A three-day holiday break is now the norm for the National Hockey League, American Hockey League and ECHL, but that was not the case up until the 1970s.

The NHL played games on Christmas Day through 1971, when the Los Angeles Kings and California Golden Seals were the final two teams to compete on Dec. 25.

The AHL scheduled games on the holiday through the late 1970s, and the Hershey Bears were no strangers to playing Christmas contests.

After joining the AHL in 1938-39, Hershey played 28 games on Christmas and two on Christmas Eve. The Bears went 14-12-2 on Dec. 25, with the last game coming in 1977 at Rochester in a 7-3 loss to the Americans.

Hershey lost both its Christmas Eve games on the road, falling in 1950 to the St. Louis Flyers, 2-1, and in 1944 to the Providence Reds, 8-3.

The Bears played 21 of their 28 Christmas games at Hersheypark Arena, with the last one coming in 1976, a 5-4 OT victory against the New Haven Nighthawks.

The other seven Hershey games on Dec. 25 came on the road against Rochester (twice), New Haven, the Baltimore Clippers, the Cleveland Barons (twice) and the Springfield Indians.