How One

December 5, 2025

What's old will become new again this weekend, as the Hershey Bears will take the ice at GIANT Center for their games against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and Lehigh Valley Phantoms wearing jerseys that harken to an era that many card-carrying members of Bear Nation look back on with a fond sense of nostalgia.

An era defined by the names of legends such as Mike Nykoluk, Ralph Keller, Jeannot Gilbert, and many more.

All linked together by their time in the Chocolate and White.

Over the years, there have been numerous logos associated with the Bears, each of them revered, with history woven into every stitch. The origins of one of the more popular logos in the club's history - an anthropomorphic bear in full hockey regalia skating with a stick in its hands - known to fans these days as the "Skating Bear," but also affectionately known by its creator as the "Little Bear," is worth telling here, as it will be prominently featured on the crest of the jerseys worn by the modern Bears this weekend, in celebration of the American Hockey League's 90th season.

It was in the summer of 1964, as Hershey was coming off of its silver anniversary season in the AHL, that Bears executives approached the staff of the Lebanon Daily News, which published the team's game programs, seeking a refreshed emblem for the upcoming season.

Enter 24-year-old Nancy Orner, a member of the photo engraving department at the Daily News. Orner, a 1958 graduate of Lebanon High School, had followed in the footsteps of her father, Alvin Knapp, who worked in the composing department and was a linotype operator for the newspaper.

"I ended up doing not only artwork, but billing for the department and everything else," Orner said. "So I got to be a jack of all trades, but they did ask me to do artwork from time to time."

Because the project was intended to be more of a temporary commission, Orner was given creative freedom to make her vision come to life, and she knew that the bear wasn't going to be of the cuddly variety.

"My husband [Eugene] is a hockey fan, and I knew that if they wanted a bear, that I wanted it to not just be a wooly bear. I wanted him to be a hockey player. It just seemed to pop up just right."

The final product was a fearsome creature, baring its teeth for all to see while stickhandling with leather hockey gloves. Orner even managed to work an Easter egg within the design of the bear - a close inspection of the bend in its left knee reveals a clever insertion of the artist's initials.

Orner's "Little Bear" was so well-received by then-head coach Frank Mathers and the rest of Bears management that its usage grew beyond game program covers, and was quickly adopted to serve as the club's official logo, though it did not make its appearance on the crest of a jersey until the 1971-72 campaign, the final season of Mike Nykoluk's illustrious career, when it was modified with a prominent brown bar with HERSHEY splashed across the chest of the Bear.

It was this iteration of the "Little Bear" that was on the jersey of Ralph Keller as he lifted the Calder Cup above his head while being hoisted on the shoulders of his teammates as he was paraded around the ice of Hersheypark Arena on the night of May 8, 1974, as the Bears defeated the Providence Reds by a 4-3 score in the fifth game of the championship series to capture their fifth league title in front of a standing-room only crowd of 8,703.

Over the next several decades, Orner's "Little Bear," underwent further revisions; Bofinger & Associates, an advertising agency that back then worked closely with the Bears and its parent company, added an oval around the logo in the late 1970s, reminiscent of a hockey rink, as the club went on to capture three more Calder Cups while playing under the banner of some variant of the "Little Bear," before the Bears ultimately bid farewell to historic Hersheypark Arena and made the move to GIANT Center at the start of the 2002-03 season. With that came a new identity, the "Swiper Bear," and ultimately the team's present identity that was introduced in time for the club's 75th anniversary season in 2012-13.

Now 85, and retired in Colorado after her husband's military career brought them and their three children around the world, Orner looks back on her time in Central Pennsylvania and her connection to the Bears with fondness, though she conceded that she does not miss the summer humidity.

"It was really quite something to sit there in the stands and see the bear in center ice, and on the Zamboni and everywhere else."

Written by Jesse Liebman, Bears media specialist