, but this year’s total falls a few hundred short of the 2012 record of 10,671 bears on a goal from Seth Griffith.
London improves to an even 3-3 record this season against Eastern Conference teams.
The Knights travel to Niagara on Thursday before returning home to face the Peterborough Petes at the Bud on Friday.
